Who is old – Newspaper Kommersant No. 146 (7347) of 08/12/2022

The Spanish championship starting today is unlikely to pass the fate of the vast majority of the Spanish championships, in which two giants, Real and Barcelona, ​​fought for gold. This time, the alignment in this fight looks terribly intriguing – primarily due to the active transfer campaign of the Catalan club that has survived the crisis.

Signs that in the next championship of Spain, which will open today with Osasuna’s match with Sevilla, something truly extraordinary will happen, something that can be labeled as an anomalous tournament, you will not find in the afternoon with fire. His average level is high, but at least “on paper” two monsters – “Real” and “Barcelona” – are still too prominent in the general background to seriously think that anyone can stay close to them in the long run. . The only exception is Atlético, which overtook them in the championship before last, but still, strictly speaking, it does not pull on a full-fledged equal to the giants, especially after Luis Suarez, the soul of the team’s attack, suddenly decided that it was time to slowly turn off career and go to finish the game at home, in Uruguay. But there are plenty of reasons to argue about what the current fight between the two giants promises.

The occasions guaranteed differences in the approach to “setting up” before the championship, which was chosen by Real and Barcelona. And they are absolutely radical.

Madrid put on stability. In fact, how and by whom Real Madrid is going to take titles this season is not difficult to imagine: yes, with the same people and the same schemes that took them, having won both the national championship and the Champions League, in the previous season. During the summer transfer campaign, having failed with the invitation of Kylian Mbappe, he got rid of the players who turned, strictly speaking, into ballast, Luka Jovic, Marcela, Isco, and looked for reinforcements from the category of point ones, which did not mean serious stylistic adjustments. I found two – in the person of Aurelien Chuameni to strengthen the depth in the support zone and in the person of Antonio Rüdiger to strengthen the depth in defense.

Such an approach may seem irreproachable. Well, really, why break the mechanisms carefully debugged by coach Carlo Ancelotti and working properly, if you can only slightly lubricate them with a fresh drop of oil? But in the case of Real Madrid, the underwater pebble is striking. It’s a colossal dependence on two players who are at an age where a downturn could happen at any moment. Luka Modric, the main figure in the center of the field, is 36 years old, Karim Benzema, who last season provided the club with his own shots or accurate passes to partners for almost half of all goals scored, is 34 years old. In the match for the European Super Cup, in which Real Madrid convincingly defeated Eintracht 2-0 on Wednesday, there were no hints of a loss of tone. But this is only the first official match after the holidays in the calendar of the coming months packed to the limit with the Qatari World Cup. And the German middle peasants are not the background to properly check the tone.

The behavior of Barcelona is the complete opposite of Madrid. Her summer selection was a demonstration of the decisiveness with which the Catalans throw in the trash the consequences of the recent crisis. Barcelona bought players, and great players, Frank Kessier, Andreas Christensen, Rafinho, Jules Kunde, Robert Lewandowski with the same passion as during periods of prosperity, continental dominance. And for a person who is not indifferent to her, the imagination is now surely painting a delightful picture: Christensen and Kunde add strength and vigor to the aged defense, Lewandowski, with the help of Rafinha, adds spice and efficiency to the attack, and the goals scored are pouring into other people’s goals like fruit from a cornucopia. And next to them, talented Barcelona teenagers gain incredible power – Gavi, who heals the injuries of Pedri and Ansu Fati. And a new steep rise is simply inevitable, because in comparison with the same Real Madrid, Barcelona already has a longer bench and a richer set of tactical options: Ancelotti has, in fact, one correct scheme, and the Catalan mentor Xavi has there seem to be several now. And the accents can vary depending on who you put on the field and what position, because, for example, Kunde’s trump card is also universalism.

The skeptic to whom this picture is presented will, of course, chuckle. First, you first need to wait for all these recruits to be registered by the Spanish football authorities, because Barcelona so far, despite their best efforts, have not convinced them that it is fully in line with the rules of the financial fair play. And secondly, her history shows that in this century, personnel throwing, “meaningful” changes, such as integration into the front line of a classic center forward requiring constant maintenance, harmed her rather than helped. And Barcelona stayed at the top thanks to what Real Madrid has put on now – stability.

Alexey Dospekhov