Nothing is what it was at Barça. It is played in a rented stadium and the team that dresses in blue and scarlet is unrecognizable, wanders around like a living dead that has already dropped all the excuses and has a hard time with a very bottom team. It will be said that the second part of it was drinkable, but that fragmented vision of the football matches is misleading and does not make up for the first, an inexcusable calamity.
The staging of Xavi's team was pathetic, so horrible that even the Montjuïc stands, where only the unconditional fans come, decided to whistle to say goodbye at half-time. In the end Barça won, the anthem played and we wished each other happy holidays. But this club deserves a top-to-bottom review that will not be done because its managers are not capable of distinguishing what is happening. The latest idea is to sign “a Davids” in the winter market. Lewandowski, who does not score a goal against the rainbow, was also compared to Ronaldinho's effect upon his arrival. Always the nostalgic look. Strabismic from looking back so much, forgetting that the present can only be fixed with a bold vision that one does not have.
The last game of the year was unbearable. The calendar offered Almería for their sacrifice but even then Xavi's players did not take any notice. The group barely has a heartbeat. The pace of the match was set by the electrocardiogram of João Félix, a footballer who plays based on how he gets up. In that he remembers Romário, it's a pity that he is the only one in that. Joãos' Barça is running out of one of them. It would be good to stop proclaiming that the club will exercise the option to purchase the Portuguese at the end of the season, perhaps the guy believes it and that is why he has relaxed.
It's time to stop living fantasies and treat the fan as they deserve. Abandon the institutional discourse of euphoria and unattainable goals. Barça is no longer a big club and its football team has lost the hierarchy it once had. Words have power but actions are stubborn. There are no differential players in the squad. Pedri should be but his legs are delicate to withstand four games in a row. It is evident that with what we have we can play much better, but accepting reality will be the best way to start recovery, or reconstruction, if Xavi prefers that way. Deceiving yourself with daydreams about winning the League again or pretending that, in the current state, this team can win the Champions League (that's what Laporta said on Tuesday) is a utopia that is not advisable to verbalize. Not now. It would be wiser to resort to humility. Return to last season's path, in which the team was always aware of its limitations. Living in a fiction does not score.
The match was decided by Sergi Roberto, a rarity that is touching but that once again describes the uselessness of the signed forwards. Some footballers are lucky to play in a stadium where everything is forgiven. Raphinha's celebration of his goal, achieved half a meter from the goal line against the last placed team while covering his ears, should lead to an internal sanction. Almería, the team that defends the worst in the category (every corner is a gift), scored two goals and could have done more. It's time to speak up once and for all. Xavi did it after the game. Better late than never.
