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"Mascherano will give us many things as he is much more than a defensive player. He has a great touch, keeps things simple and will add a lot to our midfield”, said a happy Pep Guardiola after the transfer of Mascherano to Barcelona was made official. When you go back to those lines of Pep, keeping in mind the current scenario of the Blaugrana defence, you would probably be as puzzled as any other as to how the tables have turned over the years. So what went wrong with Mascherano? Well to begin with; this question has been an alternate approach to provoke the so called “die-hard fans” of Barcelona, who still refuse to accept the club’s myopic decisions.
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How it started?
It happened during the 2010-11 season, a time when the Catalans were cruising through any given opposition, their diligent defence was paralyzed by a fitness crisis with Puyol sidelined by a long-term injury and Abidal unfit to play regular football owing to the liver transplant which he had to undergo immediately. It left Guardiola with no viable option having sold Rafael Marquez and Dmytro Chygrynskiy in the previous window.
Initially, he deployed Busquets at the heart of the defence alongside Pique but the move backfired in no time as both lacked pace at the back. With high pressing and a high-line defence, the lack of pace was cleverly exploited by the oppositions to create numerous chances on the counter, ultimately forcing Pep to turn to the Argentine as solution for the short term. At 175 centimetres, Mascherano is barely commanding at the back while the only justification from Guardiola being the addition of pace in defence.
Were Barcelona myopic?
So what is a myopic decision? It’s pretty simple; your decision is myopic when you believe that a solution which helped you succeed in the short run could turn out to provide the same quantum of success in the long run. So coming back to the point, Guardiola’s injury woes were taken care of by pairing Pique with Mascherano at the heart of defence and in truth, the latter did enough justice to convince Pep for then but was he the man to replace Carles Puyol? No. He wasn’t, he isn’t and he never will be. So this was the myopic view Barcelona had of Mascherano and its defensive solutions.
How it has costed Barcelona?
Javier Mascherano possesses exquisite interceptions, strong tackling and excels in reading the game defensively. While he is easily one of the best defensive midfielders in the world today and can seldom doubt his technique, he has often been under the scanner when it comes to dealing with aerial threats. As mentioned earlier, the Argentine is roughly about 175 centimetres and at the same time doesn’t possess enough strength to out-muscle the power-headers present in the game today. So as we have seen in recent times, a poor zonal-marking system coupled with an aerially weak defence line has more or less spelled doomed for Barcelona when it comes to aerial balls and set-pieces.
A piece of stat which further confirms this:Last season, 16 of the 46 goals Barcelona conceded were from set pieces (35%).
We also witnessed Paris Saint-Germain blatantly exploit this weakness of Barcelona as they scored 2 of the 3 goals from set-pieces.
Moving on, let’s take a look at some of the most important goals conceded by Barcelona over the last one year. On doing so, there is a clear picture of what had gone wrong before each of those goals.
Is there a solution?
What we have seen thus far is definitely not an issue which could be overcome at a moment’s notice but there would be numerous solutions which may or may not work during the course of the season. Given Barcelona’s current resources, it wouldn’t be much of a task to try out an option which may well turn out to address this long-lasting issue.
Despite being subject to over-pricing, Jeremy Mathieu has been one of the most underrated signings of the summer. He possesses blistering acceleration which has proven handy providing cover for the fullbacks and looks like the Frenchman is the right partner for Pique and not so right for Mascherano. With Vermaelen recovering sooner than later and Bartra down the pecking order, there are four fully-fit centre-backs for the Catalans and hence playing Mascherano at the back seems to defeat the purpose of the summer signings.
Apart from this, we are all well aware of Mascherano’s ability to boss the midfield which he did with ease in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Thus, a feasible solution for Enrique would be a double-pivot of Busquets and Mascherano with two proper centre-backs behind them as the aerial threat could be taken care of by Pique-Mathieu while a double pivot could cover the fullbacks on the attack. Moreover, it will bring the best out of the Argentine Maestro, who alongside Busquets could become one of the best pivot pairs in world football.
As in the case of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s time at Barcelona, “You don’t buy a Ferrari and drive it like a Fiat.” Undoubtedly, Mascherano too is a player of high calibre but only time can tell us if Barcelona have learned its lesson or would make another Fiat out of their Ferrari.
