I have no idea of your background obviously, but you should send some articles in to the site. Really like the idea behind the sentence theory.

On goal-poaching: Ibra’s actually turned out to be a lot less me-me-me inside the box than Eto’o used to be.

On stat-quoting: I only really mentioned that Xavi stat because the Marca-driven “lazy Ibra” meme was all over the place this last week and annoying me greatly. Saying “Yabbut he gives more assists than Xavi!” served me nicely to show just how meaningless plucking stats out of the air ultimately is. (As you rightly suggest, if there was a stat for the key pass rather than the last one, then Xavi would probably turn out to be responsible for 86% of all Barça’s goals since 1995!)

This goal last Saturday is a good example of both the above points: Ibra selflessly lays the ball off to Henry, after receiving the key pass from Xavi. Had that been Messi, he would have chipped the keeper — and scored — for sure.

I have a splendidly pretentious theory about Barcelona: they play grammatical football, with each move like a carefully composed sentence. The players mix it up when it comes to who’s the subject, object, adjective or preposition. But Xavi is always, always the verb.

Finally, in case you missed it, among all the noise about tonight’s match, something quite astonishing (because of who said it) and impressively astute (because it totally nails the Enigma of Ibra) was quietly said yesterday:

[Ibra] has got really great technique for a bad player and really bad technique for a great player.

– Johann Cruyff

No, I’m not quite sure I know what it means either — but isn’t that just Ibra all over?

The stat from Marca was only really meant to kick off the article as opposed to provide the entire focal point. The intention was to investigate into why Ibrahimovic is such an enigmatic character to any lover of football, and the fact that even his staunchest supporter could at least level some criticism at certain performances he has made in big games.

Very interesting point regarding making it big at Barca, and the fact that some talents never do. Would it be ignorant to suggest that given the kind of poaching goals that Ibrahimovic scores, its easier for him to fit in than most, given the service around him?

Great statistic regarding Xavi assists as well, although I would suggest that Xavi’s assists are a greater example of extraordinary football than the kind of assist a striker, any striker, usually gets in the form of a lay-off in the box etc. But maybe that is me just being too critical of Ibra again….

Again, cheers for the comments, need some criticism!

If any criticism is to be levelled against him for his performance in the first leg against Inter, it’s that he failed to do what he usually does as well as, if not better than, Eto’o used to: draw the central defenders away to create gaps for Messi to exploit. But he wasn’t fully fit, as both he and Guardiola have acknowledged, and as a result his positioning was too central and static.

In yesterday’s Liga match he scored one goal (his 21st this season) and gave the assist for another (his 9th – and that’s one more than, ahem, Xavi, fact fans). If, say, Bojan had done the same, people would be calling him a “little genius” rather than calling Ibrahimovic a “lumbering liability”.

Otherwise, I agree with the points made here, but would add that adapting to Barcelona’s relatively weird training and tactical systems – not to mention a club culture that can sometimes verge on the cult-like – usually takes players bought in from abroad a season or two, and it often never happens at all – right Hleb and Chygrynskiy?