Ansu Fati, in a set of cup match in Ansu Fati, in a set of cup match in San Mamés with Nico Williams. /
The young winger could not finish the game against Athletic and will be out for around two months
There are days when it is better not to get up, and there are seasons when too. Barça arrived at San Mamés with the idea of giving a blow to the table and endorsing the good feelings shown in the Super Cup and was receiving another setback, and this time twice. Xavi’s men fell in extra time and also added a new misfortune in the form of an injury. Ansu Fati, the player with the most ballots to return the illusion to a crowd tired of setbacks, relapsed from his muscular problems and will be out of the pitch for four to six weeks, although more pessimistic medical sources believe that the loss will be at least two months. A new blow for a team that in just five months has not stopped accumulating blows.
Far, far away is the summer of 2021. It is far in time, five months, and it is even further away if, as a culé, you look back with nostalgia at less complicated times. Barça was presented in partnership with Leo Messi and Antoine Griezmann as flags, with a batch of young talents and with Ronald Koeman, who, although he did not enjoy the full support of the board, could act as a tutor for the newcomers. It was a team that wanted to make a clean slate and that did not know what was coming their way, they were not aware of the continuous earthquake that Barcelona was going to enter.
And it is that since the beginning of the course, Barcelona seems that everything is going the other way around. “Everything works out for us”, said Xavi at the end of the duel against Athletic. The Tarrasa coach knows what he is talking about. Since his arrival in November he has seen how his team has entered a roller coaster that never stops, from which it is impossible to get off. Injuries, controversies, eliminations, statements or possible renewals fit into the day-to-day life of a team in which the everyday no longer exists. Xavi arrived with the illusion of putting an end to that inertia, but in just over two months he has seen his team wander around the League, say goodbye to the Champions League, fall in the Super Cup against the eternal rival and say goodbye to the Cup, a life-saving title in more than one sports crisis.
Xavi has witnessed all this on the run, without the possibility of rearming himself in the face of a barrage of problems that have not stopped piling up. The last of all of them is a new injury to Ansu Fati. The winger, barely 19 years old, left San Mamés in tears and has only been able to play 455 minutes this season, numbers that have deprived him of being one of the leaders of the new project. In addition to him, Barça has not been able to count on players who should have been important in the first stage of the competition, such as Martin Braithwaite, Sergio Agüero, Ousmane Dembélé or Pedri, all of them with physical problems that even led, as in the case of the Argentine, in premature withdrawal.
The result of all this is a Barcelona on fire. While the Catalans fell in the round of 16 of the Copa del Rey – it had been twelve years since they were eliminated so early in this competition – a new controversy broke out in the ‘Dembélé case’. Mateu Alemany opened the door for him publicly assuring that “he must leave the club” and the Frenchman responded on social networks stating that “he will not give in to blackmail”. It is the last inconvenience that a Xavi will have to face, who will have to refloat the ship without Ansu Fati and who will not be able to count on the other player who can contribute the most.
The Xavi effect is diluted
The illusion of Barcelona with the new era has been fading as the results have not arrived. Xavi arrived with the support of the culé public, and he still has it, but the feeling at Can Barça is that it is not as easy to wipe the slate clean as expected. The Blaugrana have been implementing the new coach’s ideas but the results rule, as the coach recognized after the eliminations in the Super Cup and Cup, and that is where the Xavi effect is diluted. Sixth in the standings and with the Europa League as the only real option to win a title, a long season is coming up in Barcelona.
