Copycats Wanted

Is there really anything more to be said about FC Barcelona? Maybe not, but there are a couple of things I noticed while watching the Champions League final that might be worth registering in pixels. Plus, I have a question. First, it has become conventional wisdom—I have even repeated said wisdom myself —that no one really plays totaalvoetbal anymore, and indeed couldn’t manage it against modern tactical defenses. But I’m reconsidering this belief. Jonathan Wilson commented last year that “Total Football, in its purest form, was pro-active, not reactive, based on the interchange of position and hard pressing.” In that article he was talking about the Dutch influence on the Spanish national side, but the Catalans are even more totaalvoetbalisch (I made that wo...