With 34 points in hand FC Barcelona are sitting pretty much at the top of the La Liga table with rivals Athletico Madrid and Real Madrid down at second and third positions respectively.
With 34 points in hand FC Barcelona are sitting pretty much at the top of the La Liga table with rivals Athletico Madrid and Real Madrid down at second and third positions respectively. But one thing that will hurt coach Tata Martino is that his star striker Leo Messi has set the alarm bells ringing at the club with the admission that he is still not in his best physical condition.
The Argentine footballer, who is the nominated for the coveted Ballon d’Or, cut a slightly dejected figure in his side’s 1-0 win at home to Espanyol on Friday night. It was his fourth game without hitting the back of the net for Barca, the first time since 2011 that he hasn’t scored for four matches consecutively.
Messi has suffered a series of muscle injuries since April with the last of those just before the international break and he admitted in a release on a social website, “Games against Espanyol are always very complicated. Physically I am still not at 100 percent, but I am sure that with more games I will get the rhythm.”
What comes as a worry for the club is that on several occasions against Espanyol as against Real Madrid and Celta Vigo in previous matches, Messi lost out in a sprint for the ball to rival defenders. That has led the club’s medical staff to think that although his muscle problem has cured, the striker has a crisis of confidence as he is worried about risking another torn muscle. As a result he is involuntarily holding back slightly when he runs for the ball.
However, it is also clear that as Messi says, the solution is not that the player sits games out on the sidelines, but that he plays games with the aims of recovering his confidence.
When asked about whether or not he was worried about his striker after the Espanyol game, Barca coach Tata Martino said, “He is the most important player in a team of stars, he plays and he offers us everything. I don’t see him looking worried and what is happening at the moment is pure coincidence. I don’t see him looking desperate, he shot with intent but without fortune and he has set the bar so high in the past that sometimes it is hard to beat that.”
With a key Champions League home tie against AC Milan this week, Messi’s mere presence on the pitch can have a huge influence on his team and crowd alike.
