Barça closes a season to (not) forget

If football, as Jorge Valdano said, is a state of mind, FC Barcelona is not here today to raise any party.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
18 May 2022 Wednesday 06:00
7 Reads
Barça closes a season to (not) forget

If football, as Jorge Valdano said, is a state of mind, FC Barcelona is not here today to raise any party. With the season about to come to a close with an inconsequential match to be played in clandestine hours (Barça-Villarreal, Sunday at ten at night), the feeling of a lost year has taken over the atmosphere. The sports, economic and social crisis with which President Josep Maria Bartomeu presented his heir in the box, Joan Laporta, has barely been corrected in broad strokes more than a year after the elections.

Effervescence and fall

The football team has deservedly secured second place, a consolation prize of Gaspartian reminiscences. The dangerous losing inertia at the beginning of the season was turned around with the arrival of Xavi Hernández, who took over the bench when the team was in ninth position, but the promise of better football, tremendously credible during the wonderful months of February and March, has been running out of steam until falling into vulgarity, with the simulated match in Getafe as the musty final icing. It was anticipated that the season could end in white, but not for nothing.

The feeling of starting from scratch a new summer becomes tedious. They take several accumulated. The market gains space, but the possible signings do not fit with the known Laportista patterns. There will not be a Ronaldinho to promote the project because the power gap with respect to the big clubs in Europe is widening, the real stars (Håland, Mbappé...) are looking for more solid incentives and projects, and the commitment to allocate 55 million of euros (12 of variables, not everything is the fault of the inheritance) to Ferran Torres has been unsuccessful for the moment. Barça, handcuffed by the economy, is looking for certain profiles of footballers who are ending their contract to double the positions of the squad. That is your reality. The veterans are still there with their fabulous pre-pandemic salaries, and Robert Lewandowski, a top striker, yes, but who will turn 34 in August, will take care of the operation that must fill volunteer covers. Faced with the supposed signing of the Pole, you can fake overflowing joy or a frown comparable to that of the veteran fan of the great Milan, who has spent a decade shrinking looking for himself watching veterans parade. Short-termism prevails. He is interested in sacrificing vestals in honor of survival. Do we sell Frenkie de Jong, 25, a modern midfielder, today insipid but surely the best footballer of the effervescent months of February and March? Go ahead. Of the core importance of the center of the field in the differential game of the best Barça and if we talk about that at another time.

Of levers and income

The "economic levers", a term coined by Laporta that we journalists helpfully repeat, that should save the club are still not activated. The debt continues to threaten. Messi left (now the father says that I hope he returns, by the way, eye) because the board, seduced by the wrong project (that of the Bartomeu-Florentino duo, the European Super League), did not see the grace of the multimillionaire agreement with CVC Now he's looking sideways again. Homework is piling up because it hasn't been done before. The accounts do not come out because there is a lack of 100 million revenues that were estimated possible in the budget of the Laporta board. Practically all the positions of highest rank and strategic importance have been replaced: merchandising, security, technology, compliance... In case anyone has forgotten, there is no CEO.

Socially, the situation continues to be worrying. The Camp Nou is only filled if the call is made by the phenomenal Barça women's team. Waiting to see what the members who took advantage of the temporary annual leave covered by the effects of the pandemic (26,291, which are many) do with their cards, not looking directly at the problem of detachment will only accentuate it.

The seasons “to forget” are the ones that really deserve to be remembered more. With a clear intention: to make real self-criticism, not to repeat mistakes and flatly deny that being second in Barça can be cause for celebration.


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