The curious thing that's FC Barcelona right now.

I am a watcher of football, I watch football games. There are a few teams that I support. Among them is the much loved and at the same time equally hated team that's FC Barcelona. I can certainly understand the reason for the polar opposite opinions of the team, but I digress, that is not why I'm writing about them. The reason I'm writing is because something must have happened to the players, something like an aliens abduction or something.
Let's start with Don Andres, Andres Iniesta. The magnificent midfielder was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2012 Euro, and deservingly so. He was absolutely great during the Euro Cup, dribbling around opposition defenders and midfielders, and giving assists. He also got married just days after Spain's historic 4-0 victory against a strong Italian side (until they went a player down, poor Italy). But his last few games back from his short summer vacation was definitely not up to his usual standard. Given, even a sub-par Iniesta is still better than a lot of other players. That and Cules around the world have been quite spoiled by an Iniesta that's just beyond words.
The same can be said about two times Ballon d'Or winner, best player in the world, Lionel Messi. It's really hard to complain about him most times. Just like Iniesta, but even more so, even a sub-par Messi is a step above most players in the world at the moment.
For some strange reasons, both of them had been quite off their game in the last few matches. And because the Barça system is built around Messi and a great team of midfielders, when they are off their game, Barça became less like Barça.
I am thinking some aliens from outter space, maybe some kind of body snatchers? might have abducted two of our best players and replaced them with clones that obviously still play football, just not as well. Those aliens are likely running tests to see why the ball seems practically attached to their feet by a string when they dribble, and how they sometimes seem to defy the law of gravity and stay on their feet despite the best effort of opposition defenders. I am hoping whatever tests those aliens want to run on our beloved Don Andres, and our Messi-ah, they would be done really soon and be able to send the originals back as soon as possible. Because even though we still have our cerebral midfield maestro Xavi (I love that man!), and the lesser half of our center back duo Piqué seems to have located the user manual of his brain, plus the wonderful return of Villa (welcome back! David maraVilla!). We still need our dynamic duo back, pronto.