Strategy Op. Ed.

Frank Rijkaard, "Self-management", organizational ecology

Ever since I wrote the FC Barcelona case, "FC Barcelona: Changing the Rules of the Game" about the Laporta successful turnaround, I have been fascinated by the hailstorm that accompanies even the smallest shifts in the club's fortune.

This week Head Coach Frank Rijkaard is against the ropes. This is the same Rijkaard who won a Champions' League title and two Spanish league titles. But this year, with Real Madrid ahead of Barcelona in the League standings, Rijkaard has been accused of losing control of the locker room, in particular Ronaldinho, Barcelona's official "galáctico" mega-star.

The accusastions turned to crisis when Edmilson, another of the Barcelona's Brazilian player, a mature solid player but not a star, told a reporter that there were "black sheep" in the lockerroom, and questioned Rijkaard management. Rijkaard, it seems, treats his players as adults and prefers "self-management" to imposition. The result, according to Edmilson, is chaos.

Those who want Rijkaard's head say that his "management style" is not appropriate in a club where Ronaldinho is not playing well and may have personal problems (another of Edmilson's revelations); more importantly, though FC Barcelona is said to have the best team in the world, the Club seems to lack direction on the field at times and there are uncharacteristic defensive lapses. The critics want someone who will put some discipline back. They don't believe that Rijkaard is the man to do it.

Which brings us back to an old problem that we have discussed before, but which I want to give a slightly new take on. There is a wide-spread belief that each Head Coach comes with a simple straight-forward management style and coaching recipe. Accordingly, choosing the Head Coach is contingent on the players and the chemistry in a particular moment. This cross-sectional approach to leadership has lead to firing Head Coaches as soon as they lose a few games. No one seems to care why it is happening, whether the loses are triggered by a couple of injuries, a few bad games, a bit of bad luck, enemies and the press looking for blood and a story or, the unlikely case that the Head Coach is a lousy coach. Given the way coaches rotate from team to team, it hardly appears that qualification and skill are at issue; it seems to be all about contingent fit.

All this assumes that Rijkaard has the cognitive and behavioral flexibility of a hedgehog. The animal grunts and that's that. It is as if the self were a socially constituted fact as unchangeable as the rotation of the earth.

This week with my Doctor in Business Administration strategy seminar, we studied organizational ecology and institutional theory. Together, the two theories tell us that industries are born and die principally because of their inability to adapt to the environment; and individual firms are born to innovate and die because they develop routines and rigidities that are inevitably inadaptive. We can say pretty much the same for individuals, as well.

At the level of the individual, ecological determinism confuses personality traits with behavior. Personality traits are relatively fixed by a certain age, but behavior need not be. New information is taken and processed within the parameters defined by the individual's cognitive limitations, but how the information is later used is dependent on the interaction of that information with the repertoire of behaviors the individual has developed. An individual with a rich set of behaviors may be capable of a wide range of responses to a new situation and new information precise because he or she has identifiable, strong personality traits. The traits are not just a limitation, they also permit us to have a style, a way of doing things, that at least in some people has real breadth, depth, and flexibility. In other words, we are capable of change and of intentional behavior that may vary from previous behaviors.

Tragedy, Greek or Shakespearian or Bushian, is based on a deterministic response driven by a man's (or woman's) character. In the words of Heraclitus, "A man's character is his fate." But character may be large, varied and generous, full of possibilities, or it may be small, monotone and stingy. Greek and Shakespearian tragedy are cautionary tales, reminding us that small, monotone and stingy men and women dominate the species.

Such things are a question of character. Rijkaard prefers to manage players as young persons free to build their own character, and that given freedom to do so, most players will chose responsibility. It is a noble idea, but like all noble ideas it may not work in all situations. In the current circumstances, Rijkaard's preferred management style may not work. We shall see how large a behavioral repertoire Rijkaard has.

But, as always, all does not depend on Rijkaard nor the players. There are others, principally FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta, who can decide Rijkaard's fate even before we get to see what Rijkaard is capable of doing. As a strategist, my interest is in seeing Rijkaard play this out.

Rijkaard ... strategist?

Last Thursday, February 15th, Laporta gots a thumbs-up in this blog as a strategist, Cryuff was characterized as a trouble-maker, and Rijkaard was left to think about what to do about Eto'o, about leadership, and the cold art of startegy.

A week later, we have the result. The leader lost Eto'o, and the strategist lost the home leg of the Champions' League round with Liverpool. Rijkaard failed. But before we condemn the man, remember that there are good failures and bad failures. Good failures set the ground for future success, the bad ones sink you deeper into a hole.

Yesterday's loss to Liverpool looks like a hole-digger. FC Barcelona did not have Eto'o available when they needed him, because Rijkaard closed his options when he left Eto'o out of eligible players list for the game. Whatever message his action was meant to send, it did not work.

Such failures lead others to fantasize about "what ifs". What if Eto'o had come on to play the second half, would Ronaldinho would have given him another hug just as he when Eto'o returned to training, Eto'o's insult still front page news? Would this second hug been just as firm? Would it have been what Ronaldinho needed to got his game together that night, would he and Eto'o and Iniesta and Messi ... ?

Some of you may be accusing me of idle and unfair speculation. But I remember writing not long ago about what would happen if Madrid were losing in their Champions' League round last Tuesday and Capello looked down the bench and there was no body there, no Ronaldo. That was idle speculation, too. But, alas, what did happen was not far off. Instead of losing, Real Madrid was winning 3-1, and they needed someone to would put an end to any chance that Bayern of Munich could come back on the return leg.

For a measly 8 million Euros, Real Madrid did not have 20 minutes of Ronaldo to finish the job. Instead, they retreated, Bayern scored. Now it's 3-2 and the club faces a trip to Munich that promises to be very very difficult indeed.

So there we have it. FC Barcelona in a nice-sized hole, but with possible recourse to Eto'o; Real Madrid with its feet flat on the ground, but no Ronaldo, and a bunch of slow guys with a lot to worry about.

Laporta Strategist; Johann Cryuff Falls Off His Cycle; What About Rijkaard?

Today, in El Economista here in Spain, they quote me on Eto'o and the supposed crisis at Futbol Club Barcelona. In general, the article is pretty good, but I was misquoted on an important point, I did not say that "the players are all look at each other to see who puts his foot in it"; rather I said "the millions outside are watching 24 hours a day to see who puts his foot in it and make it into a hot-selling story".

Now to what we really talked about:

As most of you know, following a severe injury, Samuel Eto'o, arguably the best forward in the world, returned to FC Barcelona angry, had a contretemp with his coach, Frank Rijkaard, insulted Ronaldinho. This was front page news in Spain. In the meantime; Johann Cruyff, football great, former FC Barcelona coach, and supposed mastermind behind the ascension of Laporta and the club's success, declares that the team at the end of a "cycle" and needs renovation. Finally, yesterday Eto's and Ronaldinho hug, Laporta says everything is o.k., the press says that Rikjaard is made a fool.

Now to what I said ... plus a couple of extra comments.

1. Two cracks like Eto'o and Ronaldinho can live on the same team. In fact, in basketball, you really don't win with just one superstar, you need two. O'Neal + Bryant, Jordan + Pippen, O'Neal + Wade, Magic Johnson + Abdul-Jabber, etc. In fact, you often need two superstars + one great role player, Jordan + Pippen + Rodman.

2. Laporta appears to have done exactly what he had to: consider Eto'o's fit the expression of an enormous tension produced by the stress of a severe injury and not anything more important.

3. Ronaldinho figures he needs Eto'o to win another Champions' League and go down as one of the greats of all time. Smart guy.

4. Cruyff falls off his cycle, opening up his mouth when no one needs it or is interested. He is not the mastermind behind the success of FC Barcelona. Besides, he's wrong, this is still a young team. By the way, Sandro Rosell's response to what happened was mature and measured. Good job.

5. Rikjaard would like to find a way to get Eto'o to admit he was wrong to have insulted his coach and other players in public. This is going to be difficult. If Eto'o does not apologize, there is not much he can do right now except win the Champions' League and the Spanish League. If he wins both, they'll call him a genius, the next Phil Jackson. If FC Barcelona gets knocked out in the next round of the Champions' League and the club comes in second or third in the Spanish League, he's finished as coach of FC Barcelona.

6. Eto'o should apologize for insulting everyone. He can do it laughing, he can do it in a off-hand manner. He can do it serious. He can do it anyway he wants. He should just do it.

Why Some of Us Don't Have Emotional Intelligence, or, What I Have in Common with Samuel Eto'o

The marketing people have been asking me to write a more "personal" blog, and I have refused on the grounds that who I am is irrelevant, what matters are the words on the page (I don't "do" audio). They also have asked me to link up my blog to other blogs through citations, trackbacks and other sundry blogspace tricks, to build up my network and my technorati rating. I refuse to do this as well, arguing that I don't really write for anyone at all, not even for me. I say foolish, emotionally unintelligent things like: "I write because I write."

This, the marketing people wisely find incomprehensible. I sympathize with them as I find it incomprensible as well: irrational in the economic and the psychology sense. I am also irritated by my inability to understand why I find all this incomprehensible, and I react badly, sullen and distant, demonstrating a severe emotional intelligence deficit.

Why is it, we might ask, that a reasonably intelligent person like me is "emotionally intelligence challenged"? The truth is, I "have issues" with emotional intelligence, and find my colleagues at work with high levels of emotional intelligence irritating. As I see it, emotional intelligence at work is actually nothing more or less than an imperiously over-developed self-control that suppresses the 6 other characteristics that Daniel Goleman claims are part of emotional intelligence.

(An important aside: It is not really necessary to say "at work" when talking about emotional intelligence because no one I know has ever experienced or seen emotional intelligence in their personal lives.)

At work, then, CEO's, especially those who have embraced "stewardship", are universally admired for their emotional intelligence (i.e., control), and for the ease with which they explain how their companies' core values and the great people that work at their great companies make their companies different from all other great companies.

Emotional intelligence is not limited just to CEOs, fortunately. Many other actual and aspiring leaders value and cultivate emotional intelligence. They know that this is what expected if one is to get to the top. I, and those like me, of course, know that we will never get to the top because we lack that the self-control gene. Many of my friends have suffered for this, and engaged in meditation, yoga, and other forms of self-flagellation in an attempt to acquire the self-control gene without which emotional intelligence can not flourish ... only to find that despite enjoying enormously the fun and games of seeking self-control that they have hardly improved at all and that their colleagues at work still consider them too immature to be top management material.

There is an out, however, an escape. You can, once you reach the top, decide to be your emotionally immature self. This then makes you "creative", and the driving force behind the entrepreneurial success of the firm. Of course, at the first hint of failure, your "creativity" will miraculously be converted once again into emotional un-intelligence and you will be banished.

Samuel Eto'o, the Cameroon football star playing for FC Barcelona, has figured this all out. This week he's gone on a binge insulting coaches and players. They are all dishonest and dishonorable, and he's sure he's right about everything. Maybe he is. But we will never know. So what? What everyone is concerned about is Eto's severe disjunction of emotions and intelligence. The emotions do what they are supposed to do, and the intelligence does what it's supposed to do, and the two ignore each other. The result is a frenzy of sincerity that's borderline Tourette's syndrome. It's entertaining for those who are not involved, but for the people around him it's hell. It's especially so for his coach, Frank Rikjaard, and FC Barcelona President, Joan Laporta, of whom everyone expects emotional intelligence, though what they really would like to do is give him a kick in the butt to straighten him out.

As for Eto'o, he like me. When he realizes that he's made a mess, he is of two minds. On the one hand, he is angry with himself for his lack of control; on the other hand, he is proud of himself for saying what he really feels. An emotionally intelligent person knows that this is ridiculous and, Falstaffian foolishness aside, that discretion truly is the better part of valor. But not Eto'o. Not me.

Eto'o, who is 26, is a young man with an excuse. I am wondering what mine is. Discretion tells me that I ought not post this blog, but the disconnect in me wants to do it. My excuse is that I am just explaining why I don't write personal blogs and that I don't have to do this ever again.

Real Madrid's POST-Ronaldo Strategy

In my last sad post on Real Madrid, "Real Madrid's Ronaldo Strategy", I claimed that the club's hope was to make it through the first round of the Champions' League and save the season. Hope has become Calderón's, Mijatovic's, Capello's prayer: May we make it through the next game, then the next round of the Champions' League, may we thus save our jobs.

Alas, things do not look good. A year ago, I claimed that there were only four players on the Real Madrid team that could even win a spot on the FC Barcelona roster -- Casillas, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos and Sergio Ramos. The only starter would be Casillas. Ronaldo is no longer in the picture, and his replacements are hardly the stuff of victory.

It is easy to see how things got so bad, but not so easy to fix. Yesterday, Mijatovic, in a news conference, said things were difficult, but not catastrophic. He said that Real Madrid's troubles were typical of clubs in "change of cycle". The "cycle" theory of sports clubs in built around the idea that you put a great club together and win championships. That produces stars who get long contracts and then hang on until they are useless. The Club starts to lose, things fall apart, and it takes a few years to put thing back on track.

Unfortunately, some clubs, like the NBA's New York Knicks (my club, of course) having been wandering in the desert for more than a decade. In short, there is no guarantee that Real Madrid will be back on track soon.  As more money comes into Spanish League, the number of clubs with viable projects increases, and the need for professional management grows. There is no reason to believe that Real Madrid will be better next year than FC Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia or Atlético de Madrid. It is perfectly possible that a copycat Abramovich will appear to buy a Spanish club and create another competitor.

Then, again, miracles sometimes happen. Capellos' brilliant plan to motivate the galáticos through constant public ridicule Roberto Carlos is re-instatiated as the world's best wingback, Raúl regains his touch around the goal, Guti discovers van Nistelrooy. Then Gago makes the fans go ga-ga, Diarra takes command of the mid-field...

Real Madrid's Ronaldo Strategy

This morning, I was called by a reporter from Handelsblatt, what some like to call Germany's Wall Street Journal. They wanted to know what I thought of Real Madrid's management and how long I expected President Ramón Calderón and Head Coach Fabio Capello to last. More or less, I said the following.

Everything depends on whether or not Madrid gets through the next round of the Champions' League against Bayern (2/20 and 3/07). If they win, Calderón and Capello will be safe for the rest of the year. If not, the had better be in a position to win the Spanish League or they are history.

I told Handelsblatt that Calderón trashing his players is irrelevant, as is Capello's dumping and humiliation of the old "galáticos, as is the apparent absence of any strategy whatsoever.None of it matters, if, and it's THE BIG IF, the club wins this one vital home-and-away Champions' League series.

As strategists, we may not like much betting everything on one event, but we know the rules of the game. We do our scenario analysis, starting with the worst case. Here it goes. Imagine this:

March 7th ... the return game at Bayern ... minute 70. If Real Madrid scores they win on away game goal count. But if they don't score, they're out of the Champions' League. Capello looks down the bench. There's no Ronaldo; in fact, all there is a bunch of kids from the junior clubs and a 19 year old French-Argentinian, Higuaín, and Raúl, the superannuated superstar. There's no Ronaldo. Ronaldo, who months ago was worth 20 million € and was sold to Milan at a garage-sale price of 6 million €, just happens to be Milan's leading goal scorer. Ronaldo -- fat, happy, and smiling.

Imagine Capello, looking for a job. Imagine Calderón begging forgiveness. It's not a pretty sight. Imagine another summer with Real Madrid Presidential elections, we grimace as the candidates' promises, we laugh at the tacky posters and chintzy television ads. It's almost as much fun as the 2008 Democratic primaries.

The Apotheosis of David Beckham

It is, no doubt, grandoise to call David Beckham's contract for $250 million with the Los Angeles Galaxy a "defining moment in the 21st century", but I am going to give it try.

If the later half of the 20th century was aptly characterized by Christopher Lasch as "the age of narcissism", we have now moved to a new stage in human affairs in which Narciso's self-contemplation is passé, and the individual now defines himself purely and simply as product.

If this sounds like Karl Marx's version of wage labor to you, forget it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of the proletariat selling their bodies to the capitalists, it is the capitalist entrepreneur who sells his body to the avaricious proletariat in the digital format so desired. It is a fair transaction, transparent and honest. A legitimate exchange along well-defined utility curves.

Of course, David Beckham did not invent this idea. The concept is explained beautifully in Chapter 1 of Robert Grant's Contemporary Strategy Analysis, the standard strategy textbook in many MBA programs. Grant gives three examples of "Person as Product", based on three individuals who developed successful strategies. One of the three is Madonna. Madonna, according to Grant, has for several decades managed her "self" with remarkable skill. She has continually reinvented her image and her music to meet market demands; she has used her "personal" life to promote her business success (i.e., she sleeps with and marries those men who best advance her career); and she never, absolutely never, confuses art with business. She properly defines herself and success in life in E.V.A. (economic value added).

It may be fair to say that David Beckham lacks Madonna's intelligence and guile. This may be because, unlike Madonna, he was a childhood success. All Beckham ever wanted to be was a football player, and he was a star by the time he had reached the age of reason. He was, as a narcissistic adolescent, a successful athelete, skilled and in love with the game This is the Beckham imagined in "Bend It Like Beckham" -- the child and young man in love with himself who hour after hour practiced free kicks and discovered parabolas previously unknown to physics. Beckham had what coaches like to call a great "work ethic". You can still see it when Beckham is on the field. He plays hard, as he always has, the way he was taught. He plays hard because it feels good. This is something everyone who has played competitive sports understands.

But then Beckham discovered that his body itself was worth more money than he could possibly imagine, and that he could be packaged and sold. Of course, not everyone likes the idea. They prefer the "young and innocent" Beckham playing for the "love of the sport", subjugating his commercial self to the beauty of the game. Alex Ferguson, his former coach at Manchester United, found Beckham's conversion to product status an affront to the team and the sport. He blamed Beckham's wife, Victoria Adams, for Beckham's transformation, but he was wrong. It is probable that Beckham was drawn to Adams precisely because Adams, one of the Spice Girls, was herself a product. Products provide sensation and pleasure. Products are the embodiment of rational behavior. It is an adult answer to the narcissistic joy and suffering of adolescence. It is horrifyingly mature.

Beckham felt no guilt at turning himself into a product. He convinced himself that he could have both the romance of sport and the reason of money. Together, they were destined to win a dozen Champions' League.

It was not to be. Beckham's new $250 million contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy enshrines market rationality at the expense of romance. Alongside Beckham the product, the irrational and narcissistic adolescent self is but a superannuated Greek tragedy. The 30-something Beckham is beautiful and gaudy, better than a human, better than an android, better than replicant. Beside David Beckham, Darryl Hannah flipping handsprings and clamping on a headlock on Harrison Ford in Bladerunner is a crude chunk of reality. Next to David Beckham, Keanu Reaves spinning off of walls and zapping virtual enemies in Matrix is just a lame metaphysical 20th century stab at making sense of the world. Mr. Beckham will have none of this nonsense. David Beckham is to the human body what the new city of Shanghai is to market transaction.

Hyperbole is fun. But alas, words, like soccer balls, must thud to the ground. I learned of Beckham's galactic contract with The L.A. Galaxy while watching the news on CNN. I had turned on the television for President Bush's news conference on his new strategy for Iraq. I listened attentively, listened to Democrats' lame response, listened to the bleak, depressing, endless discussion that followed because is was my duty, until the calming monotony was interrupted by "breaking news" ... David Beckham to leave Real Madrid ... Los Angeles Galaxy $250 million 5-year contract. David Beckham would to turn the United States from nation of soccer moms to soccer consumers.

The news break lasted about 30 seconds before CNN turned back to analyzing the President's new strategy that was, of course, the same old failed strategy. President Bush had spoken from the Presidential Library, behind him shelves of books that he once proudly claimed not to read. Someone joked that the books were props with nothing inside them. But I knew that the books were real, just as the deaths and mangled body parts of the Americans and Iraqis were real. And I realized for the first time how profoundly President Bush had consumed America's romantic vision of itself on the same day that David Beckham came falsely promising to return romance to us.

I felt pained watching Beckham. And it occured to me, as it occurs to you, how much better we liked young David Beckham's imaginary romance to George W. Bush's real imagined world. We slip Bend It Like Beckham into the DVD, and we share the adolescent's joy in herself ... the football arching above the leaping defender and the goalie vainly reaching, the gloved outstretched hand flogging the air ... the narcissistic romantic triumph that we all once believed in.

The inexplicable inexistence of Real Madrid

After losing at home 3-0 to lowly Recreativo of Huelva, Real Madrid's much heralded coach, Fabio Capello, appeared to be nonplussed. "The team's play," he said, "was inexplicable ... no energy, no desire, no quality." Capello called his team "inexistent."

The inexplicable and the inexistent are difficult concepts to work from, especially for a coach like Capello, who likes his football vertical and tough.

To help Capello out, I would like to propose three possible, not necessarily mutually exclusive, explanations for the inexplicable inexistence of Real Madrid: 1) Real Madrid's front office is making a mess; 2) The other teams have better players, or at least the players they have fit together into better teams; 3) The Coach is incompetent, or not the right fit, or, his system is not the right fit for the Spanish football league;

Let's start with the front office. Real Madrid is a social club with an elected President, Ramón Calderón, who receives no pay, and who is not expected to be an expert in football. This means that he ought to keep his nose out of managing the club and make sure, in his role of non-executive board chairman, that the team's front office people are the best in the business.

When Calderón ran for President this past summer, his "running mate" for General Manager was Pedja Mijatovic, a gifted, intense former player. So far I have seen nothing to persuade me that Mr. Mijatovic is, or will be, an outstanding general manager. The rather bizarre pattern of player signings is troublesome. So far, Real Madrid has contracted older players (Emerson and Carnivaro), young players unlikely to do very much in the short run (e.g., Gago), negotiated contract extensions for players who are either have never been stars (e.g., José María Gutiérrez "Guti") or are past their prime (e.g., Robert Carlos).

The pattern of behavior suggests there is no strategic plan, and the more President Calderón is in the limelight, the more likely we are to believe that Mr. Mijatovic is not the right person for the job.

Which brings me to the players themselves. I have been arguing for some time that Real Madrid lacks velocity on defense. Recreativo's forwards, Sinama and Uche, cetainly looked to be a good deal faster than Real Madrid's defenders. Of course, being faster than an inexplicably inexistent team may not be a great achievement. As a team, Real Madrid continually appears to be in slow motion when it plays other top (and in the case of Recreativo, bottom) teams. Real Madrid clearly needs more speed at mid-field and on defense. But as I have been harping on this for months now, I will say no more.

To the coach then. Fabio Capello is clearly competent. He has been a winner whereever he has coached. Mr. Capello needs to chose the players that fit his system. The only other choice is to let the front office sign the players and then find the right coach for the group of players. No great mystery here: We invented contingency theory in management 50 years ago.

So what should we expect to happen? Mr. Capello has finally admitted publicly that Real Madrid needs more speed on defense. That's a start, but Mr. Calderón's high profile incursions into the Argentian market are a serious distraction from solving the problems.

There may be a lack of fit between front office and the coach. The two appear to be pulling in different directions. This also drives the players nuts, and may be contributing to the inexistent team. Our solution: Ramón Calderón should fire Mr. Mijatovic and hire a general manager with greater experience who has the authority to tell President Calderón to get out of his way.

As President Calderón is unlikely to fire Mijatovic or recluse himself, Real Madrid will continue to flounder -- but maybe not for very long. Luckily for the club, Real Madrid has sufficient money and prestige to keep buying players until things get better. It will be expensive, but it will work eventually, assuming that the club continues to have a top flight coach who will put the best squad on the pitch that he can. Capello is certainly capable of this.

The bottom line: Capello will get a few players he doesn't want, he will get a few players he does want, and at some point there will be so much talent running around that they will start winning, and maybe even win something big. Who knows? The club might make it through a couple of rounds of the Champions' League Final 16 and all of sudden Real Madrid's inexplicable inexistence will be transformed into a quite understandable existential joy.

Madrid defeats Barcelona -- Here's Why

Coach Fabio Capello credits a "new attitude" for the victory. He's wrong. As we have preached for some time, attitude is not a substitute for resources. Yesterday evening, Madrid's resources on the field were superior to FC Barcelona's. Last year, as Real Madrid discovered that they did not have the players to win the big games, they learned that even when they played hard, they lost to the better teams. Discouraged, they lost to inferior teams.

Yesterday, Real Madrid won because Capello finally figured out how important speed is. Robinho, as we promised, provided the velocity needed to open the field; Van Nistelroy had space to move, and Raúl returned to being the goal hound he can be when there are other players with bigger and faster players to do the work of getting to the penalty area. Meanwhile, FC Barcelona with Gudjohnsen a disasterous substitute for Eto'o, bogged down in the last 30 meters, and their 4 able "touch" players -- Iniesta, Deco, Xavi Fernández and Ronaldinho -- spent more time bumping into each other more than doing anything else. Thuram, an equally disastrous substitute for Márquez, was out of position on Raúl's goal, and seemed lost the entire evening. Thuram was to provide more speed than Márquez, who had a difficult time with Chelsea's faster forwards. In last night's game, Márquez would not have had the same problem with Raúl or Van Nistelrooy.

Even so, Madrid's defense was porous, Messi broke through almost at will during the first half, and FC Barcelona flubbed numerous occasions, twice with little more to do than push the ball into the net.

Bottom line: the season is long and Madrid lacks depth. For those of you who have asked me if I am a FC Barcelona fan because of the case I wrote with them (i.e., a Real Madrid enemy) the answer is no. I am not a football fan, I am a strategist. Strategically, FC Barcelona has not adapted well to the loss of Eto'o; Gudjohnsen's failure will require another set of strategic adjustments. Strategically, Capello has been slow to recognize that defending field position is no longer a substitute for velocity. Yesterday, the Brazilians saved the day. (Roberto Carlos was outstanding on defense.)

Fútbol Club Barcelona: It's all about velocity

FC Barcelona was defeated handily by Chelsea yesterday evening. FC Barcelona's only real weakness, insufficient speed in its mid-fielders and defense, was the probable cause. Two fundamental strategic truths were made evident Wednesday night.

1) Outstanding opponents exploit your weaknesses; 2) Organizations must respond to changes in the competitive environment.

Football, we have argued on several occasions, has changed dramatically in the last decade, with stronger and faster players, like Chelsea's Drogba, coming to dominate the game. We saw this in American football in the 1960's and 1970's, where two great running backs, Jimmy Brown and O.J. Simpson, and a bevy of wide receivers brought Olympic sprinter speed and power to the offense. Inevitably, defenses countered by bringing in players with the same skill set to the defensive back position.

FC Barcelona has not reponded to this change in the competitive environment. A number of commentators, include myself, warned about the lack of speed on defensive last spring when Henry made life miserable for Barcelona. To make matters worse, the loss of Eto'o has deprived Barcelona of its only real scoring forward, whose speed also placed limits on opponents ability to counter-attack.

Barcelona's loss yesterday has ratcheted up the noise about this weekend's game with Real Madrid. Real Madrid still has too many slow old guys playing a young fast guys' game. The success of Robinho, Diarrà and Reyes is vital to Real Madrid's recuperation; If they play well, that makes space for veteran role players.

So much for the obvious. We will see what happens on Sunday.