The Fall of FC Barcelona
This season of football has seen what can almost be termed as the eventual collapse of FC Barcelona. It came as a shock to many, yet deep in our minds, we all knew it was coming. We just didn’t expect to be here so fast.
After losing La Liga despite coming into the restart with a ‘comfortable’ 4 point lead, things started to look grim. Matches that should’ve been easy victories became hard-fought draws. Comfortable leads were lost in moments of nervousness and lapses in judgment. It looks certainly, like the end of a great era.
We can trace this back to almost 5 years ago, when midfield maestro Xavi Hernandez announced his retirement after winning the Champions League in 2015. Things still looked upbeat; there was the great MSN trio, a magical midfield and a pretty much solid defence.
Then came the loss to Juventus in 2016, after what was one of the last few great moments of the club: The 6–1 Remontada against PSG. Subsequently, they also lost La Liga to Real Madrid, despite making a hard-fought comeback and winning 3–2 at the Santiago Bernabeu.
After this were the heartbreaking Champions League losses to AS Roma and Liverpool, and it seemed almost impossible for them to not break down in these testing times. In between, we saw the retirement of another great, Andres Iniesta, losing the magic in midfield.
Now, Barcelona are in a precarious position. They do not have a great manager in Quique Setien, whom some have dubbed as ‘just Ernesto Valverde but worse’. His tactics are uninspired, easy to read, and only highlight the ‘Messidependence’ of the team.
There is also the problem of an aging squad. Messi is 33, and while he still plays an extremely high level of football, the same cannot be said of his contemporaries, whom the club still rely on so much. Rakitic, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Luis Suarez, Antoine Griezmann and now Mralem Pjanic are just some of the players over the age of 30 on the squad. They are also the core of this team.
Another big factor in this downfall is the lack of La Masia-bred youngsters in the squad. Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig have been given a lot of minutes under Setien, and only seem to confirm what the fans already know: the youngsters in La Masia bring a different sort of energy and style of play into the game, one that Barcelona desperately need.
There is no confidence in the squad anymore. Everybody is ‘afraid’ of another defensive collapse or another comeback. A nervous athlete cannot win. There was a time when watching Barcelona play was a joy of another kind, and the players were having more fun that scared to lose. This fear, that was perhaps brought on by the string of losses in the Champions League, has scarred this aging squad.
We see moments of inspiration still in Leo Messi, even more so in Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig.
There has also been a problem with the transfers the club is making. Antoine Griezmann has proven to be effectively useless in games. Braithwaite, who was signed as an emergency striker, has barely played enough minutes for us to make any judgments. We have also seen the recent transfer of Arthur to Juventus in exchange for Pjanic. It was effectively trading the same type of player, except that Arthur was 23 and Pjanic 31.
The root of all these problems lies at the board, in my opinion. The board have been vocal about their decisions, and have the ultimate say in most of the workings of the club. A board behind a club which dazzled the world not even 10 years ago, has had such a change of heart and is no longer the voice of the fans.
Barcelona need change, and they need it fast. They need a revolutionary change in their workings. This can be done with the election of a new board, although that possibility looks difficult. There have been rumours of the club signing on Xavi or even Marcelo Bielsa as manager, and this certainly will be a step in the right direction. This club needs the inspiration to step out of its shell and impose its dominance on world football.
