The elimination of FC Barcelona in the hands of PSG does not leave behind an emotional wasteland or irreparable damage as on other occasions (read the Lisbon catastrophe). In recent months, a team project has emerged that has been able to reach the quarterfinals of the Champions League and compete on equal terms with its opponents, a goal that had been set as an objective at the beginning of the season and was seen impossible during some of its sections. The end of the European adventure therefore has a certain flavor at the beginning, and not spoiling that feeling is the club's obligation from now on. The ball that Xavi had is in Laporta's court. The board must improve the future performance of the team with a management that harbors both economic and capacity doubts. The decisions made during these three years have not been the best. Opacity and improvisation have gone from worrying tics to habitual patterns of behavior.
New coach
Xavi Hernández will not continue next season. The club is already beginning to filter the name of Rafa Márquez as the main alternative, an option that generates little enthusiasm among the fans, but whose advantages for Laporta are obvious: low cost and good harmony with Deco, the technical director who must set the line of the highs and the lows. The Mexican, coach of Barça B, is today represented by Enrique Nieto, who in turn has maintained a good relationship with representative Jorge Mendes for years. Laporta already said during the campaign that it is good to have contacts with the big agents, and the Portuguese is. Many operations carried out so far bear his stamp, for example the transfers of João Cancelo and João Félix not requested but accepted by Xavi. Another agent who gravitates around Laporta (he enjoyed five seats in Montjuïc on Tuesday) is Pini Zahavi. The Israeli brought Lewandowski to Barcelona and has Hansi Flick in his portfolio. The German coach won the treble with Bayern and is older (59) and has a resume than Márquez (the Blaugrana reserve team is second in its First Federation group), but he shares with the Mexican an enormous desire to come. The great trainers on the market are unattainable financially. Xavi, for his part, has not changed his intention to leave.
The season will end blank if a miracle does not occur in the League, the bench has worn him down a lot and he is not willing to go through last summer's experience: he asked for Zubimendi and Bernardo Silva, and they did not bring any of them after having agreed with them personally. In winter, Vitor Roque arrived with the help of André Cury, an intermediary who has made a career parasitizing Barça with the connivance of successive presidencies. Roque has not played a single minute in either the round of 16 or the quarterfinals of the Champions League. Operations like those of Gündogan or Christensen, which came at zero cost signed by Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff, contrast with that burdensome eccentricity. Mateu, by the way, was told that he was being kicked out while he was watching training. Jordi Cruyff is not there either. Forms are not the strong point of this meeting: Paco Seirul·lo, an institution, was also invited to leave. The other day he presented his book and no one from the club came.
Araújo, in the window
Barça's economic situation has not improved. The levers cushioned the post-pandemic decline at the cost of laminating the entity's assets, but they cannot be applied every summer. The IPO of Barça Media that was sold as a guarantee of buoyancy is today an anvil more tied to the nuts of what remains of the safe, while the supposedly multimillion-dollar loot of the Super League is in the cable removal phase , today converted into an inopportune souvenir, a reminder of the failed coup d'état launched against UEFA with an unnatural ally: Real Madrid. It is no coincidence that sending off the Barça centre-back comes for free.
The elimination in the Champions League has meant the loss of 20 million profits, divided between the stolen prize for not progressing to the semi-finals and the estimated revenue from the match that will not be played in Montjuïc. There is only one glimpse of good economic news: the contract with Nike. The trip of one of the senior executives of the American company on the Barça plane to Paris already suggested a possible reconciliation. The contract expires in 2028, but if a renegotiation is confirmed, it would be equivalent to an improvement in income. In any case, the solution to the most pressing problems (financial fair play) will be to sell players. Araújo, without amortization, has an offer from Bayern Munich that could reach 80 million. The campaign to discredit the best corrective central defender in the squad already started before his mistake against PSG, very similar to the one the club promoted against De Jong two seasons ago. The Dutchman, whose performance has dropped since then, will once again be in the showcase, as will other players. The red line are the star youth players, especially Lamine Yamal, Cubarsí and Gavi.
The locker room and Gündogan
The mental resistance of the locker room after the cruel way of losing to PSG is unknown. The players have a classic just around the corner that can serve to close the season in case of defeat (and to inaugurate the insufferable rumor mill with six games left) or to prolong the fight for the League, although with options far from getting it. In bad times it also becomes more difficult for statements like Gündogan's, publicly recriminating Araújo's action in the expulsion as an avoidable mistake, not to leave wounds. The German will have to take the initiative behind closed doors so that the scar closes as soon as possible.
