Has Lady Luck deserted holders Barcelona as their players suggested or did Rubin Kazan coach Kurban Berdyev and his players pull off the tactical masterstroke that has eluded so many others since Pep Guardiola took over at the Nou Camp at the start of last season?

It was probably a bit of both that led to Barca’s 2-1 defeat on Tuesday, their first Champions League reverse in 10 matches and a first home defeat in any competition since they lost to Osasuna last May when they had already secured the La Liga title.

The match was reminiscent of last season’s semi-final first leg against Chelsea, when the visitors defended stoutly in numbers and several times came close to grabbing a goal on the break.

Rubin went one better than the London club, exploiting the indifferent form and lack of pace of Barca’s Mexican central defender Rafael Marquez for Gokdeniz Karadeniz’s excellent winner on the counter attack.

The wily Berdyev, an intensely private man, watched impassively from the sidelines fingering his prayer beads, and Barca’s rivals, both in Spain and beyond, will doubtless try to learn from his success.

Whatever the reasons for Barca’s shock defeat, the hacks at the Madrid-based sports sheets were rubbing their hands on Wednesday, gleefully pointing to last weekend’s goalless draw at Valencia in La Liga and proclaiming the demise of Guardiola’s record-breaking side.

“Russian revolution at the Nou Camp!” trumpeted Marca.

“The ‘Pep Team’ lost their identity and were unable to produce the rhythm the match required. This Barca is not the champion,” was the headline in As.

The Barcelona-based papers preferred to focus on the fact that the European champions remain top of Group F after three out of six matches and have their fate in their own hands ahead of the trips to Kazan and Dynamo Kiev and Inter Milan’s visit to the Nou Camp.

“Crisis? What crisis?” asked Gabriel Sans in El Mundo Deportivo. “Barca have lost some fluidity and tactical freshness but their fate still depends on their own results.

“The glass is half full and they’ll drain it in Russia and drink to the health of whoever wants it.”

“Damn woodwork!” wrote Sport, referring to Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s acrobatic volley that shook the crossbar in the second half and Yaya Toure’s header at the death that crashed against a post.

Guardiola seemed to take the loss in his stride, although he had a minor altercation with a Russian journalist at the post-match news conference when he was bizarrely asked if he even knew Berdyev’s name.

“This is why football is special,” he said of the match. “In any other sport, with our statistics, we would have won.”

PHOTO: Barcelona’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic reacts as Rubin Kazan’s Vital Kaleshin (R) gestures during their Champions League soccer match at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, October 20, 2009. REUTERS/Albert Gea

Manchester United palpably failed to become the first team to retain the European Cup in the Champions League era but few would bet against Barcelona managing the feat next season.

And where would be the perfect place for Pep Guardiola’s stylish side to achieve it? The Nou Camp? No, next year’s final is in Madrid and the Barca fans I spoke to in Rome after the game could not think of a better venue to show their rivals and world football that they are undisputed kings.

May 22 next year is a long time to wait for the first Saturday final but Guardiola will quickly turn his attention to that quest once he recovers from all-night revelry. (When he was hurled into the air by his players during the on-pitch celebrations, he looked a little scared their weary limbs would not support him).

What’s scarier still is that Barca easily overcame United 2-0 without needing to play especially well.

Barca were definitely not at their best in the semi-final with Chelsea and yet still they went on to complete the first ever Spanish treble.

Guardiola is 38 and in his first season in charge. He must think this management game is easy, and I guess it can be when you have players of the class of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta. (Were Inieista and Henry ever really doubts for the final? They looked in fine fettle to me)

Their 6-2 thrashing of Real recently just shows what they are like when they are really on form.

Perhaps they’ll leave their best performance for the Bernabeu again next year…

PHOTO: REUTERS/Tony Gentile

When you consider the importance Barcelona attaches to its Catalan identity, and the number of great local players the club has produced, it seems strange that Catalan coaches, or at least first team coaches, have had so little influence.

There have been a few, from Roma Forns back in 1927 through Josep Samitier, the great former player, and more recently the likes of Llorenc Serra Ferrer (actually Mallorquin) and Charly Rexach.

But when you think back tn coaches who stamped their personalities on the club, who marked an era, you think of outsiders like Helenio Herrera, Rinus Michels, Johan Cruyff, Louis van Gaal, perhaps, and Frank Rijkaard.

That’s what makes this season’s triumphs under Pep Guardiola so important to the club.

In less than a season in charge, Guardiola, who is about as Catalan as you can get, has reacquainted the team with the values he grew up with as a trainee at La Masia and the club have reaped the rewards with the Spanish league and cup already secured and a place in the Champions League final against Manchester United to look forward to.

Barcelona may very well lose that final against United and, who knows, with a resurgent Real Madrid under Florentino Perez things may not go this well for them for a long time.

But I get the feeling that whatever happens, Guardiola is set for a long spell in charge, whether as first team coach or perhaps in the future as some kind of sporting director.

Why? Because the more I think about it, what I think Guardiola has achieved is to give the club back its ’seny’.

Seny is a Catalan word and a Catalan concept. It stands for what the Catalans see as their native good sense, as opposed to the emotional lack of sense, or sensibleness, you might find in Andalucia or elsewhere on the peninsula — the ‘Latin” Spanishness the tourist board used to promote, all bullfights, flamenco dancers and sangria.

It’s a quality Barcelona seemed to lose during the time I was living and working there, when Van Gaal was winding the fans up as much as his team delighted them, and when the wily Josep Lluis Nunez handed over the presidency to Joan Gaspart, who often seemed to be running the club as a fan would.

Fortunes improved under Joan Laporta, who signed Ronaldinho, stood by Frank Rijkaard and presided over the club’s second European Cup win in 2006. Yet still, it seemed that players like Ronaldinho, Deco and Samuel Eto’o were bigger than the collective, bigger than the club even, and it is only since Guardiola took over that the Barcelona team has started to reflect the Barcelona identity.

It helps, of course, that the nucleus of the squad is Catalan (Xavi, Puyol, Valdes, Pique), augmented by players who were born outside the region but were educated at the club (Iniesta, Messi).

Under Guardiola, Barcelona have played some irresistible, at times mesmerising football and now stand as probably the most admired team in Europe.

Yet for all the pretty patterns practised on the training ground and deployed to such effect, that Catalan seny has its place too.

Guardiola showed it when he complained so vocally about the refereeing in the Champions League semi-final first leg against Chelsea. “How is it that the team that played all the football ended up with the same number of cards as the opposition,” he wondered aloud.

That was characterised as moaning by much of the press but I suspect it was a calculated message Guardiola was sending out.

And which team would you say saw the refereeing decisions go their way in the second leg?

PHOTO: Barcelona supporters celebrate after their team won the Spanish first division title for the 19th time at Barcelona’s Ramblas May 17, 2009. REUTERS/Albert Gea

There were nervous moments for Barcelona in the first half of the King's Cup final but a three-goal nine-minute burst from Lionel Messi, Bojan Krkic and Xavi helped them to a 4-1 win over Athletic Bilbao and the first leg of a possible treble.

The league title could be their this weekend, on Saturday if Real Madrid fail to win at Villarreal or failing that on Sunday if they can manage a point at Real Mallorca.

The big one, of course, is the Champions League final against Manchester United on May 27 in Rome.

United are on the brink of their third successive Premier League title after leaving it late to beat Wigan Athletic on Wednesday.

So the two best teams in Europe kept the winning habit ... and who will triumph when they meet later this month remains deliciously difficult to call.

PHOTO: Barcelona players celebrate Yaya Toure's goal against Athletic Bilbao during their King's Cup final at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia, May 13, 2009. REUTERS/Heino Kalis

Thierry Henry did not enjoy the happiest of starts to his new life in Barcelona but it’s clicked for the Frenchman this term.

He plays more as a winger than a striker under Pep Guardiola yet he’s still managed 15 league goals this season and the Premier League certainly seems a poorer place without him.

Click on the video above to see Owen Wyatt emerge blinking into the Canary Wharf sunlight to discuss Henry’s current form, and why you shouldn’t leave your car parked anywhere near the Barcelona training ground.

And if you’ve got any thoughts on Henry please let us know in the comments or, if you’re feeling adventurous, in a vlog of your own. Personally, I put his return to form down to cooking and Cluedo.

Barcelona have made the best start to the Spanish league season by any club since Bobby Robson’s 1996-97 vintage scored 30 goals in their first nine games.

Under Pep Guardiola, the Catalans have amassed 28 goals from nine league matches, winning their last seven to move to the head of the standings.

They have let in just eight, joint lowest in the league with Villarreal and Sevilla.

But looking back through the stats, you can see why Guardiola is so cautious (”We’re top with 87 points still to play for,” he said at the weekend.)

That 96-97 Barcelona team, featuring Ronaldo and Guardiola, won the European Cup Winners’ Cup but still managed to come second to Real Madrid in the league, despite scoring 102 goals in their 38 matches to Real’s 85.

With that in mind, you can see why Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw with Basel suited Guardiola just fine (apart from the injury to Iniesta). (more…)

Thierry Henry is in danger of playing a peripheral role in Pep Guardiola’s new look Barcelona with his continued failure to find his feet in Spain.

The France striker missed Sunday’s 6-1 rout of Sporting Gijon due to a throat infection, and that leaves Guardiola with a tough choice as to whether to keep a team that claimed a first league win of the season, or continue rotating his players for Wednesday’s visit of Real Betis.

The latter is the most likely course of events with a derby against Espanyol coming up at the weekend and a Champions League trip to face Shakhtar Donetsk next week.

But the question remains, should Henry feature in Guardiola’s best starting XI?

Against Sporting, who admittedly are bottom of the table, Barca were outstanding. Their pressuring of opponents when they didn’t have the ball was impressive, and when they did hold possession they were a delight to watch.

Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto’o are first choices up front, while Andres Iniesta appears to have filled the space on the left vacated by Ronaldinho with aplomb, creating and scoring goals. Iniesta’s versatility means he can play in a variety of positions, but he will always play.

With Xavi and a holding player like Yaya Toure or Seydou Keita almost guaranteed places, Henry is in effect competing with one of the youth team products Guardiola seems keen to blood in the side.

Winger Pedro Rodriguez and midfielder Sergio Busquets have won over the home fans, something Henry has yet to achieve after a year in Barcelona. Aleksandr Hleb’s injury means his former Arsenal team mate doesn’t enter the equation just yet.

Is Henry simply going to be first-change striker behind Eto’o, competing with another fan favourite Bojan Krkic? It’s looking that way.