Reflections : Best Teams And Worst Performances

It seems strange to understand why four of the biggest teams in the world, all of whom are not just in the UCL but are also among the favorites to win it as well as favorites for winning their country's league, managed to come up with their worst performance of this season so far just before the two week long international break. Fatigue may have been the issue. Perhaps a few players had half a mind on the vital internationals coming up. Also most of these teams did have some key players missing. The case for each of these teams is described below.

1. Barcelona - Yes Barca still won their match but it was not a good performance by any standards. The control in midfield was missing. Almeria were allowed to enter Barca's box far too often and create attacks of their own. Even in such situations the defense was guilty of overplaying and cheeky passing within the box. Against a strong team such mistakes could be easily punished. In fact even the attack missed some clear cut chances. In a way perhaps nothing went all that well except the final result. However Barca can take heart from the fact that they did not lose anything and can regroup and come up with a much better performance which they will certainly need in their next match at the Mestalla. However the shrewd tactical play of man marking several Barca players employed by Almeria did not go waste. It has probably made other teams realize that beating Barca could be much easier than what they had previously thought.

2. Manchester United - Yes they did lose to Burnley earlier in the league and they only drew this one. However that was an away match in which they still created most of the chances. Here on their own home ground they were made to look foolish against a team which virtually no one gave a chance against ManUtd so much so that most neutrals probably did not bother to watch the game. Yet it was only a lucky own goal which ultimately saved ManUtd from an embarrassing defeat.

3. Real Madrid - Finally the galacticos were brought down to earth. With Lassana Diarra missing, the control in midfield was just not there. In fact they were completely outplayed by an excellent Sevilla midfield. To that let's add the fact that they were missing their biggest match winner in C. Ronaldo, who could win a match for them with just his goal scoring abilities even when they had been second best right through. Some pundits around the world believe that Real's defense is still not up to standard and they were completely vindicated yesterday. Marcelo was so completely dominated by Jesus Navas that we may be forced to wonder whether at all he should have ever become a footballer. In fact it was the one and only San Iker who pulled off more than a couple of blinders to keep the scoreline respectable for Los Merengues.

4. Juventus - Yet none of the insipid displays described above can compare with the one we are about to discuss. Real Madrid in spite of being badly outplayed still scored a goal and created a few more chances. Juventus on the other hand were so humiliatingly suppressed that it's worth a rethink whether at all they deserve to be called Inter's main challengers for the Scudetto. Yes it was an away match but also against a team which had made a bad beginning and should have been lacking in confidence. It can be said that Inter even if playing at their worst would probably not have been so terribly humiliated. Even after leading 2-0 half way into the match, it's Palermo who looked more likely to score another. In Juventus' match against Roma earlier in Serie A, Roma had not played badly but Juve had played as if they were in a different class raising hopes not just among their fans but also among neutrals who want to see a change in the Italian and world order. Yesterday's match has done enough to submerge all those hopes. Juve must come up with something special to make people believe that they can still be a great team. Yesterday's performance only gives hope to Bordeaux and Bayern Munich that it shouldn't be all that difficult to qualify at the expense of Juve from their UCL group.