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The troubling thing about Barcelona is that it actually took them a little while to get going this season. They lost to Sevilla in the first leg of the Super Cup. They lost at home, startlingly, to Hercules, in the second round of league games, and dropped two points against Mallorca in the sixth. But like all great teams, they reacted to those hints of weakness by marmelising everything else that has come in their way.

3-1 down after that first leg of the Super Cup, they won the second leg 4-0. Apart from the Hercules and Mallorca games, they have won all 14 league games they've played. They drew a couple of away games in the Champions League, but still qualified for the second phase without breaking sweat. Recently, the victories have become increasingly impressive: 5-0 over Sevilla, 3-1 at Getafe, 3-1 over Villarreal, 8-0 at Almeria, 5-0 over Real Madrid, 3-0 at Osasuna, 5-0 over Real Sociedad, and then, on Saturday, 5-1 at Espanyol.

This Barcelona simply doesn't have a weakness. Teams have tried defending deep against them, but Barca are good enough to find a way through, and the use of Sergio Busquets as an auxiliary centre-back allows them to push both full-backs forward to spread the play wide and outflank even a massed defence. On Saturday, in the Catalan derby, Espanyol attacked them, tried to rattle Barca physically, and had a packed crowd baying for blood, yet Barca still walked away with it.

Perhaps, in Pablo Osvaldo's goal, there was an indication of vulnerability; Barca play a high line and Carles Puyol isn't quick on the turn. Isolate him, knock a ball over the top or play a through-ball and he's unlikely to catch the forward. But it is a tiny chink, and it is a by-product of one of Barca's great strengths, which is their pressing. What was striking in that first 20 minutes of the Champions League quarter-final against Arsenal last year was less Barca's technical mastery of the ball than the way they hounded Arsenal in possession.

If an Arsenal player went to close down a Barca player, he was often alone, or backed up by only one team-mate. When Barca pressed, it was in three compact lines. There is a fallacy that they play a beautiful carefree game; they play a beautiful game, for sure, but it is rooted in hard work and immaculate organisation. Arsenal simply couldn't breathe with the ball; they were crushed by wave after wave of Guardiola's hordes. That is a defining principle of Total Football; the high line is only effective if the opponent is always hurried in possession and so is unable to pick his pass.

And in possession, of course, Barca are supreme. They can keep the ball, frustrating opponents, teasing them and wearing them out as a fisherman might with a pike; as Manchester United found in the 2009 Champions League final, once you've gone behind against Barcelona it is all but impossible to come back.

Whether they are one of the greatest sides ever is open to debate. The modern format of the Champions League - essentially a cup competition between 10 of the dozen best sides in Europe plus six others - probably makes it harder to win than ever before, which is why the periods of sustained success enjoyed by the likes of Real Madrid, Ajax and Bayern Munich no longer happen, but they could do with at least one further success to cement their place in the pantheon (they are 3.3 to win it this year).

Of course but for an ash cloud over Europe and the 18-hour bus journey to Milan it necessitated last season in the semi-final, but for a wrongly disallowed goal late in the second leg of that tie against Internazionale, it might have come last year. And what's really fascinating is that the architect of that defeat, Jose Mourinho, might yet deny them a third straight league title; for all Barca's brilliance, Real Madrid are only two points adrift and still have a clasico at the Bernebeu to come. Real Madrid are 2.76 to win La Liga this year, having traded as low as 1.9 but it would take a brave man to be laying Barca, who trade at 1.57 going into Christmas.


By Jonathan Wilson

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