It was a truly terrible sight, and not just because of all that double denim. Víctor Rodríguez was sitting at the front of Getafe’s press room analysing the game his side had just lost to Barcelona when he heard the screaming beyond the wall. The door burst open and in they came: a zombie, Batman, King Kong, Shrek, Frankenstein*, and some monstrous mate. The zombie stumbled into the middle, peered out from behind his mask and muttered “Shit, we’ve got this wrong”, so they turned to escape only to be ushered out the back door instead, bumbling past the cameras and the cables lying everywhere. Who was that, someone asked. “Who do you think it was, my mother and father?” Getafe’s press officer replied. “It was the Barcelona players.”
They had come dressed for Halloween, some in masks worn with the club’s usual casual combo, others in full costume, hair and make-up. Sandro came as a ghost and Dani Alves was dressed as a prisoner, either that or he was modelling next year’s kit. Adriano and Neymar came as Dracula – and this time you can insert the punchline yourself – while one came as a ghost and another as Shrek – this time too – and, as for the zombie leading them, that was Gerard Piqué. For one brief moment there was even real panic, when they bundled outside and realised they were lost, Jordi Alba contemplating a bid for safety over a metal barrier, but they soon boarded the bus for home.
And so it began. Some got their knickers in such a twist that it was a wonder there was any blood getting to their goolies – Barcelona’s players later apologised, insisting they had not intended to show Getafe a lack of respect – but most just came up with the inevitable jokes and, on the weekend when every mistake is “a horror show” and every tackle “terrifying”, even more inevitable puns. “Luis Enrique came as an ogre with irritable bowels, but no one realised he was wearing a costume,” chuckled Juanma Trueba in AS; “they’re scary,” ran the cover of El Mundo Deportivo on Monday morning. Just in case you didn’t get it first time, the huge headline running across pages two and three reads: “They’re frightening again.”
The cover of Sport ran something even more scary on Monday morning. Leo Messi, it reported, won’t make it back for the clásico in 19 days’ time after all. It is not, Sport say, that he has suffered a setback in his recovery from a knee injury picked up against Las Palmas on 26 September but that things are moving a little slower than anticipated and, with their counterparts at El Mundo Deportivo not ruling him out but also sounding pessimistic, insisting that Barcelona won’t take any risks, the countdown to the clásico becomes even more fraught. Yet rather than render that “they’re scary” headline irrelevant, the news about Messi underlined how important it is. Just how important they are.
On the morning after Messi’s injury, one headline summed it up. “Gulp!” it said. In Madrid they were delighted; here, many thought, was a chance to open up a gap. It hasn’t worked out that way. Messi fell injured in the third minute against Las Palmas, damaging his knee ligaments. Barcelona won 2-1 that day, Luis Suárez getting both, and since Messi hit the floor Barcelona have played eight times winning six, losing one (at Sevilla) and drawing one, an irrelevant 0-0 draw in the Copa del Rey, played with a B team. Beat Villarreal at the Camp Nou this weekend and in the worst-case scenario they’ll reach the clásico joint leaders with Madrid, who travel to Sevilla – the one place where Barcelona have been beaten in Messi’s absence.
It is true that Madrid too have suffered significant injuries and equally true that victories over Las Palmas, Bayer Leverkusen, Bate Borisov, Rayo, Eibar and Getafe are not really anything to get overexcited about. Only in Seville would Barcelona have not been clear favourites, and that day they lost. But here they are, level with Madrid and much of that is down to Suárez and Neymar. In the time since Messi got injured Barcelona have scored 14 times in the league; Suárez and Neymar got all of them, seven each. And here’s a truly scary stat: Sandro and Munir, the ‘other’ men in the front three, have both gone over a year without a goal.
They are the league’s top and second top scorers, with Neymar on nine and Suárez on eight (level with Imanol Agirretxe and Cristiano Ronaldo). No partnership in the country has more goals. On Saturday night, Suárez scored his 300th career goal; in a year with Barcelona he has scored 36 in 58 games. Neymar scored his 34th this calendar year, in 45 Barcelona games. That should probably not come as a surprise: Suárez cost €80m, after all, while Neymar cost more than the then president Sandro Rosell could have imagined and more than he would ever say. Treble winners, goalscorers in the Champions League final, they already a case to be considered the world’s second and third best players in 2015. Yet that was as a “trident” in which the status was clear; that was with Messi.
During one fans’ event in the summer, Suárez was signing a ball for a supporter. “You’re the best,” the supporter said. “I’m not the best,” Suárez replied, “you know who’s the best?” The answer of course was Messi. The star at any other club, Neymar and Suárez have always been quick to insist on Messi’s pre-eminence. They have become genuinely close and even in the Argentinian’s absence they have been swift, perhaps even a little too swift, to involve him both publicly and privately. Social media has been their platform. When Suárez scored a hat-trick last week, he posed with Neymar and with Messi; when the two of them were in the treatment room with Messi, the picture went up. When Messi showed off his Grumpy pyjamas, it was Suárez who had bought them for him.
Had they not played well of late, those messages might have implied neediness but with Suárez and Neymar playing so well in Messi’s absence, it expresses something different, perhaps a desire continue to underline his significance, as if anyone would forget. It expresses the idea that while without Messi they can be strong; with him they can be stronger, but that the need to rush back may be lessened, the urgency slightly less urgent.
On Saturday night, Luis Enrique insisted that he has not asked Neymar to do anything different in Messi’s absence, but this is a different Neymar now. He has taken on responsibility to lead the side creatively: it is not just the talent that is often mind-blowing, it is the willingness to go at people, the determination to lead, the nerve. Even in Seville, where Barcelona were beaten, he was superb, carrying his team forward. He has nine goals and six assists and has been directly involved in 11 of Barcelona’s last 13 goals, indirectly involved in the 12th and 13th, his run beginning the move in both cases. “We know our roles: I don’t dribble round three or four players like Ney does,” Suárez said this weekend. Even Neymar didn’t do that very often before; now he does, more and more often and more and more successfully.
Together they have led Barcelona when they were not playing well. “The only thing missing has been good play,” wrote the editor of Sport. The “only” thing?” At Barcelona of all clubs, it was a startling remark. But if the football was not always good the forwards were. And then this weekend even that returned, or at least a glimpse of it.
For the first time, the idea of Messi missing the clásico was floated, just when, for the first time, there was a small sign that, while they will always be better with him, perhaps they could live without him. There has been a sense of standby in the league, the big two mostly winning while not convincing. But on Saturday, Barcelona looked a little like Barcelona, with Sergio Busquets superb in the middle from where he should never have been moved; Sergi Roberto hugely impressive, supplying two assists, the first from a lovely backheel; Claudio Bravo keeping a clean sheet at last; and of course with Neymar and Suárez up front.
At the end of Barcelona’s 2-0 win at Getafe, Suárez was asked if the way that he and Neymar were playing meant that people have forgotten about Messi. That the question was even asked was striking. “No, they remember Messi anyway because he is the best,” Suárez said. And with that he headed to the dressing room and pulled on his Batman costume.
[* Frankenstein’s monster. Pedants.]
Talking points
Lucas Pérez chased down José María Giménez, took the ball off him right on the byline, rolled it beautifully under his foot as Jan Oblak came to take it off him, stepped away from the defender sprinting back and, having left three players on the floor, scored a brilliant equaliser that defined him: speed, alertness, attitude, determination and skill, lots of skill. Poor Giménez was inconsolable at the final whistle … but that didn’t stop Pérez trying. Class.
Whoops, they did it again. Three games in a row Granada have led, three games in a row, they have let the lead slip away. In two of those, it had come in the last minute. They’re in the relegation zone. Had they won just one of those, they would be 16th; two of them and they could be 10th. One-nil up at Espanyol, a man up too, Felipe Caicedo got a 94th minute equaliser. No wonder over on the touchline, José Ramón Sandoval had has head in his hands. “What does this draw taste like?” He was asked. “Imagine what it tastes like,” he replied. “It tastes like a defeat. The work we have done all week, months, has been thrown away. This is not tactical or technical, it is personality. All the effort of the squad cannot be thrown down the drain like that. We have to know what we’re playing at and what’s at play … in my case, my life. There are kids in playgrounds who are better at the ‘other football’ [being streetwise and smart] than we are. How am I? How would you expect me to me? Ask the fans how they are.”
Diario Vasco called it “the cruellest defeat”; it was also the weekend’s most enjoyable game. Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo slugged it out at Anoeta, a superb first half from the home side giving way to a bit of a collapse in the second. There were two goals each from Agirretxe and Iago Aspas, and then in the last minute Pablo Hernández belted in a beauty from 30 yards to leave la Real 16th, just two points above the relegation zone.
That Alen Halilovic can play a bit, eh? Charismatic, too. He was superb as Sporting Gijón picked up their first home win of the season, 1-0 against Málaga. “He’s 19, I don’t know what his limit is,” said coach Abelardo afterwards. “He was outstanding.” Halilovic scored the only goal and twice hit the bar, celebrating his goal with the cider pouring gesture beloved of Asturians.
“Negredo! Negredo! Negredo!” Valencia won the city derby 3-0 against a Levante side who showed signs of improvement under the new manager Rubí, with Paco Alcácer, Sofiane Feghouli and Zakaria Bakkali getting a goal each, the last of them a real beauty. But the fans did not chant their names. Instead, they chanted the name of the man who had nothing to do with the win and was instead sitting up in the stands, the occasional smile creeping across his face, quickly controlled. Álvaro Negredo has not been included in the squad for the last fortnight, not even with Rodrigo picking up an injury. “No one has more interest than me in Negredo coming back and helping us again,” the manager Nuno said but few really believed him. And they know whose side they’re on. And so they chanted Negredo’s name. They also chanted for Nuno to go. “On a personal level, it hurts,” he admitted.
A lack of respect to Getafe? This is a lack of respect to Getafe: the president Ángel Torres is threatening to take them to another town. He says it is time that the local council decided “whether they want a first division team or not”. The council want Getafe to share their facilities, which are municipal, with other users.
Las Palmas were back at the Bernabéu for the first time in 13 years, when Fernando Morientes scored five and Real Madrid won 7-0, and they had a touch of the Ossie Ardiles about them. “Our legs were all trembley,” admitted the coach Quique Setién.
Results: Deportivo 1-1 Atlético, Madrid 3-1 Las Palmas, Villarreal 2-1 Sevilla, Valencia 3-0 Levante, Getafe 0-2 Barcelona, Real Sociedad 3-2 Celta, Eibar 1-0 Rayo, Espanyol 1-1 Granada, Sporting 1-0 Málaga, Betis 1 - 3 Athletic.
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