The Tractor Goes On And On

About a year back I wrote a small tribute on the greatest defender and one club player in the modern era - Paolo Maldini. His undeniable skill was only accentuated by his longevity, which saw him play at the top level well beyond the age of 40, picking up Champions Leagues like loose change till his late 30s.

Maldini is not alone in giving top class service to their chosen clubs till an age when their contemporaries have switched the ball for other pursuits long ago, although he might be the most successful. Another legend who has arguably achieved as much of a legendary status and will join him when he hangs up his boots shares the same San Siro home stadium, but for the other side. It is of course, FC Internazionale's heartbeat and soul - Javier Zanetti.

Il Trattore

Javier Zanetti, moved to Inter from Banfield at the age of 22, and fifteen years later is still the first name on the teamsheet. By trade a right back, he has unfailingly filled in a variety of positions in defence and midfield for both club and country over the course of his career. Such is his strong association with the team he is the one player any Inter fan can currently definitively identify with among a team bereft of club products or Italians, despite being neither himself. And he shows no signs of stopping.

By trade a right back, he has unfailingly filled in a variety of positions in defence and midfield for both club and country over the course of his career. Not just filling in, he has proven to be a vital cog in the wheel in each of those roles. This is typified by the recent Champions League final which brought the title to Inter after forty five years, he played in centre midfield and stopped Bayern's biggest strength - their midfield - from bossing it, and then left back when the clock was winding down, to keep Arjen Robben quiet. Versatility is sometimes an overrated trait, it is usually attributed to players who are not exceptional in any position but are useful in a variety of positions and can be used to fill in the gaps as a squad player. True versatility is someone who can excel in any position and Javier Zanetti belongs to this rare category. He is 37 now and he runs as much as his younger colleagues and plays every match. Like Maldini, his is not a sentimental selection, Inter still won't know what to do without him.

Inter just won the Champions League, and while it is a team I generally don't care much for, the one satisfaction I got out of it is that Zanetti finally got to hold up the famous trophy. It was the least a legend of his talents and service to the game deserved and no one can really begrudge him having a Champions League winning medal. It is a huge travesty that we won't see him in the World Cup after Maradona picked a range of jokers over him in one of his more inexplicable selections (and he has had a fair few). However, he shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, and who is to say that we won't get to see him four years from now in the biggest stage of them all in Brazil.

The Greatest Title Race Ever?

The most respected achievements are always the ones which are the hardest won. A league title won by a double digit points difference merely emphasises the team's superiority over the rest of the pack but it can never compare to the romanticism and drama of a title race which goes down to the last day. After all, the worth of a team is defined by its rivals and its most satisfying when your rival is almost as good as you, almost.

Never has this been more true than the FC Barcelona - Real Madrid rivalry in Spain and never has this epic rivalry been exhibited more brilliantly than the ongoing 2009/2010 season.

It has been an unwritten law of nature that both teams undergo cycles of fortune which perfectly complement each other. When Barca is riding high, Madrid is struggling to even ride the easy waves, and when Madrid is the closest to the finish line, Barca is stumbling and vainly trying to catch its breath in a faint hope of overtaking its bitter enemy. Even when the title race between the two is close (and it has been several times), there is always the feeling that one of the two deserves it way more than the other one, and it invariably wins it.

This season has broken this law. With the last game of the season to be played in less than 24 hours, Barca hold the slenderest of one point advantages over Madrid. However, this is not astonishing, we have seen this scenario so many times. The astonishing part is the points tally of the respective teams - Barca has 96, Madrid has 95. The previous record tally in La Liga was 92, in a 22 team league. Both teams swept aside this record in a greedy nonchalance while racking up win after win after win. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find such ridiculous tallies in the archives of all the major leagues.

What is the reason behind such a points glut? Is it, as some have suggested, simply that Barca and Madrid have pulled away from the rest of the pack so much that the other teams will be inevitably defeated and the only two fixtures which will realistically decide the title are the el clasicos? There may be a modicum of truth in that, in that the big two's spending power is infinitely more than the rest and the gap is ever increasing. But when one observes the teams, Barca is essentially unchanged from last year's historic treble winning squad, in fact the one major change - the Eto'o/Ibrahimovic swap has arguably done more harm than good. Madrid's team is vastly improved from last year, but the undiluted individual brilliance in the squad tempered with a characteristic dysfunctional play has only served to bring it up to Barca's level, as the points tally shows.

Nor have the other teams suddenly become worse. Valencia managed to keep its stars against all odds and have done splendidly to finish third after two seasons outside the top four, with breakthrough seasons from the likes of Ever Banega and Pablo Hernandez making them a stronger team than before. Sevilla is similarly unchanged and a mid season change of manager has brought the free flowing football and stability back into the team. Atletico and Villareal have disappointed, the latter very much so since meltdowns are always expected of the mattress makers, but their seasons are negated somewhat by the splendid season Mallorca has had. More importantly, none of these teams have lost any of their significant players, so to characterise them as weaker is certainly a knee-jerk reaction at best.

No, the true reason, as has always been, is each other. Barca and Madrid have pushed each other step by step all season long. Unlike in England, where also the season finished with one point separating the top two but the race was run by trying to make sure that the team stumbled the least number of times, Spain has seen a title race in the teams have made each other run faster and faster and breach previously untouched frontiers. Every comfortable win by Barca has seen Madrid match the victory with a now typical resilient performance and every Madrid thrashing has seen Barca somehow hold on to their nerves and record their own positive result. Barca has lost just one game all season and did the second successive double over Madrid, while Madrid has broken the record for most number of wins, scoring over a hundred goals along the way.

But then why this season over all the others? What makes it special? The primary reason would that the current Barca, which is being talked about in the same breath as the greatest teams ever, achieved so much and so outrageously swimmingly that its eternal rivals could not help but react to this dominance. Thus came the neo Galacticos spending spree and a complete rehauling of the squad which has forced Barca to be even better than it was before. Surely a season which is defined by pushing the boundaries of perfection instead of merely hoping to screw up less than the other fellow deserves to be called the greatest title race ever?

Whatever the reasons, whatever the legitimacy of this assertion may be, the truth is that these performances have been exceptional. Cliches are so because they are often true, and neither is more true than the one that both teams deserve their hands on the trophy. In 24 hours the curtain closes, and it is a huge shame that it has to