The Chilean spent three seasons at Camp Nou, but always appeared to shrink in the presence of the Argentine attacker and was eventually sold to fund a move for Luis Suarez
Had things turned out differently, Alexis Sanchez could be lining up for Barcelona againstArsenal on Tuesday night. As it is, however, he will be featuring for the Gunners against his former club and a player with whom he never truly gelled. In Spain, the Chilean was never able to emerge from the shadow of Lionel Messi.
Alexis arrived at Barca in the same summer as Cesc Fabregas. Big things were expected of both players, but the two ended up leaving three years later and neither can be considered a real success for the Catalan club.
At Arsenal, Sanchez is adored – just as Cesc had been prior to his departure and subsequent move to Chelsea in 2014. “People love him here,” Gunners great Thierry Henry told Barca’s official website in an interview this week. “They can’t understand why Barca let him leave. But if you have [Luis] Suarez, Neymar and Messi, then you can understand it.”
The Chilean, along with Fabregas, was sold to fund a move for the Uruguay striker in the summer of 2014 and Barca’s brilliant trident was formed. The ‘MSN’ moniker was born with Suarez, not Sanchez – and the former Liverpool striker has proved much more successful than his predecessor.
“I never regret my decisions,” Sanchez said this week. “It wasn’t easy to leave Barcelona. I fulfilled a dream when I moved there – to play in Spain and for the champions – but very few players stay in the same club all their life. To leave is normal. I wanted a new project, a new experience. And with so many attacking players at Barca it was a good choice to go.”
And that is perhaps the difference. Whereas the Chilean considered himself one of “so many attacking players at Barca”, Suarez made himself indispensable virtually from day one. While Alexis was in and out of the team all through his three-year stay at Camp Nou, the Uruguayan’s impact was so great that homegrown favourite Pedro left the club the following summer due to a lack of playing time – even when Barca were unable to sign a replacement.
Shy and introverted, Sanchez took time to come to terms with the move to the Blaugrana and did not speak to the media until his second season at the Catalan club. In those early days, he said little in the dressing room too and at one point Messi even asked his agent for help in bringing the player out of his shell.
At Udinese, Alexis attacked the spaces from deep in a counter-attacking style that suited his game. At Barca, however, he was forced to operate much further forward and the change proved difficult, where adapting his game for Messi was a particular struggle.
Alexis is not the first forward to have had problems adapting alongside the world’s finest footballer. Zlatan Ibrahimovic lasted only a season as Pep Guardiola moved Messi into the centre, while David Villa was utilised on the left and endured a tense relationship with the Argentine attacker at times.
With Alexis, however, there was no fallout. Encouraged to work hard in order to create space and goals for Messi, the Chilean did as he was told, but perhaps went too far: he often passed to his team-mate even if he was in a better position himself and always appeared confined with Leo in the team. Indeed, many of his best games were when the Argentine was out.
There were memorable moments, of course, especially in his third and final season. Those included a wonderful winner against Real Madrid in a Clasico clash at Camp Nou and another special strike on the final day of the season that almost saw Barca win the title.
Alexis played his finest football in that campaign under Gerardo Martino and the current Argentina coach gave a unique insight into the Chilean’s character in an interview with Goalrecently.
“We were just about to start an exercise in training,” he said. “He was 50 metres away. I called him: ‘Ale, Ale’. And he started sprinting towards me as if it were a match. I thought: ‘What’s up with him to make him come so fast?’ So I asked him: ‘What’s up? Are you crazy?’ And he said: ‘Well, because we’re fighting…"”
Sanchez had thought the pair were fighting because he had read it in the newspaper. Yet he had not taken the matter up with the coach until the Argentine had asked him what was wrong. It is hard to imagine Suarez staying silent in a similar situation.
It is also difficult to know how Alexis would have fared under Luis Enrique. In 2013-14, he featured alongside a Neymar who was still adjusting to life in Spain and a Messi who was enduring a season interrupted by injuries. In the current set-up, in addition, the Argentine is also much more generous than before, creating chances and assisting for his team-mates increasingly these days.
Alexis may never have benefitted from that, but in three full years at the club he never grabbed his chance like Suarez has done. And he never stepped out of the shadows of the world’s best player. Which is why the two men will be on opposing sides when Arsenal meet Barcelona on Tuesday night.
Alexis could never emerge from Messi"s shadow at Barcelona
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