The days and hours leading up to FC Barcelona’s Copa del Rey last 32 clash with Ibiza had been dominated by the search for a new ‘9’.
At a meeting at the start of the week, club officials decided that given a knee knock to Luis Suarez, which will keep the Uruguayan out of action for the next four months, what remains of the January transfer window should be used to find a temporary or permanent stand-in.
Rodrigo and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang subsequently emerged as the two top candidates on an extensive shortlist, but while Valencia have already rejected an approach for the former, the latter is Arsenal’s captain and therefore requires a hefty fee to land which Barça do not have to hand at the moment.
Meanwhile, however, the solution to this problem hides in plain sight.
Struggling at lowly Ibiza by trailing 1-0 to the Segunda B division outfit from the 9th minute, Quique Setien’s men failed to muster a single shot on target until Ivan Rakitic’s limp effort on 67 minutes.
Facing elimination, they would have been sentenced to one of the most embarrassing nights in club history if an experiment from the new coach hadn’t paid off.
Moved into the centre of the front three line once Carles Perez was hauled off for Jordi Alba around the hour mark, Antoine Griezmann showed all the characteristics of a world class striker in doing precious little for most of the match yet popping up with his second brace of the term to sink the hosts by two goals to one.
Naturally, the morning after the victory that put Barça into the last 16, several pundits have put forward arguments that the club is failing to see the forest for the trees by continuing its search for a target man when the 28-year-old is more than up to the task.
Mundo Deportivo director Santi Nolla one, another – SPORT’s German Bona – declared that ‘Griezmann passed the ‘9’ test’ on the Balearic isle.
‘The ‘Little Prince’ showed, as he had already done with Ernesto Valverde, that he can assume the responsibility of being the ’9′ of the team in the absence of Luis Suarez, who will not return until well into April,’ Bona explained.
‘There is a lot of time ahead and the club studies the possibility of signing a center forward in the winter market. But there is less and less left until the closing of the window and a decision must be made,’ he went on, before citing Saturday’s trip to Valencia as a ‘Litmust test’ for Griezmann to pass.
‘An opportunity to consolidate his credentials as the ‘killer’ of the team’, while Suarez recovers on the operating table, it can be treated as the World Cup winner’s final audition for the role in the La Liga leaders’ toughest test under Setien.
The only squad member to score in all competitions, his tally of 11 since joining from Atletico Madrid consists of scoreline openers, levellers, lead takers and deciders.
Already levelling ex-Liverpool flop Philippe Coutinho in this respect, who struggled to adapt to their shared and forced left wing spot, not one penny more than the $133mn handed over for his services may need to be parted with elsewhere as we head into the business end of his maiden Blaugrana campaign.
