January 2020, old town of Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). The president of Barça, Josep Maria Bartomeu, does not hide unofficially that he has doubts about the future of the coach, Ernesto Valverde, although the team is leading the League. Barcelona falls in the semi-finals of the Spanish Super Cup against Atlético and a few days later Txingurri is dismissed. January 2023, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Defender Ronald Araújo euphorically proclaims that “a new era has begun.” Barça has just defeated Madrid in the final of the Spanish Super Cup, the first title with Xavi as coach, and a changing of the guard is announced in Spanish football. January 2024, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Barça arrives at the Super Cup with more questions than certainties a year later and with the need to regain direction and confidence.
Things about modern football, driven more than ever by the power of money, but Saudi Arabia, who would have thought, and the Super Cup, a second-rate competition, have marked Barcelona's line in recent years, like a bolero of Endless Ravel in which the Blaugrana team searches, finds, loses and searches again. From Valverde to Xavi. From Bartomeu to Laporta. From worthy defeats to hopeful triumphs. Each visit has had a juicy intrastory. Let's go by parts.
Protests, defeat and reversal. Ernesto Valverde was in the crosshairs of the board and the environment since the frustrating 4-0 at Anfield in May 2019. Barça was accused of not offering enough spectacle. Despite this and with Messi as a regular problem solver, Barça was leading the championship when it appeared in Yida for the first Super Cup on Arab lands. A combative Atlético awaited him. Barcelona played a remarkable game but ended up losing 3-2. In the stands of the King Abdullah stadium some local Barça fans showed banners against Ernesto Valverde. Although it may seem incredible, that also influenced the psyche of the Blaugrana president to determine a replacement on the bench. One day after the defeat, the technical secretary, Éric Abidal, and the general director, Òscar Grau, flew to Doha to meet with Xavi Hernández, but the one from Terrassa has not yet taken the reins of Barcelona. In the end, Barça opted for Quique Setién and the campaign ended with an embarrassing 2-8 defeat against Bayern in the Champions League.
Green shoots and worthy defeat. Two years later, in January 2022, Xavi is already at the helm of the ship. He has only been in office for two months but has already had to endure the bitter pill of being left out of the Champions League group stage. It is a Barça in full reconstruction, in the first campaign without Messi, with Ferran Torres recently signed and with Piqué, Alba, Busquets and Dani Alves as totems of the locker room. The Barcelona team ended up losing in the semifinals 3-2 against Madrid but they did so fighting and forcing extra time with goals from Luuk de Jong and Ansu Fati.
A broken gentleman. A year later the film changes. Xavi had already accumulated much more shooting on the bench and Barça passed over Madrid like a cyclone in the final. Gavi, Lewandowski and Pedri scored and Benzema made up the result in added time (1-3). It is perhaps the best match of the Xavi era, because of the rival and because it is a title. That day the coach placed Gavi as a false left winger, a formula with which the team gained in solidity, packaging and solidarity, the weapons that led them to win the League a few months later. It seemed that Barça had found the right path and that they would only need tweaks for the future.
2024, momentum or regression. Now the Barcelona team that landed yesterday in Riyadh is a team with doubts, that has lost its defensive solvency, with injuries to key players like Ter Stegen and Gavi and that is not yet getting off the ground. Osasuna awaits him tomorrow. Anything other than being in the final on Sunday would be a fiasco. Here is Arabia again for Barça, defending champions, to fill their saddlebags with confidence or to continue down tortuous paths. It is only a Super Cup, but the Super Cups are marking their path.
