“Last year it didn't give us but this year is different. This year it's because of our mistakes”, Xavi Hernández lamented on the black night of Wednesday at the Camp Nou, pointing at the footballers. "When they score a goal for us, chaos ensues," said Sergio Busquets, questioning the structure of the team. Meanwhile, Joan Laporta and his team twisted their faces in the box and the Barcelona fans, who had massively clung to the new Barça of illusion like a straw, marched back to their homes with dismay. From the box to the field, passing through the bench, the virtuous circle of triumphs that give way to income does not start and the club continues installed in a vicious circle that draws turns on its axis.
But, of course, and as Xavi pointed out, with different circumstances than the previous year. The elimination of the Champions League, which will take place barring a miracle on October 26, once again causes a sporting, economic and institutional earthquake on a project that still had feet of clay and had not had time to solidify.
Football plans require time, patience and learning from mistakes, but Barça, as an institution, has nothing to spare in terms of time or money. The levers worth 867 million have been a lifesaver to try to recover the present by mortgaging part of the future. But, for now, staying out of the Champions League would (will) mean a new blow to the club's coffers.
As is mandatory, Barça has stipulated in its budgets to reach the quarterfinals of the first continental competition. Staying out now would cause not to enter 20.2 million that were stipulated in the accounts approved last Sunday by the compromising partners (9.6 to go to the eighth and 10.6 to reach the quarterfinals) plus the part that does not win either for rights of TV. Barça, therefore, would also stop aspiring to the more than 50 million that the Champions League champion takes. Yes, then you can try to partially alleviate this bleeding if you advance rounds in the Europa League (in the end the cost last season for the club was 12 million), but the loss of prestige in which Barcelona continues to be installed is very evident.
The team has only obtained three wins in its last ten Champions League games, against Dynamo Kiev (2) and Viktoria, for five losses and two draws. A balance that there is no where to take it.
Xavi Hernández drew up a list of reinforcements in the spring and the club fulfilled almost all his wishes. Azpilicueta and Bernardo Silva did not come but the others did and Barça invested 153 million that it did not have to form a competitive team. A "staff" as Xavi described it at the beginning of the season.
From this point of view, the club considers that it did everything in its power to provide the coach with the necessary wicker to refloat the ship. A ship with very good and very interesting footballers but also with others who have lived their best days for a long time, especially in Europe. The mitigation of the injuries of Koundé, Araújo and Christensen is on the table but it is no consolation neither for Xavi nor for the president.
The coach looks for solutions in each game and nobody can tell him that he does not introduce variants, but in the Champions League he has not found the key. Of his six games as a Blaugrana coach in this competition, he has only emerged victorious in one (against Viktoria Pilsen).
Laporta maintains confidence in the coaching staff but is on guard. If it had been for him three of the captains (Piqué, Busquets and Jordi Alba) would have lowered their salaries this summer and he said it again without mentioning their names in the assembly when he boasted of having saved Barça with the levers and with your endorsement to finish registering all the players. The entity's flagrant problem with the wage bill of the first team continues to be very much in vogue and to make matters worse Piqué and Busquets made big mistakes against Inter and were in the center of the target.
Because a team that has only conceded one goal in eight games in the League has conceded seven in four games in Europe. An abysmal difference that clearly explains that Barça does not govern the matches against important rivals and that it loses control in key phases.
Expectations had skyrocketed, as evidenced by the magnificent appearance of the Camp Nou stands at each match. But Barça was not yet ready.
