Lionel Messi may have got all the plaudits as Barcelona beat Spurs 4-2 in their Champions League clash, to leave Spurs on no points from two games, but Sergio Busquets went about his perfect display in the shadow of his teammate.
It must be both joyous and terrible being a teammate of Lionel Messi's. Went the Barca forward is on his game there's literally no better player than him in the world and he can win a game seemingly on his own.
Against Spurs in the Champions League it felt like one of those nights as he ran the Premier League side ragged for most of the game, bagging two goals, hitting the woodwork twice and being at the centre of everything good they did. His passing was sublime.
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So with that said you'd think there'd be no way that player on his team could find a negative to all that but one should feel a little sorry for Sergio Busquets tonight.
The Spanish midfielder goes about his business pretty quietly, apart from the moments he's rolling about after a slight knock, and the same could be said of his performance against Spurs.
But it was an absolutely perfect display as he finished with 100% passing stats, completing 67 out of 67 and plenty of them forward and attacking passes:
His heat map proved how brilliantly he marshalled the team from the centre of the park with Ivan Rakitic and Arthur given more freedom to attack:
It wouldn't be fair to say that Busquets in underrated but he is occasionally under appreciated and you wonder why Claude Makelele can famously have his own role with the 'Busquets role' yet to be coined.
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Perhaps it's because next to no one is playing the way he does, certainly not in such a perfect way.
The 30 year old recently signed at new deal at the Camp Nou with a 500 million euros transfer release clause as part of the contract and you figure that's a pretty fair reflection on his importance to to Ernesto Valverde's side.
Messi was of course the hero once again tonight, the one we need and the one we deserve, but with his ability to stay in the background, carry out some of football's dark arts and still be brilliant in the good stuff Busquets is certainly football's anti hero.
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Spurs, Football News, Barcelona, Sergio Busquets, Lionel Messi, Premier League, Champions League, La Liga
