Barça's numbers don't lie, but they don't tell the whole truth. Their short and long-suffering victory against Girona confirms the contradictions of the team, which will lead the day, attentive to the match between Real Madrid and Real Sociedad tonight. One of the two, or perhaps both, will end up as a victim and leave Barça's race to the title clearer. In these terms, this League promises you a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, a destination and loot dreamed of by a team fed up with crises and bad news. The statistics point to that end, which, however, do not hide the disappointment that Barça's game produces.
It is one of those cases that invites us to think about the theory of pragmatism in football, which is neither a theory nor is it anything. Regardless of its style, a team is pragmatic when its proposal corresponds to its actual performance in matches and the results highlight the equivalence between what was promised and what was achieved. There is no pragmatism if there is a flagrant contradiction between what is intended and what is obtained.
This season, which at this time reaches its meridian, Barça has won six games by one goal to nil (31%), a statistic that makes it the team in the major European leagues with the most victories with such bare figures. By the way, he has only conceded six goals in the 19 games played, a percentage that would exceed the fantasies of the most feverish catenaccist. At this point, the numbers ask for an explanation. Do they meet the criteria that Xavi pursues to win the championship? Are they a verification of reality or do they distort it?
If any of these questions is answered in the negative, we are facing a dysfunction, which in the case of Barça, at least at this time, is palpable. The model advocated by Xavi is the opposite of the game that Barça played in Girona, or against Getafe, Atlético de Madrid, Espanyol and Osasuna, to name the last five games of the championship. Four wins, one draw, six goals for, two against.
In none of the matches, and not even in the confrontation with Real Sociedad in the Cup, did Barça stand out for its defensive performance. He gave up chances, made big mistakes and got out alive. That's what the goalkeepers are for, the classics will say, but Ter Stegen's outstanding moment has not prevented him from blurring his performances with incomprehensible oversights.
These results distort reality, satisfying on the surface, worrisome beneath the surface. It is not a rhetorical question: Barça aspires to what it has already achieved this season. The Super Cup final explained point by point what the coach, the team and the club want. The victory over Real Madrid was a pragmatism manual. The game corresponded to the proposal, the goals were adjusted to the merits and the defense annihilated the notices of Madrid.
The good thing about that game is that it has described the true potential of Barça. The downside is that that brilliant afternoon in Riyadh strips him of alibis for mediocrity. In Montilivi, Barça disappointed. He attacked badly and defended without rigor when Girona stretched lines, the powerful Valery entered the field and the forwards began to enjoy chances in Ter Stegen's area, without the successive changes ordered by Xavi –all with a defensive whiff– preventing them from the chips of the team, which is celebrated for the charm of some numbers that do not correspond even remotely with the disappointment of their football.
