El Clasico preview: Barcelona seek salvation, Real Madrid want validation

Miracles sprout in the 87th minute with a Neymar free-kick. For much of the 90 minutes on Wednesday against Juventus, a firm and ingenious collective of artful defenders, Barcelona and larger parts of the footballing community believed in a renewed feat of escapology, another apocalyptic night of Catalan supremacy.

But as the 87th minute passed and the Brazilian boy wonder did not deliver a curvy strike into the top left corner and as the Italian defence, an acclaimed Pretorian guard marshalled by the effervescent duo of Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini stood firm, a biblical ending to a European Cup quarter-final was not to be.

Barcelona had been outplayed by Juventus. With the cunning of Baldrick, the Italians delivered a tactical masterclass, rooted in their experience and positional sophistication. This was not 90 minutes of Catalan grandeur, but a triumph of Italian finesse. Where was Barcelona’s D-Day assault, apart from a short spell in the first half? They were not Herculean in their application. Barcelona never imposed their brutal pressing and domineering possession game.

Neymar bawled, cried and sobbed – the heir to Lionel Messi vulnerable and disappointed. The Catalan players trotted off the field, struggling to contemplate another unwelcome defenestration. This Sunday, they face eternal rivals Real Madrid in a season-deciding encounter. The proposition is simple: defeat at the Bernabeu and they will be on the wrong side of the Spanish duopoly, with domestic glory a distant dream.

Barcelona’s season has been marked by an ever-floating, existential twin angst: the cosmos extending without Pep Guardiola, and the impending 30th birthday of Messi.

Barcelona seek to prevent epoch-ending loss

It has been a repeat theme this season, but the Catalonians have consciously abandoned their trademark Guardiola all-sweeping possession obsession and pressing mania, punctuated by ceaseless passing triangulations and other geometric shapes that have so often left opponents both utterly bamboozled and rudderless, in favour of the might of the Messi-Suarez-Neymar trio. Perhaps, or so the accusations run, Luis Enrique has moved Barcelona too far away from its core footballing values and principles.

The Catalans are not as detailed anymore – possession and pressing are still there, but positional play and options on the ball have lessened. They can simply deliver the ball to MSN. Against Madrid, the South American trident will be without Neymar. In June, Messi will turn 30. The Argentinean has been struggling to muster his perpetual on-field movement which in the past so carried his team.

Cue the killer question: Is the defeat to Juventus – and a possible disaster in Madrid – the end of an epoch?

Perhaps not. It is the perpetual paradox of great clubs: they are always in a crisis. Win and they must seek to consolidate their reputation and prominence at the top. Lose and they must recalibrate, at times even reinvent, to rejoin the cream of the crop and wander in the gilded halls of football’s Bullingdon Club.

The curious case of Cristiano Ronaldo

Real Madrid are an apt example. They have progressed, arguably in controversial circumstances and against a superior Bayern Munich, to the semi-finals of the Champions League and may well deliver Barcelona a coup de grace in La Liga’s title race on Sunday, and yet, against the backdrop of nigh-impeccable results, problems simmer.

There is the curious case of Cristiano Ronaldo, the superb athlete, whose manic compulsion to always be the best has helped him scale Mount Olympus in the twilight of his playing days with a Euro 2016 victory and La Undecima (The Eleventh) after which he ran off in his obnoxious Chippendale routine.

Against Munich, the Madrid fans whistled at him. The Portuguese was peripheral at best before unleashing his goalscoring prowess to score a hat-trick, take Madrid for the last four and up his season’s goal tally to 31. That makes the idea of an under-appreciated Ronaldo – by his own fans – almost risible – and yet they had jeered him.

Perhaps those fans, a minority, wanted to ventilate a deeper dissatisfaction: In the fourteenth season of the “Galatic Era”, though it can be argued that the current Florentino Perez-assembled squad is not so spangled, but just a fine mix of extraterrestrials, blue collar players and youth products, Madrid are not playing with the panache and pedigree that would ordinarily befit the “Galacticos”.

It is a strange predicament for Zinedine Zidane to be in – the novice coach, with a budding career, whose full-time introduction of Casemiro in the midfield has given his side more balance. Zidane conquered the European Cup within five months of his appointment and oversaw an unbeaten run of 40 games. His outfit, however, remain a contradiction – mundane in their game, but with outstanding results. This Real Madrid team is not great, but it should still defeat a disheartened Barcelona.