There was a hint of panic to Gazzetta dello Sport’s front-page headline on Monday morning. “Wake up, (Paulo) Dybala,” commanded Italy’s iconic pink paper. “(Lionel) Messi is here.”
You could understand the concern. It’s not every day that a five-time Ballon d’Or winner rolls into town. Gazzetta could hardly have known that Messi was here only for a cameo appearance, the “also starring” at the end of a glitzy cast list.
The Argentinian had not begun a game on the bench for Barcelona in more than a year. He had played every minute for the Catalans in both La Liga and the Champions League this season. Messi did miss out on the first leg of his team’s Copa del Rey clash with Murcia, but only because he was serving a suspension.
Why would Ernesto Valverde leave him out against such prestigious opposition? The underwhelming truth is that beating Juventus simply wasn’t a top priority. Barcelona has seven more games to come in the next four-and-a-half weeks, a run that begins with a trip to second-placed Valencia on Sunday and ends with El Clasico on Dec. 23.
Any slip-up domestically would be costly. Even a defeat to Juventus, by contrast, was unlikely to mean a great deal. True enough, the Italians could have pulled level on points with Barcelona in Champions League Group D, but they would have needed to win by more than three goals to go top, since that was the margin they lost by at the Camp Nou in September.
And so, what should have been the most alluring game in this midweek round was instead reduced to something more mundane. Barcelona without Messi is, on this evidence at least, a Michelin-starred dinner with no seasoning. All the elements still look alluring on the plate, but they add up to something rather bland.
No team is duty bound to entertain and the 0-0 final scoreline Barcelona secured in Turin – with Messi eventually entering as a 56th-minute substitute – guaranteed it first place in the group. The onus was on Juventus to exploit a team missing its star player. Instead, the Bianconeri were meek.
Some 224 days have passed since Dybala’s brace set Juventus on course to a 3-0 win over Barcelona in the quarter-finals of last season’s competition. It was supposed to be a coming-of-age moment, a young superstar stepping out of his compatriot’s shadow. Pundits called Dybala the “new Messi.” He preferred to be seen as the first version of himself.
Dybala has never been shy of ambition. As he told France Football in an interview published this week, “When I was little, after school, as summer arrived, we used to gather around a bonfire. One time, we took turns to make a wish. I said that I wanted to become the best footballer in the world, and therefore to win the Ballon d’Or.”
He is closer than he’s ever been, named to the award’s 30-man shortlist last month. And yet, that prize still feels a long way off on a night such as this one.
With Messi offstage until this game’s final act, Dybala had a chance to steal the show. Instead, he gave us only a handful of compelling scenes: a mazy dribble which culminated in a wayward shot late in the first half, then a low drive that demanded a good save from Marc-Andre ter Stegen at the end of the second.
In that same conversation with France Football, Dybala’s interviewer asked whether he might one day engage in a great rivalry with Neymar – as Messi has done with Cristiano Ronaldo. The Juventus player confessed he liked the idea, but acknowledged he had a lot of catching up to do first.
Neymar scored twice on Wednesday, helping Paris Saint-Germain to a 7-1 romp past Celtic. The Brazilian has five goals and three assists in four Champions League appearances this season. Dybala has none of either. He has not scored in this competition since that spell-binding performance against Barcelona in the spring.
Comparisons with Messi were always futile, if inevitable. It isn’t within Dybala’s powers to contain the hype that surrounds him as a young No. 10 on one of Europe’s most prestigious teams. We have no reason, in any case, to believe he’s distracted by his own celebrity. Dybala has always been a hard worker, prepared to put in the long hours required to reach his own lofty goals.
The onus is on Juventus now to help him deliver on his promise. Barcelona built its greatest teams around Messi. If the Italian champion truly believes, as CEO Beppe Marotta hinted before kick-off, that it’s found a comparable talent, then it must have the courage to do the same.
Perhaps Juventus ought to have been brave enough, too, to go all-out for a victory on this occasion. Even in defeat, Juventus would still have stayed second in the group, ahead of Sporting by virtue of head-to-head results. A win in its final game would still have been guaranteed to send them through.
The reward on offer for a victory, meanwhile, was significant: a chance to tie up qualification early, and offer the outside possibility of climbing into first place. Better yet, the possibility to sew a seed of doubt in Barcelona’s mind about whether that decision to leave Messi on the bench really was the right decision after all.
(Photos courtesy: Getty Images)
