“We are back, we are back”. How many times has this proclamation sounded empty? How many times empty How many times exaggerated and free. For uncertain and hasty. Barça had been coming back with claws, with promising episodes, with a lot of sacrifice, with work and with dwarfs. With all this and 1-0 after 1-0, Barça were league champions but had not yet returned definitively. “We’re on the way”, Xavi Hernández had also said in this interval, when he opted for sanity and lowered the soufflé of the always impetuous Laporta.
But this time yes. This time Barça is back. Because what he did in Paris, surrounded by light, Technicolor and the scenery of Star Wars (War of the Galaxies for those of us who are already classics), you need to wrap it in cellophane paper and gloss it as it deserves. Optimism had grown over the weeks, with good results and, above all, with a much more solid and defined structure, essential traits to compete in the Champions League. But who feared the ogre Mbappé, the intense Luis Enrique and the always unpredictable Ousmane Dembélé.
Behind these fears is the whole black legend that has accompanied Barcelona to the competition since it last won it in 2015. That long string of goals against, kicks and ridicule weighed on the retina like a slab.
But the past is there to reverse it and to overthrow it. And also to think that the rival also has fears. Because PSG, built with mountains of petrodollars, has always had its forbidden Eldorado in the Champions League. Zero titles in their showcases in the tournament for five of Barça. This stat doesn’t win games, but it does make an impact. That maybe no one remembers what it cost the Barcelona team to win for the first time? And what Manchester City also suffered, for example, to debut in these matches?
Barça were asked to compete, and Xavi, to show that he was ready for the Champions League. In Naples he already pointed out what his team could be capable of and in the Parc dels Prínceps he confirmed it. It’s not about shining more or less, or scoring a handful of goals. It is essentially about being prepared, imposing the pace, intensity and mentality required in a tournament where everything can fall apart at any moment.
Barça had its phase of sadness and recovered like never before. If Luis Enrique sought to destabilize Xavi by boasting of more Barcelona DNA than his colleague, he did not succeed. Because the disciples of Terrassa functioned as a united collective, as a solidarity group, Stakhanovist and committed almost the entire party. The aid system to slow down Mbappé was excellent and was hardly seen.
There is still work to be done, all that would be missing, but this Barça has earned every right to dream. Which is no small thing.
