Barça is exhausting cycles. Now it has closed, surely, the most successful in its history: the Messi stage. There has only been another Barça that won everything in a season: the one with the five Kubala cups, a great team that ended with the disappointment of the European Cup final in Bern in 1961 against Benfica, which the team should have won Blaugrana and would have changed history. But football is written with the results, not with the intentions.
And there are big cycles and micro cycles within the bigger ones. Barça started an impressive one with Maradona and Schuster in the team and it ended too soon, with both seriously injured. The Dream Team endured well for five years and Messi's Barça has been the longest and the most successful. The Blaugrana club has had to weather storms also during that period. He has had to overcome the goodbye of an extraordinary coach like Pep Guardiola, who decided to leave because it was already difficult to motivate that dressing room. Later he had to get ahead after the death of Tito Vilanova, an impressive blow in a locker room whose leaders had already been under his command in the cadet. With the coach from Empordà, the best League in history was won. Luis Enrique's micro cycle at the head of the team was excellent, with a triplet year and five titles and Barça had to overcome the goodbye of three legendary players: Puyol, Xavi and Iniesta.
Valverde did a good job on the bench. But Messi left even though he wanted to stay, without leaving when he wanted to leave. The most golden era in Blaugrana history, inextricably linked to Leo's name, has come to an end and in the first season without him, Barça did not win any titles and did not compete for any either, although green shoots were seen. And now it seems that there is a team to change the cycle, without Messi in a Camp Nou with an excited public that has changed its skin after the pandemic.
The environment is very different. There are no bloody campaigns against the president, the media focus is mostly positive, people trust Xavi as the manager of the new Barça and are very satisfied with the additions to the squad. The Camp Nou is attended by people willing to support the team, without excessive isms behind their backs and wanting to have a good time and push for Barça to win. That is the key: look forward. It's the perfect time to reset the stopwatch to zero and start counting the happy times instead of constantly charging the past failures. Barça begins a new stage, the people are excited and the team meets expectations. The new cycle starts well.
