Migration and Muscles: A new common sense?

For decades the relationship between migration and musculature was clear for Europe-bound Latin American footballers: more is better. Regardless of talent, the more muscle the higher the odds of finding a place on a top dollar European side. Until recently it was common wisdom, almost reflexive in nature. In a 2001 interview Diego Maradona was asked his opinion on the possible migration of Pablo Aimar and Javier Saviola. His response was quick and to the point. I'm paraphrasing but it was something in the order of: "if they want to succeed in Europe, they better start going to the gym." 

Making reference to the old adage that European football tends to privilege less talented players who can tolerate the physical rigors of the game over those with more talent but less 'body' and bulk, Maradona's comments seem out of touch in today's context. The arrival of Alexis Sanchez to Barcelona FC this season highlights this apparent shift away from so much emphasis on physical strength. After a successful stint at River Plate in Argentina and at Udinese for the last three seasons, all relevant questions about Sanchez's game  point to pretty much any place except his body. Can he adapt to Barça's pressing and passing? Is he willing to put up with bench time? Where will he play if Messi owns Barça's right flank? The questions go on and on--some are very relevant given Sanchez's distinct style and game--but none of the important questions seem to reference Sanchez's 'durability', a code word all too often used to comment on a player's size and strength. 


Part of the reason for this apparent shift lies in Barça's high output offense which relies heavily on very talented players but even more so on a cohesive effort to apply high pressure defense and recover the football as quickly as possible. During this week's Audi cup games Barça coach Pep Guardiola started teams that featured stars but also young players from La Masia, Barça's youth academy. During the games he practically swapped out the entire starting eleven and introduced a mixed set of players to replace the starters. Guardiola balanced the spectacle by carefully shuttling stars in and out and when Iniesta left the game, David Villa entered the game. What was interesting to watch was the way in which the seemingly endless stream of substitutes did not at all distract from the style imposed by Barça. Even more than that it was also significant to note the diminutive stature of almost all the La Masia products making their debut at the Allianz Arena. It is not only a privileging of a particular style of play but also an appreciation of talent, technique, and collective play over brawn and muscle. 


The questions around the arrival of Sanchez should be about this style of play and not much else beyond that because that is what matters at Barça at the moment. Whether this can become a lasting trend remains to be seen and depends, unfortunately, much more on the quality of the refereeing than anything else. For the time being, and as long as referees protect players in the spirit of FIFA's vaunted Fair Play, it will continue. 

Bielsa and Athletic Bilbao

Marcelo Bielsa's arrival at Athletic Bilbao has the potential to remake La Liga. His team may not win right away, or at least they might not be ready to take on the two historic top flight teams (Barcelona and Real Madrid) but his presence will mean the opening of a third position in the ideological and practical battle that Jose Mourinho and Josep (Pep) Guardiola have been waging, both in the open through their sometimes quite hostile back and forth, and more consistently in the tactical staging of their many confrontations on the field in last season's tournaments.

Now, it is clear that this is football and coaches (and their projects) can get canned in a minute but assuming he is given room and time to develop his vision for Athletic Bilbao, the opportunities to craft a third option will likely develop. Although he just took over at Athletic there are already is a small sampling of what is to come. In a press conference last week Bielsa refreshed his key concepts for the Spanish press: his teams seek "to become protagonists rather than to speculate, to establish presence in the opponent's half and not in our own, to value ball possession before ball recovery, and to promote the use of the rule book as a recourse to improve the game rather than a separate way to gain advantage." (The translation is loose but it carries the meaning of the original phrases). These precepts would seem to place him squarely in Guardiola's corner and against Mourinhos willingness to sacrifice aesthetics (and history and pretty much anything else) for the sake of winning. Yet Bielsa's teams have never played like Guardiola's, not even in 2004 when, between Argentina's Olympic gold in Athens and the teams superb performance in that year's Copa America (played in Peru), the team played its best football (despite the defeat in the Copa America final).

Despite the apparent similarities (at least rhetorically), Bielsa's posture and approach is different from Guardiola's. If not in intent--both are clearly offensive minded--they differ in the possibilities that their styles offer. The more direct, vertical, and downhill play favored by Bielsa differs from Barcelona's flowing style on an obvious aesthetic level. Leaving aside the presence of Barcelona's three greats--Iniesta, Xavi, and Messi--Bielsa's teams are much more structured and rigorous in their forging of clear positions within which players play a definitive role (and when they don't, or don't do so at a high enough level, they are substituted for another who attempts to play that same role). Because his style is much more schematic and programmatic, Bielsa could potentially transport his approach to other teams, large or small, powerful or weak--that's what observers typically praised in his Chilean side, the willingness to take a relatively weak and small Chilean national team and play them in a big offensive manner. Whether Guardiola's approach can travel remains to be seen but on game days when one of the big three is not on the field, one gets the sense that it would be much harder to carry it elsewhere.

This is not a minor point and it represents a potential important interruption in the decades long binary battle between Barcelona and Real Madrid that characterizes La Liga. Bielsa's arrival offers the possibility of openning a third position which, if successful, might offer a potential point of departure that would give the smaller, weaker Spanish teams another option beyond massively defensive schemes that merely seek to speculate.