After the elimination in the Copa del Rey at the hands of a Real Madrid overwhelming in the Camp Nou, Xavi Hernández, coach of the FC Barcelona, rebelled at a press conference. He could not bear that nobody told him that the Barcelona team “only” had one title leftsince he considered that reaching the first League since the 2018/2019 season was “the host”. Or even more: “It’s the host”. At last he has the trophy in his private showcase, which is that of all Barcelona fans, after overwhelming Espanyol in Cornellà (2-4).
It leaves him shivering, on the verge of relegation to Second. This unleashed the anger of the ultras with a bad loss, who shouted “Puta Barça!” they made the players run to the locker room. Before the invasion of the field, he launched a help Xavi, who knows how important a championship that rewards regularity is “for stability”. Especially in a season in which there has been talk of “levers”“Caso Negreira” and which ends with the departure of Sergio Busquets y Mateu Alemany, two essential figures in the recent history of a club that continues to roam Europe. He was eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League and in the Europa League round of 16 against Manchester United, whom Sevilla expelled in the quarterfinals.
The ‘levers’ mark the future of Barça
“We know where we come from and where we are, so we highly value the League. For competing with a distinguished team like Real Madrid, which is the European champion“, Xavi has made an effort to defend in recent days while caressing his first Spanish League as coach. The most capable to face this situation. Representative of the glorious past and the only one capable of rowing in the uncertain panorama that looms.
Barça will celebrate this title as if it were the first or the last, because the next day will once again be time to plan another complex campaign. Like those that will come in the period after the ‘levers’, an extraordinary mechanism activated by Joan Laporta who allowed the entity to go to the summer market with cashcomplete registrations and make renewals.
Up to 867 million euros: 667 million for 25% of the audiovisual rights and 200 for 49% of Barça Studios. These operations have mortgaged important assets of a still very powerful brand (third in the world, according to the Brand Finance Football index, only behind Real Madrid and Liverpool).
The value of Lewandowski’s scoring start
The achievement of the 27th League maintains the roadmap that allowed the arrival at the summer market of Robert Lewandowski, the striker and ‘star’ he needed. Although his second round was not as expected, he appeared against Espanyol illuminating the victory that Barça needed to embrace the championship.
The striker will finish as the second player who has played the most minutes (2,500) in the domestic tournament, only behind Ter Stegen (3,065) and ahead of the ‘stakhanovista’ Gavi (2,353), protagonist of a long-suffering renovation and an even more conflicting inscription. He has finished the season with a record from the subsidiary.
The goalscoring contribution of Lewandowski during the first part of the championship it was fundamental (‘pichichi’ of the League with 21 goals and 31 as a Barça player). Just when it was necessary to dispel the doubts that hovered over his immediate performance and that of a team reinforced with Raphinha (58 million) or Jules Kounde (50 million). The capital injection also made it possible to circumvent the salary limit to enroll Christensen, Kessie o Mark Alonsowhich arrived without transfer cost.
Because this Barça League has been against the elements. The Barcelona group has renounced the style to be pragmatic from the ‘unocerismo’. Success doesn’t come solely from grabbing the ball. Xavi, although he has hidden it at a press conference, has chosen to find out own weaknesses to minimize them and use them against the enemy. In this kind of ‘jiu jitsu’ it has been fundamental to recover the best Ter Stegen, who has barely conceded eleven goals in 34 games.
From the best Ter Stegen to casualties in defense
In the total of the season, the German has left a clean sheet 28 times. None of them in Europe, another piece of information about the duality of FC Barcelona, who resolved eleven games 1-0. This reconsideration of the defensive plot, on which any team with doubts must build, affected the plot line of the League champion.
The injury of Ronald Araújo It coincided with the European elimination and in the last stretch of the league Xavi has missed one of his best creations: Dembélé, who has gone from being the object of criticism from the Camp Nou to a hero. One of the few capable of getting out of the script in a team fearful of losing the points heritage. Another of those recovered for the cause has been Frenkie De Jong, despite the public campaign with which his departure was sought to lighten the salary limit.
Unlike what was expected with Koundé, Barça has more noticed the absence of Christensen, a center-back who arrived at zero cost to a dressing room that lost its captain, Gerard Piqué, in November after announcing his retirement. Idols who are leaving and others who are consolidating, such as Alejandro Balde, who destroyed Espanyol on his own in the decisive duel. A young talent consolidated in the payroll of the architects of the present culé as Gavi y Pedri. Unlike Ansu Fatidisgraced for his refusal to undergo surgery and due to his father’s public demand for him to have more minutes.
‘Caso Negreira’ and departures from Alemany or Busquets
The loss of Pedri at the peak moments of the season frustrated, among other things, the advance to the final of the Copa del Rey to aspire to the national treble, after winning the Spanish Super Cup against Real Madrid in Saudi Arabia. A victory with which Xavi’s men would seem to measure up to their nemesis, infinitely more molded, despite letting go in the League (14 points difference), where the other great adversary, Atlético, agreed to compete late. Barça gave in to the rojiblancos, selling Griezmann at half the price (20 million plus four for variables) and in winter they agreed to the transfer of Memphis Depay (three million).
The Barça League could have been calmer and accompanied by the Cup. However, the 0-4 draw in the second leg of the semifinals put an end to the progression. The thunder box was opened and the fear of losing the regular championship became palpable in a team that took a nap until this Sunday. He has come to this celebration by inertia. All in all, the Barcelona fans have achieved the fundamental objective to a season in which they have been haunted by the ghosts of the ‘Negreira Case’who have even questioned the honor of a league worked with sweat and blood.
Whether it is circumstantial or the start of a recovery will depend on the future without Alemany or Busquets. Or what is the same: without the sports director who found a way to get out of famine and the umbilical cord with the best years of a club for which this League “is the host.” It is when compared to all the recent institutional chaos, alleviated in the field through a title that recovers the winning spirit of FC Barcelona. Essential to eliminate the panic of European nights and make the motto of this Monday’s ‘rua’ a reality: “The League is ours and the future too.”
2023-05-14 21:25:16
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