Not so long ago this team played in the mud, washed their shirts at home and competed on a training ground in the sports city. Now they have their own stadium - which they fill every day -, they fly in a personalized plane to places like Stamford Bridge or the Allianz Arena and they step on the red carpets of the Ballon d'Or or the Laureus awards. And all this has happened in a very short time. So little that even some of the footballers who wear the Blaugrana shirt today are the same ones who trained at ten at night on the worst fields. That's why this has been an especially tough week for the team. This is the only way to explain the rage with which they celebrated their place in the Champions League final on the Stamford Bridge pitch. That deafening and liberating scream from Jonatan Giráldez, the bench exploding with Aitana's goal and going crazy with Rolfö's, Alexia's excited hug with her mother, who does not miss any special night.
It has not been fair to this team. The defeat in the first leg was a splash of cold water that no one expected, especially because of the way it happened. They lacked identity - among many other things - but they did not deserve the doubts they raised. Surely this is something linked to Barcelona sentiment, this endemic pessimism that comes almost instinctively to the culé fan, even when it comes to the best generation of footballers that this club has ever had. The one that has won two Champions Leagues in three years, the one that has the last three Ballon d'Ors in its ranks, the one that is admired all over the world.
As the great football legends have done throughout history, this team has made the most difficult things look easy. Winning without breaking a sweat, accumulating individual and collective titles, reaching all the finals... People have become accustomed to seeing them at the top and normalizing the extraordinary has a very high price. And even more so with a team as ambitious as this one, which has never hidden its hunger to win absolutely everything. But we must not confuse demand with obligation. We must value everything they have achieved and what it costs to stay up there.
The dressing room came to the Stamford Bridge game hurt and after achieving a comeback that was as complex as it was liberating, they sent a warning to sailors: “We don't want it to seem like this is our daily bread. If you do not reach a final, it is not a failure,” Cata Coll warned. “Evaluations with the result are not always fair,” claimed Jonatan Giráldez.
It hasn't been an easy few months for the Blaugrana coach either, accused of not being one hundred percent focused on Barça after announcing his departure to the United States. His euphoria in London is understandable before getting on a plane and heading to Paris to watch PSG-Lyon and begin preparing for the San Mamés final. He missed the party on the return plane with the players and the rest of the coaching staff. “Some beer on the plane will fall,” was heard in the corridors of Stamford Bridge. Although it was a moderate party. On Wednesday they play against Madrid CFF with the focus on the League title, which could be mathematical this weekend.
And in less than a month Barça can lift the League, the Queen's Cup (May 18) and the Champions League (May 25). This last one, the most special title. Bilbao could become the largest movement of culé fans in the history of the club - male and female -, another example of everything that this already legendary team is capable of moving.
