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Barca the best team in history says club president. Well, er...
Only Pele disagrees with Sandro Rossell after Barca's destruction of Santos gives Pep his 13th trophy
BARCELONA are becoming a problem. Not only can no team – well, very few - stop them, but the normal compliments will no longer suffice. After their latest masterclass – the 4-0 annihilation of Santos to win the World Club Cup on Saturday - club president Sandro Rosell hailed "the best team in history".
Barca have so far outstripped their competitors that the only remaining challenges lie in the history books. Out of 16 competitions contested under Guardiola, Barca have won 13, including three straight La Ligas and two Champions League titles. Under Guardiola, the club has set Spanish records for points and goals in a season, not to mention providing a stage for the best player on the planet, Lionel Messi.
Fox News pundit Michael Lewis backed Rosell's claim. "Barcelona are the best club team of all time, for the years and years with substance and style", he said.
There is a "vital aspect that sets Barca apart from other great teams of the past", according to The World Game's Philip Micallef. "The bigger the event, the better it plays."
Steve Wilson for the Daily Telegraph describes in mouth-watering detail a goal by Xavi against Santos. It came at the end of a sequence of 32 passes in which every one of Barcelona's outfield players touched the ball. It was, said Wilson, "proof that Barcelona play the game at a different level to anyone else".
Some analysts tempered praise for the drubbing of Santos by pointing to a supposed lack of financial strength in the Brazilian league. Not so says the BBC's Tim Vickery. "It was not economic power that tipped the balance in Yokohama. Santos were undone by a collective footballing philosophy to which, despite months of preparation, they could find no answer."
On Soccer America, Paul Gardner sounds a note of caution that "having watched Barca humiliate two of the world's top teams while barely raising a sweat, you begin to entertain the notion that this sort of superiority is somehow not fair". Gardner worries that opposition will resort even more to ugly stifling tactics and thuggery.
Only Brazilian legend Pele appears willing to challenge Barca's supremacy, and points to his old club as the yardstick, claiming "Santos were considered the best in the world for a decade and Barcelona do not have the titles that Santos have."
He has a point. During the period Pele played for Santos, the club's swagbag boasted 22 titles, including two Copa Libertadores and the first treble in the world. But that was 1959-74.
This will be small consolation to Hospitalet, the third tier Spanish side who are Barca's next opponents in the domestic Cup. ·
