New twists in ‘clásico’ plot line

Barcelona and Real Madrid will line up for the first clásico of the season on Saturday (6pm on Canal+ Liga), a game with more sub-plots than the complete works of Shakespeare. It will inevitably be billed as a battle between Leo Messi and Neymar on the one side, and Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo on the other, but its leading players are the opposing coaches.

Gerardo Martino arrived at Barcelona in the summer and announced he would adopt very much a “not-broken” attitude toward a side lauded as one of the best ever to play the game. But he has tried to introduce a different facet to Barça’s much-vaunted tiki-taka playing style with a more direct approach to reaching the opposition goal.

Carlo Ancelotti, who was hired by Real Madrid a month earlier, has attempted to instill a possession-based element in the team that had been molded into a counter-attacking dervish by his predecessor, José Mourinho.

Neither approach has escaped criticism, nor yet been fully infused into the respective sides. Barcelona remains unbeaten this year but has struggled for goals of late — largely due to the absence of Messi, who is fit for Saturday’s clash — while Real’s season started slowly, and rather fortuitously, and has only produced flashes of the potential Ancelotti’s team possesses. Last-gasp victories were required at Elche and Levante to prevent falling further behind in the table after a tie at Villarreal and defeat against Atlético. The players seem rather unsure of their roles and Ancelotti unclear over his best 11.

The individual duels are also worthy of an Elizabethan stage"

Barcelona started crisply enough with a 7-0 drubbing of Levante but then struggled to impose itself on Málaga, Valencia and Sevilla. But on each occasion it found a way to earn three points, a hallmark of a side that has been playing together for longer than the Rolling Stones. But some moss has gathered, as proven by a 7-0 aggregate hammering from the ruthlessly efficient Bayern Munich in last year’s Champions League semifinals; a team, incidentally, that plays a pretty direct brand of soccer.

But aside from team matters, the individual duels are also worthy of an Elizabethan stage. Ronaldo and Messi are clearly kings in their respective realms, but both face a challenge to their throne from younger pretenders. The issue of whether Barcelona is more efficient with both Messi and Neymar on the field, or one or the other, has yet to be fully cleared up, despite the Brazilian’s tendency to throw his footballing cape in the Argentinean’s path whenever chance arises, assisting several goals for his teammate instead of taking the shot on himself.

Bale has barely had a chance to make an impression at Real after a series of niggling injuries, but Ancelotti tantalizingly hinted that the Welshman is finally fully match-fit and might start in Camp Nou. Both he and Ronaldo, if started together, will fancy a few runs at Barça’s back four, which may be seriously depleted. Gerard Piqué is a doubt, Jordi Alba is injured and returning club captain Carles Puyol has not played for seven months.