According to popular wisdom, a pessimist is a well-informed optimist. Barcelona fans are in that trance, seduced without resisting during the summer before the promise of the advent of a renewed, dazzling and winning Barça, and melancholic today with the arrival of autumn, matching the fall of the leaves. Things that happen when desire advances so fast that he forgets the stubborn reality. The desire to believe in the ambitious speeches of the president Joan Laporta and the coach Xavi Hernández, both transmitters of contagious enthusiasm, generated a necessary boost in self-esteem that, backed by the first performances of the team, worked as a psychological lever, not just a financial one.
But with the first difficulties (key injuries due to the FIFA virus) the team was disfigured footballingly and emotionally until it disappeared from the Champions League (avoiding elimination requires a miracle) and losing the leadership of the League with an image of a puny group in the Bernabéu. Perhaps the time has come to change the fictitious discourses for more feasible ones arising from humility. And start over.
Smiling to avoid misunderstandings, Xavi Hernández acknowledged on Friday, the day before traveling to Madrid, that being Barça coach was sometimes a “thankless” task. It was probably a first visible emotional crack in the always positive staging of the Barça coach. Although he keeps his hair intact (he always joked about Pep Guardiola’s baldness associated with the stress of occupying the Camp Nou bench), Xavi has been suffering a lot in recent weeks and doesn’t always sleep well. Governing a locker room is never easy and in this case, although he knows the house like nobody else, facing decisions such as dispensing with players who were teammates, verifying that the ideas that your head projects do not translate as you imagined on the pitch, or fitting in the first severe criticism of the environment, always ends up affecting.
Satisfied with his squad and enthusiastic about his initial performance, Xavi has encountered his first serious game crisis, something normal in the life of a coach. Obsessed these days with changing the dynamics, most of the players follow him, but there is a lack of clear leadership that the captains, by character (Busquets) or current relationship with the club (Piqué and Alba), are not in the best position to exercise . Lewandowski, who has just arrived, is of great support to the staff due to his quality and experience, but it is the group in general that must be convinced that the current version of him is very improvable. As for football, in recent games the tactical response has multiple flaws. Xavi, who embodied the break as a player, is now forced to recover it as a coach.
With the first defeats come the first doubts, even from the club itself. It is a classic in football and Barça is no exception. But Joan Laporta, who liquidated Ronald Koeman without too much ceremony because he did not feel like his own, will not act in the same way with Xavi, although it is true that this was not his first option, obsessed as he was with bringing in some prestigious German coach . Laporta and Terrassa shared many seasons in the best team in history and, although the relationship between the two suffered during Xavi’s association with the candidate Víctor Font, they have reconnected and their complicity is once again solid and sincere.
If Laporta was characterized by something in his first term, it was because of the coverage he gave his coaches, only two during seven years in office: Frank Rijkaard, whom he held in office in a much worse first season than the current one, and Pep Guardiola, his fetish coach, the extension of Cruyffismo as his guardian. Laporta continues to think that trust in the coach is essential to consolidate a project. So much so that, perhaps remembering the 2003-04 season, he is considering going to the winter market in search of an Edgar Davids who will activate the key that the team lacks. He is looking for a midfielder due to the summer planning error (Nico and Pjanic left), the irregular performance of Busquets and the doubts regarding De Jong’s defensive performance as a sole pivot. Having lost his way in the Champions League, Laporta wants to win the League to make sense of his commitment to Xavi. The virtuous circle needs to roll to generate income. Levers may not be the solution every year.
The machinery seemed oiled until Araújo, Koundé, Christensen and Bellerín were injured at the same time, players who not only have in common being defenders but also occupy an age group that acts as a hinge between adolescent players and those who are in the twilight phase at Barca. Without that glue, Xavi’s Barça has been dismantled, insecure, without self-confidence and disjointed because two speeds coexist in it, that of Gavi and Ansu Fati with that of Busquets and other veterans. This lack of synchronization is difficult for Xavi to combine, who designed a tactical plan with some players (the injured ones) that he now cannot count on. Not everyone can respond to this requirement, but the idea is to apply it equally. And he’s not curdling.
A separate chapter deserves the signings, praised in advance before their performance corroborates the most passionate impressions. The cost of Ferran Torres (55 million plus 10 for variables ten months ago), as well as that of Raphinha (58 million, plus 9 last summer after saving Leeds from relegation) does not correspond at the moment with the benefits offered in the field, especially after the departure of Messi, who occupied the same demarcation on many occasions. The laudatory fever towards Mateu Alemany, logically propagated by the club but strangely embraced by an environment that is sometimes too padded, has made us forget that the notes are set at the end of the season. For everyone, without exception.
