What strikes me as odd about Barcelona is the immense consistency of Xavi and Messi. They've rarely been injured/fatigued since Guardiola took over at the club and they have for almost those entire 5 years played at their absolute peak.
Compare that to most other teams/players, who do go bad spells every now and then, or at least don't play at their absolute best consistently for 5 consecutive seasons. Torres, for example started that 5 year period brilliantly and then tailed away to become useless, as a result of injury and being overused by Liverpool. The only time I can think of Messi performing below expectations since 2007 would have been around the late April/May period earlier this year, when he looked really jaded. And I guess Xavi underperformed at Euro 2012.
If they are doping though I don't think that it has really made that much of a difference. They would still be an excellent team regardless of access to PEDs.
Compare that to most other teams/players, who do go bad spells every now and then, or at least don't play at their absolute best consistently for 5 consecutive seasons. Torres, for example started that 5 year period brilliantly and then tailed away to become useless, as a result of injury and being overused by Liverpool. The only time I can think of Messi performing below expectations since 2007 would have been around the late April/May period earlier this year, when he looked really jaded. And I guess Xavi underperformed at Euro 2012.
If they are doping though I don't think that it has really made that much of a difference. They would still be an excellent team regardless of access to PEDs.