They followed Leo Messi every step of the way, willing him to take his next step, then his next, then his next, from the Camp Nou to the Cruz Blau clinic and on towards the Santiago Bernabéu, his target and theirs. The countdown began the moment he tore the medial ligament in his left knee against Las Palmas and it has quickened as the clásico comes closer, but the tone has changed. It is different now: there is expectation not desperation, excitement instead of fear – and not just because Messi should now make it to Saturday evening’s match at Real Madrid.
A week ago, Messi ran; on Sunday, he shot; and on Tuesday he completed a training match. He scored, too, beating Marc-André ter Stegen in an 80-minute game held at Sant Joan Despí. Afterwards his sponsors revealed the boots he will wear at the Bernabéu. That’s “will”, not “might”. And the following morning Luis Suárez said he did not know if Messi would play from the start or as a substitute, which is one way of saying Messi will play. And if he doesn’t? If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. Suárez will and so will Neymar.
Lionel Messi sharp in Barcelona training before clásico, says Luis Suárez
A recurring question has done the rounds recently: would you risk Messi in theclásico? Not long ago, the answer would have been: what kind of question is that? The fact it is even being asked is revealing. “You always miss Messi,” Andrés Iniesta said and that too was telling, a response to suggestions Barcelona have not. After all, however much everyone keeps saying Messi is irreplaceable, Suárez and Neymar have done some job of replacing him. If they have to extend that to one more game, even this game, so be it.
Since Messi made his debut, he has missed only two clásicos, in 2005-06 and2007-08, and Barcelona did not win either. They would rather he did not miss a third but they have never been better equipped to win without him.
Messi was injured against Las Palmas on 26 September, eight weeks before the visit to Real Madrid; eight weeks doctors hoped it would take him to get fit. There was, though, no guarantee. When he hit the ground the stadium fell silent. A headline read simply: “Gulp!” Another said: “No meaning without Messi.” Their ambition was to hang on until his return and hope it would be in time for the clásico. Instead, they have ended up enjoying it. Barcelona were a point behind and Madrid counted on taking advantage but Barça go into the clásico three points clear.
In 10 games without Messi, Barcelona have won eight, drawn an irrelevant Copa del Rey first-leg match against Villanovense in which they played a team of reserves, and lost one: at Sevilla’s Sánchez Pizjuán, where Madrid too were defeated. Barely five minutes had passed against Las Palmas when he suffered the injury but Suárez scored two and so it began. Between them, Suárez and Neymar have scored every one of the club’s 16 league goals in Messi’s absence, eight each. They have 20 of 23 in all competitions, 10 each.
Perhaps it should be no surprise. After all, last season Neymar and Suárez were part of a front three who scored 122 goals and if Messi remained the key figure, the man they all held up as the best, the word tridente was well chosen. The three of them are genuinely close, friends as well as team-mates. “I have changed my game and my life a lot: before I came they said that I would fight with Messi: I knew that wouldn’t happen,” Neymar said. “From the start Messi has helped me.”
The Argentinian’s excellence did not eclipse all else, even as they subjugated themselves to him, publicly and privately reinforcing his status, something they do even now in his absence – especially now. “He felt like Messi’s butler, now he feels like his partner,” Jorge Valdano said, and the spread of goals across all competitions ran: Messi 45, Neymar 42, Suárez 35.
Neymar and Suárez scored in the Champions League final in Berlin, making the trio’s competition tally 10, 10, 9, and in 2015 the tridente could already lay claim to being the best three players in the world. No surprise, perhaps: after all, Suárez cost €80m, while what Neymar cost is still being argued over, but stands at €57.1m, at least. In his first season at Barcelona, Neymar had scored 15 goals and provided 13 assists, while last season he added seven assists to those 42 goals.
The tridente celebrate a goal against Atlético Madrid in January 2015. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters
The man who discovered Neymar, Muricy Ramalho, once told El País: “Neymar will be the best in the world ... when Ronaldo and Messi slip.” Perhaps the absence of others, through injury or loss of form, was all it took. And yet the step up this season has still been striking, his performances astonishing. “He is the second‑best player in the world, just behind Leo,” Suárez said this week.
Neymar said recently he feels more at home than ever before. He and Suárez had assumed their roles last season; over the past 10 weeks, they have been redefined. “We all know our roles; I don’t dribble round three or four players like Neymar does,” Suárez said.
Neymar does that and more. In Messi’s absence his role has been to lead, to beMessi, even if he is more Romário meets Ronaldinho. Barcelona’s manager, Luis Enrique, insisted he did not ask Neymar to change anything or take responsibility, but he has: unconsciously perhaps, but clearly. Amid defeat it perhaps went unnoticed but look again and you can see it in Sevilla eight games ago. Barcelona lost, caught out twice in six minutes. Two down, Neymar led a comeback that was abortive but cast him as a leader. Four times they hit the post.
Barcelona’s creative axis has tilted from right to left, from Messi (and Dani Alves), to Neymar (and Jordi Alba). Not that Neymar is staying left; his involvement has spread. “Look at the stats and he is the best player in the world at the moment,” the Brazil manager, Dunga, said. The number of touches he is getting on the ball, now averaging 85 a game, has increased by almost a third on last season and he is not far off double the number of shots. He is completing more dribbles and playing more key passes. Of Barcelona’s past 16 goals he has been directly involved in 14. He is La Liga’s top scorer on 11 goals.
And here’s another number: Neymar is 23. He is 23, he lives in a foreign country where he has to play a different type of football and learn another language. He missed the start of the season with mumps. He, his father, his club’s former president, his club’s current president, and his club are under investigation for tax fraud, with prosecutors claiming the real cost of his transfer was closer to €87.m than €57m, while a civil suit has been brought against him too by the Brazilian company DIS. Back in Brazil, he has had his assets frozen, 188.8m reais’ (£33m) worth.
Barcelona’s Neymar seeks assurances over tax ‘attacks’ in Spain
This week, as contract negotiations continued, and calls came in from other clubs, Neymar’s father insisted his son wants to stay at Barcelona but opened the door to a departure, insisting they needed “judicial security” and “peace of mind” to stay. “I don’t want to use the word ‘persecution’, but ...” he said. He did use words like attack: “For two and a half years we have had to defend ourselves,” he said.
The week of the clásico might not have been the best time to raise the possibility of a departure, nor air such problems. And yet if all that has not effected Neymar so far, perhaps there is no reason to believe that it will now either. He has scored more goals (183) than Ronaldo (118) or even Messi (150) had at his age, and that off-field pressure seems to barely matter. The pressure of the game, of leading the team, has brought even more out of him. Here is a player of temperament as well as talent: daring, skilful, brave, always running at people.
“He’s electric,” Luis Enrique said. “When he runs into the area, either they commit a penalty or he scores.” Not many players bamboozle defenders any more; Neymar does, the footwork maddening, too fast to follow, making fools of footballers. Barcelona’s sporting director, Robert Fernández, called himmagical.
“He is probably the most in-form attacker in the league, decisive in front of goal and also in their [buildup] play,” the Villarreal manager Marcelino said, having just watched Neymar score a goal he admitted he would have applauded himself had he been a fan rather than a victim.
Receiving the ball deep, Neymar set Suárez away on the left and set off himself. When the ball came to him he flicked it up in the air and over Jaume Costa, sending it spinning, slowly, smoothly one way while he span the other, just as smoothly and just as slowly. His movement mirrored that of the ball and was almost gentle, face turned away, as if they were dancers performing a turn, travelling a figure of eight, destined to meet in the middle, arriving there together. When they did, he volleyed the third.
“I have no idea how he did it,” Gerard Piqué said. “If I tried that, I would fall over.” It was Neymar’s eighth goal in nine games, the 16th league match in a row that he or Suárez had scored in, the last before the Bernabéu and before Messi rejoined a team delighted if no longer desperate to have him back. No wonder they were getting excited. “The clásico really turns me on,” Piqué said.
