Why does it seem Barcelona FC is slipping?
To the casual soccer fan, perhaps it doesn’t feel like much of anything is happening at Barcelona other than the departure of Lionel Messi. Most of the team is still together and the same manager is stalking the sidelines during games – at least when he is allowed. But like an intricate sweater with a tiny pull, what has happened at Barcelona over the course of the last 12 months is slowly but inextricably tearing away the very fabric of the club as revealed by it’s recent results.
It didn’t start with Messi. No, it started with a fat man in a tailored suit who believed – or wanted the world to believe – that he was so much more important to Barcelona FC than Messi could ever be. In his mind Messi was just a footballer, a man of muscle and sinew only – like any other footballer – while he himself was football royalty. A man of commerce, a man of the mind, a man of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, announcing the architect behind the greatest disaster in FC Barcelona history, Bigman Bartomeu. Hoisted by his own petard, he spent time in a common, run of the mill, average man jail in 2021 on charges he was creating fake social media accounts to mock and criticize his own players! Oh, and maybe there was some money missing…
A team of Barcelona’s quality is like a stone cliff: It does not crumble under a single blow but rather a relentless onslaught of blows like the ocean against the shore. As it was in Barca’s case, Bartomeu’s mistakes began several years ago. It fact it coincided with his becoming President of the club in 2015.
Shortly after his accession to the Presidency, Bartomeu took a pass on FC Bayern standout Alphonso Davies. Why? Because Canada does not produce world quality soccer players. Brillant! And so began a string of bad player and organizational blunders, all considered through the hubritic lens of Bartomeu’s ego maniacal mind. Overpaying aging assets was always easier than finding new talent and Barca’s payroll swelled beyond, no well beyond it’s quality. And the new talent Batomeu did bring on at huge rates were barely contributors to the point where they loaned out 142 million euro signing Philippe Coutinho to Bayern and then had him score 2 goals against Barca in a champion’s league blowout that will be the embarrassment to Catalonia for decades to come.
Even so, with his myriad of mistakes, the venerable old club with fans around the globe may well have withstood Bartomeu if not for the smallest of enemies, a virus. Specifically the COVID-19 virus which shuttered the 100,000+ seat stadium, choking the clubs revenue while it’s expense line continued gobbling money, unabated by the tiny invader. Each month the debt piled up. What was supposed to be a 2 week shut down became 4 and then 6 and then 12. And when the league came back many factors resulted in still no fans and therefore no fan money to throw against the mounting debt. By the time it was over, FCB did not even have enough left to re-sign Messi and the lynchpin of the team was gone.
So now Barca is saddles with a team that only knows how to play with Messi as it’s main component and they have no salary cap space for new signings. They will have to make do with what they have and what they can scrounge on free transfers and perhaps an Academy transfer or two for at least the balance of this season. So it will be up and down, they’ll lose games they should win and they will nearly win games that they will end up losing anyway but this year is vital. Like the forest after a fire, it will take some time for the club to regain it’s former glory. Let’s give them a chance to do so.