With Lionel Andrés Messi gone, Barça seems to look like a vehicle shorn of it's engine. Or maybe not? People have announced the death of the Barça and the demise of the Spanish league without Messi.
I like to examine a little of what we have left and therefore what we can expect.
It goes without saying that you can't replace a transgenerational talent like Messi– he only just played his first match for PSG last weekend and the opposition players were queueing up to have the honour of taking photos with this footballing god; that's just how good he is, you just develop goose bumps having him around.
However,the crucial element in things like this, is the coach! Who is the current Barça coach? The Dutchman,Ronald Koeman,a former Barca player himself(played there for 6 yrs) and an astute practitioner of the Barcelona style,called total football or tiki-taka, pioneered by the Dutch legend,Johan Cruyff. Infact he played for Barca under Mr. Cruyff and after his footballing career,together with Jose Mourinho, assisted another great former Barça coach in Lius Van Gaal,a real tiki-taka man. You miss the tiki-taka of Pep Guardiola's days? Koeman has it in surplus amounts.
I am saying this coach is perfect for Barça at such a time as this. He has bought smartly too with a certain amount of premonition about Messi leaving. This summer,in came Depay, Aguero and Luuk de Jong. That's to add to a team with the massive experience of Gerard Pique at the back and Sergio Busquets in the midfield.
So now you have the bomber called Aguero,let no one think he is past it. If you scored that much in England,you would score much more in Spain. If you know,you know.
Then it's Memphis Depay behind him. If you are the captain of the Dutch side of today,who can call you an average player? No way! Furthermore, it is his very coach that heads Barca. I mean Koeman coached the Dutch team just before landing the Barca job,he made Depay the captain, and used him so well. After these two,up top, I am almost confused who will join them, because of the plethora of talents– Dembele,Fati(the dark Messi,who has now been given Messi's number 10 shirt), Coutinho,etc.
You will hardly see a more competitive Barca team in probably the past 20 yrs in terms of fight for shirts.
I don't want to talk much about the midfield even. With the world best Busquets the anchor man,joined by Spanish teenage sensation Pedri(and Olympic finalist) and Dutch Frenkie de Jong.
This team is well prepared to cope with the Messi loss and Koeman had been preparing for this situation since last season. He had young players all around, but that's his forte,he blooded superstars like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wesley Sniejder when they were very young. Others are Nigel de Jong and John Heitinga. At Feyenord Koeman handed first-team debuts to academy graduates Bruno Martins Indi and Terence Kongolo. He helped John Guidetti make headlines with his performances and he unearthed a mighty talent in Georginio Wijnaldum, who he used so well as Holland coach and wanted him at Barca this summer.
People were wondering why he initially accepted a 1yr contract,the man is smart,he knew Barca's financial failings.. and he began rebuilding. Former Barca player,Xavi knew this too and rejected the gaffer job,counting it too risky.
El Classico may not have the glamour of previous years but no way can it be scoffed at. Someone like Aguero and Depay will add color on the Barça side of things and Benzema,Bale,Vinicious Junior will star for the Blancos. The Spanish league too will cope just fine without Messi; look at the top quality coaches,therein. It's simple. I watched live as Asensio's goal qualified Spain for the recent Olympic men's football and you just see why he's a Real Madrid player.
That is minus Sevilla,who will now won't to tell Athletico Madrid to keep shut and sit behind. Villarreal will have a thing or two to say too, Real Sociedad are no push-overs these days and so on.
Ironically, the Spanish league is more well prepared this year than most years before, for Messi's exit.