Sergio Busquets was snubbed by UEFA but remains as vital as ever at BarcaThis shouldn't need saying anymore, but it does: Sergio Busquets is very good at football.
This week, UEFA's official website released a 40-man short list, from which they asked readers to vote for the 2015 Team of the Year that will be announced in January. The list includes four goalkeepers, 12 defenders, 12 midfielders, 12 forwards . . . and no Busquets. Never mind that he played at the heart of the team that claimed a unique treble, winning La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the European Cup, or that the manager of the team described him as the best midfielder in the world. Apparently there's no place for him.
There is a place for Javier Mascherano, who was forced to change positions; by his own admission, he realized when he joined Barcelona that he simply wasn't as good as Busquets. And if it's only right to point out that Mascherano is there as a defender or that some of the other questionable inclusions, in goal, defence or up front, aren't denying Busquets a place, among the midfielders are Hakan Calhanoglu, Grzegorz Krychowiak, Yevhen Konoplyanka and Kevin De Bruyne. The list also includes Arturo Vidal, Claudio Marchisio and Paul Pogba -- men Busquets beat in the Champions League final.
This is not a rant and there's no anger here; there's something a little affected and false (not to mention often interested) about the inevitable wave of polemics that accompany the short lists for major awards and the handing out of trophies themselves. The offence that is sometimes taken at players' positions on podiums is absurd, as if being the world's second- or third-best player makes you rubbish. And then there's that touch of unpleasantness about it, as if other people aren't allowed other opinions.
Ultimately, it just does not matter that much, either. It doesn't matter to Busquets -- at least that's what he says. "I don't want people talking about me, for good or bad. I don't do many interviewers, I don't have Twitter," he said. "I don't long for praise or the lead role."
Still, it is a bit baffling, and yet somehow so very Busquets. It is in his nature to go unnoticed. That's just kind of what he does. Except that surely now, at 27, that relative lack of recognition should have been left behind.
Busquets was not included in the Ballon d'Or short list either, but that's natural enough. That 23-man short list is gleaned from votes for a top three; it is unlikely that anyone will stray far from five or six footballers, and when they do, they almost guarantee that their "other" choice is on the short list. Few people would realistically place Busquets in a top three, not least when the three men who have arguably done the most to be there in the past year are teammates of his on a list that is heavy with attackers and creative midfielders.
But this team of the year list is a bit different. It's 40 players long, for a start. And it is split by position. It is a vote for a team as well as (or perhaps rather than) an individual. There's attempt at balance. But they have left out the player who perhaps best defines balance and best builds a team. In 2015, in Europe, where Barcelona won the continent's most significant trophy, beating the English, French, German and Italian champions on route while also winning both domestic tournaments, is Sergio Busquets really not in the top 40 players on the continent? Is he really not among the best 12 midfielders?
Really?
Busquets' father was the Barcelona goalkeeper Carlos Busquets; a family member was there at all five of the European Cups the club have won, even if father and son sat in the stands back in 2006. This week, Sergio played his 350th Barcelona game; he has won 20 trophies, including five league titles, three European Cups and three Copa del Reys. He has won the World Cup and the European Championships.
"Ah," people say, "but that's because of his teammates." So let's ask one of them.
"We would not have won half as much without him, neither Barcelona nor Spain," Gerard Piqué says. All of which everyone knew, or so we thought. But perhaps not, so here's a reminder.
"As kids we'd be forever shooting at dad and I started as a striker, but I eventually became a pivote, the position I like most and best suits my characteristics," Busquets said. "I'd rather the strikers scored [than me]; they live off goals. I don't care. If I did, I wouldn't play in this position. I love my role, I love the job I do."
That may help to explain why he does not always get noticed. As a rule, Busquets doesn't score goals or provide assists. He hasn't got more than one league goal in a season since he made his debut and after Leo Messi scored that goal at the Santiago Bernabéu in 2011, the Argentinian joked: "what an assist you gave me." What Busquets had done was basically get out of the way, enabling Messi to run.
"Enabling" is the word. Busquets is an enabler but that does not mean he is not able. Nor does it mean that the appreciation from teammates and coaches is solely because he makes them look good; it is also because they know how good he is. That is why Vicente del Bosque said he would like to be reincarnated as Busquets at a time when media and fans were questioning his role in the Spanish national team. It's also why Guardiola declared him "priceless."
Busquets is a defensive midfielder but as descriptions go, it is woefully inadequate. When Luis Enrique described him as the best recently, he did not include the word "defensive" -- "Busquets is the best midfielder in the world." That's midfielder, period. "Pivot" is the word they use in Spain and it is a better word; he does not simply stop the other team, he moves his team, too.
Yes, he protects others; yes, he makes more tackles than anyone else; and yes, he covers more distance than the rest of his team. But as he pointed out in the Champions League final, the only person who outran him was Andrea Pirlo. The point he made was that this was not running to only defend; it was running to find space, to get the team going and the ball circulating.
"He is the most intelligent player I have ever coached," Luis Enrique said recently. Watch him and you soon realise that one of the things he does best is wait. Few understand time like Busquets, slowing down and speeding up at the perfect point.
By halftime of that Champions League final in Berlin, Busquets had played 40 successful passes out of 41 attempted. This season he averages a 93 percent success rate. Some will ask how many of those passes really matter and Busquets would be entitled to answer: all of them. "If I lose the ball I cause the team a problem," he told El País. "I am here to provide solutions."
Even last year, as Barcelona's identity and centre of gravity, switched from the middle of the pitch to the forward line, Busquets remained vital. His job had been made more difficult -- Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez stretched the pitch and made them more direct, distancing him from the men he looked to pass to -- but Busquets adapted. Now they appear the perfect mix of control and incision.
A few days before the Champions League final, Xavi admitted something that he had been reluctant to say as he approached his definitive farewell. "Busquets is my natural successor," he said. He had always admitted that Busquets was a weakness of his, a man who interpreted the idea of one-touch football like few others. Better still, Xavi said, he played "half-touch" football. And that touch is impeccable.
Neymar called him a "maestro." Piqué said Busquets "has qualities that maybe go unnoticed but out on the pitch he does things that leave us amazed."
In the absence of Messi recently, Suárez and Neymar led a Barcelona side that won nine of 11 games. In term of performances the reaction began in Seville, even though it may not have been fully apparent at the time. Barcelona lost but Neymar led them back after going down 2-0, making it 2-1; only the post stopped them turning it around.
That was the bit that got noticed, if less than normal in the wake of the defeat; the bit that didn't was the difference when Mascherano was removed from central midfield and Busquets was put there instead. Until then, he had filled in for Iniesta as interior. Now at the heart of it all, there was control at last. There was flow. It was not that they were better protected, it was that they became better players.
For opponents, it ends with Busquets. For Barcelona, it starts with him. Last Saturday's Clásico finished 4-0. It began with Sergio Busquets producing a drag-back just four seconds in, which sent Gareth Bale flying helplessly by. Bale made it on that UEFA's short list.