FC Barcelona 2022-23 Season Preview
By Jim James
The 2022-23 Season is upon us, and FC Barcelona’s season begins tomorrow. The Resigtrations are coming in as I speak, and now that that saga appears to be over, and it is just under 24 hours until the season opener against Rayo Vallecano, I will give you the preview of the new season!
The Boom-or-Bust
Following signings of Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde (who won’t play tomorrow if reports are to be believed), Raphinha, Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen and renewals of Ousmane Dembele and Sergi Roberto as well as the development of the youngsters and no major departures yet, this season looks like the boom-or-bust season for the Blaugrana, the most so in the club’s recent history.
Barcelona will push for every domestic trophy, and have a long battle with Real Madrid for La Liga. In the Champions League, they will almost certainly have an improvement over last season’s group stage exit. The only question is how far can they progress. 2019 was the last season that they really looked like they could win it, and really they should have. Could 2023 be the year they’re finally back to their best?
On the flip side this could be a total disaster. The chemistry might not be there with so much competition, no squad “meta” for Xavi, and so many new signings. An injury crisis similar to last season may arise, and it would mean disaster for Xavi’s squad. However, if the players stay healthy and cooperate, success should be most likely
We start vs an unscoreable
Last season these were the teams we didn’t score against in the league:
Cadiz
Rayo Vallecano
That’s it. We start vs Rayo Vallecano, who beat us 1-0 home and away last season in two frustrating games. Neither of those times we even had Pedri or Fati in either match, never mind our new signings. While Kounde won’t be playing in Barca’s home opener, the new additions are hopefully enough to not just beat, but blow out Rayo.
The perfect start to the season, in my books, would be a 4+ goal win, keeping a clean sheet, to symbolize just how much better we are this season than last. That would be icing on the cake, but 3 points is still 3 points, so I would still be happy even with a 1-goal win.
The Cadiz game is on September 10, our 4th La Liga game. We shall see how that goes.
A gamble for short-term success
Don’t get me wrong, I love success, especially right now, but I love even more a young, homegrown team that becomes a dynasty. With players like Ansu Fati, Pedri, Gavi, Ronald Araujo, Nico Gonzalez Alex Balde, Pablo Torre, Alex Collado, and many other players I’ve no doubt missed, we may have had that opportunity. However, a lot of them will not get game time from all the signings we have made.
However, these youth players may be down but they are not out. Barcelona Atletic (Formerly Barcelona B) is a perfect place for players like Torre, Balde, and Collado while 3rd choice midfielders like Nico Gonzalez can go out on loan. This isn’t a video game, game time and only game time, while very useful, isn’t the only key to development. In any case, the youth players appear sorted.
The youth players aren’t the only gamble however. The financial levers that allowed this window to happen have sacrificed 8.5-9.5% of the club’s finances for at least the next decade with these deals, a sizeable amount, something that could even increase as it appears that other levers may be activated in 2023, depending on the club’s success. The future is still uncertain for Barcelona, but it appears less than unlikely that Barca may not exist by 2024, what Bayern said.
Those are all the thoughts I have on the new Barcelona season. This is the most excited I have ever been for a Barcelona season since the 2018-19 season. I cannot wait. I’m Jim James, and until next time.