With Rubin Kazan’s Deserved Victory, FC Barcelona Suffers a Minor Setback

Pep Guardi­ola can­not believe it either.

After a work­man­like 1–0 vic­tory against Almería and a mediocre show­ing in their 0–0 draw at the Mestalla against Valen­cia CF on Sat­ur­day, FC Barcelona looked to reverse their form in the Cham­pi­ons League against a sup­posed weaker team in FK Rubin Kazan.  To their credit, Barça did not make any excuses about their per­for­mance against Los Che, but they did suf­fer from the FIFA virus because a vast major­ity of their play­ers con­tributed to their respec­tive coun­tries’ national teams across the globe.  Pep Guardi­ola rested Zla­tan Ibrahi­movic, Lionel Messi flew to and from South Amer­ica and com­peted in two cru­cial and stress­ful World Cup qual­i­fiers with Argentina, Thierry Henry picked up a thigh injury while play­ing for Les Bleus, and many oth­ers not men­tioned here.  Before the match, Sey­dou Keita spoke about their Ukrain­ian opponents:

“It won’t be an easy game.  They will come to the Nou Camp to defend like all they do and we’ll have to go out strong to cre­ate chances and score.”

Rubin Kazan also entered this con­test with­out play­ing at their high­est stan­dards.  In con­trol of the Russ­ian Pre­mier League through much of the sea­son and with a seven-point lead with eight games to play, the Tatars turned their focus on the Cham­pi­ons League.  Fairly inex­pe­ri­enced in jug­gling domes­tic and Euro­pean respon­si­bil­i­ties, the dis­trac­tion of the Cham­pi­ons League led to a dip in form in Rus­sia, which included a draw and two losses before a rou­tine and pedes­trian 2–1 win over hap­less FC Khimki on Sat­ur­day.  Spar­tak Moscow took advan­tage of a fal­ter­ing Rubin Kazan and shaved the league deficit to a sin­gle point with five rounds remain­ing.  Fac­ing Barcelona at the Camp Nou was one of the last tasks that Rubin Kazan needed.

Rubin Kazan erased any fears of the Catalun­yan atmos­phere when Alek­sandr Ryazant­sev deliv­ered a shock thirty-yard strike in the sec­ond minute to give the vis­i­tors the 0–1 lead.  Imme­di­ately after a Barça attack that cul­mi­nated in an unan­swered penalty claim, Rafael Márquez mis­played a goal kick from Sergei Ryzhikov.  The ball headed in the direc­tion of Ryazant­sev, who decided to take the shot first time from a coun­try mile away.  His search­ing effort became one of the goals of the Cham­pi­ons League sea­son as his sweetly struck bul­let pierced the top right cor­ner of Vic­tor Valdés’ unsus­pect­ing goal.  The Camp Nou faith­ful were flab­ber­gasted, the Barcelona play­ers were stunned, and most of all, Ryazantsev’s team­mates were aston­ished by both the shot and the sud­den lead.

The goal annoyed the blau­grana more than any­thing, and they con­tin­ued their assault on the Rubin goal; how­ever, Rubin Kazan’s orga­ni­za­tion was out­stand­ing, and Barça could not find the break­through against this highly dis­ci­plined Russ­ian side.  When Ibrahi­movic equal­ized early in the sec­ond half with a lit­tle spin-o-rama magic of his own, the per­va­sive feel­ing was that of inevitabil­ity.  It was not if Barcelona would win but by how many.  Appar­ently, Rubin Kazan did not get the memo, and they con­tin­ued to per­sist with their defen­sive game plan.  Rubin would only have three shots for the entire match, but each one was on tar­get, and their third and final shot proved to be the game win­ner.  After another Barcelona give­away, Ale­jan­dro Domínguez sped down the Barça half in a blis­ter­ing counter-attack.  The tim­ing of his through-ball to Gök­d­eniz Karad­eniz was impec­ca­ble, and Karadeniz’s one-timer from fif­teen yards flashed across the face of goal and bun­dled the back of the net.

Barcelona’s attempts to make the match all-square were in vain, as two of their efforts hit the frame of the goal and the oth­ers han­dled by Sergei Ryzhikov.  The final sta­tis­tics com­pare to a video game: twenty-four shots with thir­teen on tar­get, 69% of the pos­ses­sion, eleven cor­ners to one, and a mind-boggling 654 passes at an 86% com­ple­tion rate.  With these num­bers, Barcelona won 5–0, right?  Not on this Euro­pean night.  The streets of Kazan will flood with joy­ous sup­port­ers who will cher­ish this night as the night when their beloved Tatars slayed the Catalun­yan dragon.

The expec­ta­tions for Barcelona from the media and the team itself are so astro­nom­i­cal that lit­tle blips on the radar become imme­di­ate crises.  After the match, Xavi Hernán­dez was at it again, bemoan­ing Rubin Kazan’s tac­tics and over­all play to the Span­ish sports daily Diario AS:

“It was a very dis­sat­is­fy­ing match from the start, con­ced­ing a goal into the top cor­ner from thirty yards at the very begin­ning.  Then we had many chances and made it more dif­fi­cult for them.  We played well at times, we opened up the pitch and had spells.  But it is dif­fi­cult to mea­sure a team that only defends, espe­cially if you do not find the final pass.  They leave with an unde­served prize.”

Some­times, humil­ity would be a nice change of pace.  While Xavi gave no credit to Rubin Kazan for their gritty dis­play on Tues­day night, plau­dits will rain from many media out­lets about this fairly unknown team from Rus­sia and their desire and inten­sity.  Well done Rubin and the loyal sup­port­ers who trav­eled many miles to the Camp Nou to wit­ness their small slice of history.

What got lost from Xavi’s remarks is a ques­tion many will ask tonight and through­out the sea­son.  Did Valen­cia and Rubin Kazan pro­vide blue­prints to earn results against this unre­lent­ing Barça side?  Some­what.  If a less tech­ni­cally gifted team goes against Barcelona, fol­low the Rubin Kazan plan: defen­sive orga­ni­za­tion, mid­field flood­ing, and oppor­tunis­tic counter-attacks.  If the team can truly com­pete with Barcelona’s tal­ent, fol­low the Valen­cia plan: keep pos­ses­sion, shackle Dani Alves and Eric Abidal as much as pos­si­ble, and force Vic­tor Valdés into some con­tested crosses and shots.  Even if all of these prin­ci­ples are fol­lowed, as many teams have tried, it will likely be all for naught.  That is the beauty of this FC Barcelona out­fit.  Their single-minded nature to attack and attack and attack even­tu­ally crum­bles their oppo­si­tion.  When Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich sacked Luiz Felipe Sco­lari last sea­son, one of the main rea­sons was that he did not have a plan B if plan A did not work.  If Barcelona’s plan A does not work, which hap­pens quite rarely, they exe­cute plan A even harder.

Pres­i­dent Joan Laporta and the Barcelona sup­port­ers need not worry at this point.  Barcelona is on top of La Liga and their con­gested group in the Cham­pi­ons League.  No team will sail through a sea­son with­out some dif­fi­cul­ties, and these recent strug­gles might be for the best because if Barcelona started to believe in their own acco­lades, Pep Guardi­ola will surely point to their per­for­mances against Almería, Valen­cia, and Rubin Kazan.  Even when Barcelona was at their best, Guardi­ola kept them on level ground.  The play­ers will lis­ten to him, and they will rise from this tem­po­rary setback.

Saques de Esquina:

- With a three-goal lead at Stuttgart, Sevilla FC resorted to time-wasting tac­tics that an infe­rior team would do if it could earn a point away from home.  Really?  Stuttgart did pull a goal back from Élson’s whip­ping free kick, but Sevilla did not need to act as though they were a Ter­cera División side in a Copa del Rey tie.

Cour­tesy of halighalie

- Hop­ing to squeak out a last-minute vic­tory over Dynamo Kyiv, Inter Milan man­ager José Mour­inho sent in defender Marco Mat­er­azzi as a bat­ter­ing ram for­ward, sim­i­lar to what he did at Chelsea when he would use Robert Huth in the same fash­ion.  The thought of Touré Yaya or Fed­erico Fazio act­ing as emer­gency strik­ers should strike fear in the hearts of defend­ers everywhere.

- Is Jens Lehmann always angry with some­one?  After Frédéric Kanouté legit­i­mately fell in the penalty box due to a legal slid­ing chal­lenge from a Stuttgart defender, Lehmann got in Kanouté’s face, likely accus­ing him of div­ing.  Lehmann seems to thrive in this role, whether he alien­ates the oppo­si­tion or his own teammates.

Tagged as: Chelsea FC, FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, Jose Mourinho, La Liga, lionel messi, Pep Guardiola, Rubin Kazan, Seydou Keita, UEFA Champions League, Valencia CF, Victor Valdes, world cup, Xavi Hernandez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic