Can Barcelona Defend Their Crown With Messi Injured?

An injury to the four-time world player of the year and the Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi has shook the football world like an earthquake or a tsunami hit. Every single fan and football pundit has started making his speculations if Barcelona would be able to retain the title without Messi in the team for 2 months. Presently, the Catalans sit at the top of the table with a 3-point lead which more than the rest of the team, belongs to the superstar Messi. But now, he will be out of action for 3 months after suffering a hamstring tear in his left leg and was subbed off just after 20 minutes of 4-1 win against Real Betis, this injury being his third of the season.
Toni Freixa, the Barca board spokesman and club secretary, said: "The team is always ‘Messi-dependent’ because it’s impossible not to be with the best player in the world. People talk about it like it’s something bad but it’s a good thing. We’ve improved this weakness now. The team have other resources and it is performing at a great level."  The £48.1m signing of the Brazilian forward Neymar this season has come as a blessing in disguise for the Blaugranas who has been performing brilliantly till date and more would be expected of him now as he would possibly be taking the Messi no.10 role for the time being. Moreover, Fabregas has been in good touch this season and has gotten more playtime which is a good thing for the Catalans, the injury to him in the last match being insignificant.
The absence of Messi would definitely be visible in the frontline but it could be well taken care of by the likes of Neymar, Pedro, Iniesta, Xavi and Fabregas who are equally capable of doing wonders for their team. The Catalans have already qualified for the Champions league round of 16 and have two-legged Copa del Rey tie against Cartagena which wouldn’t be hard to beat without Messi. However, they may face problems in their next 4 league matches against Granada, Athletic Bilbao, Villarreal and Getafe who hold the 8th, 4th, 5th and the 6th positions respectively in the la liga table as they would be tough to compete with. But still, we hope the quality of Barca would be too much for them and would be overcome successfully though not easily.
Meanwhile, the catalunya coach Gerardo Mortino has been taking precautions and is preparing for alternatives for these 2 months while the time Messi is not in the team.
In an interview with Revista da Internet, Neymar reveals how Martino had been working with both he and Cesc Fabregas to shoulder the burden in the attack, should Messi be injured, as he just has.
“Messi is an ‘artillery number 10’, he breaks the opposition defence. Tata would trust me and Cesc with that role, based on the hypotheses that Messi might be out with an injury and so we could face that in the least traumatic way posible.
“He’s already had two muscle problems. He’d just played an unprecedented marathon of games, when he won the Ballon d’Or four times and was Pichichi (top scorer). Just him being on the pitch is enough to relax me and my teammates. Regular injuries are normal because of the physical effort Messi has put in over all those years and he’s going through a spell where is more likely to get injured.
“Given those facts and in order to try and prevent it Tata Martino came up with other attacking possibilities where Cesc and I would take responsibility, working with less improvisation. The structure of the play loses something, but individuality comes out more and from my point of view and that of Messi, the team and the support, the goals keep coming and Barça taken as a whole can still show off it’s football and keep winning titles.”
Although it would be a quite different ball game without Messi playing and would feel really really strange not seeing him on the field for 2 months, we still believe that the supreme quality of the world’s second richest, third most valuable and Spain’s most successful club would surpass this tough time with real ease. May be it’s time to see the best of the rest of the Barca players which we all have been ignoring or undermining till now only because of the magic of the little maestro LIONEL MESSI.