As they wave goodbye to Dani Alves, Barcelona fans should be deeply saddened by the departure of one of their club’s all-time greats.
Alves enjoyed scarcely credible success after moving to the Nou Camp from Sevilla eight years ago, when he became new manager Pep Guardiola’s first signing, winning no less than 23 major honours including six La Liga titles and three Champions League crowns.
But statistics only begin to do justice to Dani Alves’s importance for Barca. His incredible athletic ability allowed him to occupy the entire right flank all by himself, making him a fundamental component of two outstanding ‘eras’.
Firstly, he was physically and technically good enough to form a key part of the ‘tiki-taka’ team ushered in by Guardiola, which relied largely upon midfield dominance but also required width in both attack and defence. Alves did the job brilliantly.
Then, under Luis Enrique, he became perhaps even more prominent as their new style placed a greater emphasis on attacking down the flanks.
Along with Lionel Messi, fullbacks Alves and Jordi Alba would generally get more touches of the ball than any other player during the last 18 months, and the fact that he finished his Barca career, after his departure was confirmed by Robert Fernandez, the club’s sporting director on Friday, with seven trophies in his last two seasons shows just how effective the new approach has been.
Despite all that, however, take another look at the opening line of this article and note the word ‘should’.
Barca fans ‘should’ salute Alves as one of the best-ever, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily will because he has been consistently undervalued by the Catalan club’s fans, even sometimes made something of a scapegoat on the few occasions they have failed to win trophies.
That is perhaps an inevitable consequence of the fact that his time at Barca coincided with the careers of Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta, and latterly with Neymar and Luis Suarez – with that bunch of superstars hogging the limelight, it’s no wonder there was little room left for Alves to gain the recognition he deserved.
Within the squad, however, Alves’s team-mates have always appreciated his importance, and perhaps worryingly that’s particularly the case with one man more than any other: Messi.
Alves has provided more assists than anybody else to his fellow South American, with their close personal friendship translating into a devastating on-pitch pairing.
The synergy between Messi and Alves was complete, with a small but revealing illustration of their relationship coming with the fact that they always, without fail, warmed up together – their games of keep-uppy while standing 50 yards apart were worth the admission fee alone.
Alves was also crucial to the dressing room atmosphere, with his larger-than-life, irrepressible personality, bizarre dress sense and wacky sense of fun always capable of maintaining and lifting spirits even during the most difficult times.
Dani Alves in numbers:
- 391 Barcelona games
- 6 Liga BBVA titles
- 3 Champions League
- 3 Club World Cups
Now Alves has gone, it might prove to be the case than Barca fans finally appreciate what they have lost.
During the last couple of years Sergi Roberto and Aleix Vidal both occasionally filled in for the departing Brazilian, but their inability to fully fill his shoes was glaringly obvious. That’s no surprise, because Alves’s shoes – and they are probably sequinned, purple, elephant-skin winklepickers – are impossible to fill.
He was a unique presence both on and off the pitch, and Barca without him will not be the same.