Former Barcelona defender and Coach Josep Seguer has reflected on the positional quandary at centre-back affecting his old club.
The veteran, who won five League titles during the 1940s and 1950s at the Camp Nou, has reflected on the selection headache facing Barca in the heart of defence.
Tito Vilanova has switched full-back Adriano to centre-back in light of the absences of Carles Puyol and Javier Mascherano. Alex Song and Sergio Busquets have also been suggested for filling in.
“Personally against PSG [last week] I would have put a central midfielder in the centre of defence, who is used to fighting,” reflected Seguer to Mundo Deportivo today.
“What matters is not the position of the player, but the interest and effort that he devotes. He can never relax, not where he is located in the field.
“This is not to say that every player can act freely when going down the other end of the field, in my day if a player had to defend at one end and you were responsible for conceding a goal, [Barca Coach Ferdinand] Daucik would be very hard on you and you knew that you would not come back to play the next Sunday.
“This forced you to work hard and put aside your normal position and just focus on getting things right.”
Seguer played alongside Laszlo Kubala at the Camp Nou and was asked of possible comparisons with Lionel Messi today.
“You cannot compare. It’s like trying to equate Messi with the one at Madrid [Cristiano Ronaldo]. Both score goals and continue scoring them, but that’s not going to say that one is better than the other.
“A player does best by the style of his team, and one style will favour one over the other. But if you change the style of play, neither player would be as prominent…
“Kubala’s impact, no doubt stayed with me through my career, because he was a good teammate and player.
“He always showed his enthusiasm for the team to improve. I remember in the dressing room he always said things like ‘come on, now we are here, and if we win on Sunday we can move past this team and move forward’.
“Messi is the best right now and I would say that perhaps he is the best ever. It seems that what he does in just running, cannot be matched.
“I say that you cannot compare him with Cristiano, Ronaldo simply does his thing and that does not bother Messi.
“However, in this duel my preference is clear.”
The 89-year-old was asked of the differing styles Tito Vilanova and Jose Mourinho take to dealing with the media.
“I do not know what Mourinho tells his players nor how he works with them and that after all is what is important. His system is known. We saw him at Barcelona, we already know him and have seen him act.
“The only thing I believe is that, regardless of sporting aspects, his way of doing things certainly does not do any favours to the group that he is managing.”
