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After Barcelona’s comprehensive victory over Manchester United in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League, the Catalan giants have now set their sights on an in-form Liverpool team.
Thanks in large part to the little magician Lionel Messi as well as an uncharacteristic goalkeeping blunder from David de Gea, Barcelona will be bidding to reach the Champions League final for a ninth time.
All the plaudits were deservedly for Messi, but the performance of their veteran defensive midfielder Sergio Busquets was a performance worth taking note of.
Thirty-year-old Busquets made his full Barcelona debut at the Camp Nou in 2008 in a 1-1 draw in La Liga against Racing de Santander.
Since then, Busquets has achieved everything there is to achieve at both club and international level, making over 500 appearances for Barcelona and earning more than 100 caps for Spain.
Busquets’ list of accolades would make any footballer in the world drool – La Liga crowns, Champions League trophies, FIFA World Cup titles, Copa del Rey triumphs, the list goes on.
Barcelona’s success can be attributed to how well Busquets protects his defence.
Not known for his goal-scoring prowess, Busquets has won 81 tackles so far in La Liga this season and more impressively has completed a staggering 91 per cent of his passes.
“With the ball he made what is difficult look easy: he disposes of the ball with one or two touches,” Barca legend Johan Cruyff said of Busquets.
“Without the ball, he gives us a lesson: that of being in the right place to intercept and running just to recover the ball.”
Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets looms as a danger man for Liverpool in their Champions League semi-final after Barca trounced Manchester United in the quarters. (Photo by Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
A closer look at his performance against Manchester United would send chills down the spines of Liverpool fans.
Of the 103 passes made by Busquets, 96 per cent were successfully completed. Only the superhuman performance of Jordi Alba completed a higher proportion of successful passes (97 per cent).
Looking ahead to the Champions League semi-final, Liverpool would be wise to take note of the following statistics and try to come up with a game plan to deal with Busquets as well as Messi and co.
Busquets has played in ten matches in Barcelona’s Champions League campaign, which equates to an unbelievable 855 minutes. He has only picked up two yellow cards, showing how effective a tackler he is.
His passing accuracy in the Champions League to date is 93 per cent, completing 783 of his 834 attempted passes.
And to top it all off, he has completed 19 successful tackles while recovering a total of 61 balls.
Busquets’ statistics this season are incredible, as in most of his seasons, and what makes it even more amazing is that he is able to perform at this level week in and week out for Barcelona.
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