Villa abides by Barça's tactical evolution

David Villa scored five goals for Spain during its World Cup-winning run in South Africa. On Saturday for the clásico, he was a substitute. An undisputed first-team player for Sporting, Zaragoza and Valencia, "El Guaje" - The Kid, in the Asturian dialect - has started just half of this season's Liga games for Barcelona.

Most bets were on the fact that coach Pep Guardiola, who always praised the forward, was conserving his energy and he would play against Madrid. So his absence provoked various interpretations, most of them saying the Asturian had lost his star status and now faced a future as tricky as the likes of Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Bojan Krkic had in their day due to his incompatibility with Leo Messi. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Villa's relegation to the subs' bench is not the result of a problem with his teammates but a symptom of the evolution of the way the team plays.

Guardiola reinvents Barcelona every season. It's a way of maintaining competitiveness and preventing rivals from finding an antidote. The players all rotate in the squad, including captains Carles Puyol and Xavi, and goalkeeper Víctor Valdés, who was substituted for José Manuel Pinto in the King's Cup. The only fixed member is Messi. Guardiola maintains the Argentinean is the best player in the world and, on the other hand, says rotation helps control the egos in the dressing room.

Messi can play in a wide range of roles and his evolution also marks that of the team. His status as winger, forward or false number 9 determines the movements of his teammates and also who the club signs. The arrivals of Alexis Sánchez, Cesc Fàbregas, as well as Isaac Cuenca, are down to the need to reinvent Messi as much as Barcelona.

The tactical wealth has reached such a point that Guardiola could do without Villa against Real because he understood that the match would be better suited to the style of Alexis. His team can now play with two false number 9s such as Fàbregas and Messi, inside or outside, with or without wingers.

Villa's challenge, therefore, is the same as any other player in the team: it is not a question of getting on better or worse with Messi, but of recognizing that there are so many variations that he can end up a substitute at the Bernabéu as Puyol did at Wembley in the Champions League final.

Villa, apparently, seems to accept the situation. "Everyone who didn't play against Madrid regretted missing the match, but David quickly got back on his feet," said a member of the Barcelona coaching staff when asked about the effect not playing in the clásico might have on El Guaje.

One of the reasons Villa signed for Barça was to improve his list of achievements and after one year at Camp Nou he has already won the same amount of titles - three - that he had won in the rest of his career. "He is very excited about the Club World Cup," say those in the dressing room who know him best. Guardiola also knows it's a good chance to give him confidence, so it is easy to suspect that he is going to play a big role against Qatar's Al-Saad in the semifinal on Thursday (11.30am on Cuatro).

"Don't worry about Villa," says Xavi, one of the friends and defenders who also protect him in the national squad. Spain coach Vicente del Bosque is yearning for El Guaje to play more matches and hone his scoring talents (he has five in La Liga and three in the Champions League). Fernando Torres' bad run and the fragility of Fernando Llorente means La Roja does not have the luxury of allowing Villa, its leading scorer with 51 goals in 82 matches, to lose his star status at Barcelona. The fans, though, have no doubts: Villa shirts are one of the five biggest sellers in the Barcelona shop.