Buenos Aires -
It took them years, but it may be remembered as the most patient task of destroying a wonderful team. And a fantastic club. We are talking about FC Barcelona. For once, the planets aligned: a great president -Joan Laporta-, a young, restless and intelligent coach -Pep Guardiola- and a team oozing with talent with Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Piqué, Valdés, Busquets, Pedro, all from the youth system, with the football DNA of the club; to them were added foreigners Ronaldinho, Yaya Touré, Dani Alves, Abidal, Thierry Henry, Eto'o... And on top of it all, the jewel: Messi. The result was an exceptional ballet of associated, exquisite, offensive and lethal football that crushed its rivals for several seasons and strung title after title. It combined spectacle and efficiency, which rarely go hand in hand. Only Pelé's Santos, another beautiful and powerful machine, stands the comparison. Both lasted a long time and in that they also surpass any other.
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But in 2010, a new president came in -Sandro Rosell- and although the company continued to give stellar performances, a slow but persistent process of institutional decomposition began, annihilating the sporting side. To begin with, Guardiola, distrustful of Rosell, without empathy with him, announced his irrevocable goodbye. That's when a parade of coaches without stature to succeed him began. The internal corrosion went unnoticed from the outside, disguised by the feats of a young Messi, his Ballon d'Or awards and some coronations that came from the remnants of greatness of that excellent team. The deterioration was strongly accelerated when Rosell, pursued by various legal processes against him, gave way to his right-hand man, vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu. This basketball man, always with Rosell's shadow behind him, definitively undermined the power of the team with calamitous football decisions. Useless and ultra-million-dollar signings that eroded the team's power and indebted the club, also granting the most exorbitant salaries in the world. Example: the Griezmann case: the club paid €135 million for him to Atlético Madrid, plus €15 million in commissions and gave him a five-year contract of €40 million gross annually. Total: €350 million for a player who, a year and a half later, can be classified as a colossal fiasco. The same happened with Coutinho and Dembélé. Among the most resonant cases. Only Atlético Madrid got €175 million for Arda Turan and Griezmann. There is no need to add anything about their performance. It is possible that now, to get rid of them, they will have to give them away as they did with Luis Suárez, Arturo Vidal and Iván Rakitić. And in addition, to be able to get rid of them, pay them half their contract at the club that accepts receiving them, because otherwise no one would want them. That's what they did with Suárez. It is the only way to reduce the voluminous wage bill.
The result is a lousy, unbalanced, short and low-quality squad. And still, expensive. Messi had been announcing it at every press conference: "We're not well, what we have is not enough". He recommended re-buying Neymar, they didn't listen and spent a fortune on Griezmann. Surely out of spite, because this board let Neymar go despite having him tied and earning a fortune.
After the resignation of Quique Setién, who was not up to such a club, they turned to Ronald Koeman, who arrived in the midst of a major fire (after the 2-8 against Bayern Munich). But Koeman is more pleasant as a memory of his past as a player than as a coach. Despite everything, he is not guilty of the present situation, he is just another piece that was not the right one. Now, they say, the dressing room would be unhappy with the Dutchman because of his tactical approach, but the real problem is demotivation; they seem like a group lacking enthusiasm, beaten down, disunited. Someone said "Koeman must be fired"; the truth is that there is no one who can do it, the club is headless after the motion of no confidence that gathered more than twenty thousand signatures and ejected Bartomeu from his seat. There is an interim board in charge of calling elections. It was expected to do so urgently, but they will stay in office for three months while the flames grow. They have set elections for January 24, which means that the incoming president will virtually have no time to make player exits or arrivals since the winter transfer window closes on the 31st.
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Jordi Moix, outgoing treasurer, admitted a debt of €488 million, but given that the revenues will be much lower than expected due to the pandemic, it will grow even more. Other voices place the liability at €800 million and some even at €1.2 billion. A loan was requested from investment fund Goldman Sachs to remodel the aging and neglected Camp Nou (it doesn't even have paint), but the construction never started, it should have begun four years ago. Some suspect that part of that loan was used to pay salaries. No one wants to imagine what an audit could find when the new authorities take office. All the mess was possible thanks to the support of an important sector of the Catalan press, not just complacent but covering up, complicit.
On Tuesday, they virtually gifted first place in the group to Juventus, who had to beat them 3-0 in Catalonia to invert the order. And it was 3-0. Messi played alone. By the way, in 22 days Messi will be able to negotiate as a free agent with any other club. And on June 30th, he will be able to leave without any obstacle. Barcelona will also have to pay him a bonus of an additional €50 million for a loyalty clause. The team, which plays a little worse every time, is ninth in the league, 12 points behind the leader (Atlético, to whom they gave away Suárez), but only 3 points away from relegation positions. It is true, there is still a long way to go in the league, but that's how shipwrecks begin, with disinterest, apathy, negligence and the belief that it will never happen. They warn you that there are icebergs ahead, but you don't listen to them. And the orchestra keeps playing. (O)