History catches Barça

With the team finished, without a voice or vote after being buried in Lisbon against Bayern 2-8, now the drama for the club begins, trapped as FC Barcelona is in such a perverse dynamic that there is hardly any remedy in the short term, nor even with the resignation of Josep Maria Bartomeu, a circumstance not foreseen for the moment, pending the meeting called for tomorrow at the Camp Nou. Barcelona fans are discouraged to think that not only has the current season ended without a title, a circumstance that has not happened since 2008, but that the next pint is just as complicated because there is hardly any room for maneuver due to the pandemic and that there is no cent at the Camp Nou.

The president initially intends to end a mandate that gives him the power to call elections between March 15 and June 15, 2021. The departure of Bartomeu and the majority of his council would not in any case mean the immediate arrival of a successor Rather, it would lead to the appointment of a manager and the acceleration of the electoral calendar: partners could be summoned to the polls within a maximum period of three months, a proposal promoted by pre-candidates such as Víctor Font.

However, the board of directors should balance the sporting exercise and the accounts first so as not to expose themselves to an external audit that could end up with a liability action such as the one that Bartomeu himself and his predecessor Sandro Rosell submitted to Joan Laporta. The president would therefore seem more in favor of protecting the process based on a series of measures that he will announce shortly according to the hesitant speech that came out in Lisbon.

The margin of maneuver is in any case very small, with or without changes in the leadership of the entity, and any consensus with the opposition is equally complicated because the different candidates who will go to the polls in 2021 are not even known yet. The possibility of a motion of censure, still incipient, Bartomeu argues that there is no possible respite because the 2020-2021 season is over. The question is in knowing if the president will be able to apply the package of measures that he has programmed or will end up yielding to the pressure of those who ask that he not condition or mortgage the future of Barcelona. In the face of Bartomeu's liability attacks, the slogan of the critics is that he does not touch anything after the tragedy has reached Messi: the 10 is no longer the solution to be part of the problem, the worst news circulating in the Camp Nou.

The reign of the captain is torn between being the leader of the new generation that has not just emerged or the end of an old guard that perished in Lisbon. On the 10th he already warned of the coming storm and, nevertheless, he did not know how to protect the team from adversity, lacking in rebellion and humanly more fragile, his head down when he loses and upright when he wins, always spoiled at the Camp Nou . No one has taken into account his rudeness or nepotism but rather his ability to individually support the various Barça posters.

Paperboard posters

Around the face of the best player in the world and surely in history, the poster of the month that a club , the poster of the "best team in the world" and even the slogan of "Barça style" has been endured . Messi's body can no longer bear the club's propaganda and, for his own resume, he needs to decide if he plays or walks, if he surrenders or claims, if he is or leaves, conditioned by a contract that allows him to negotiate from January his future inside or outside the Camp Nou. The 33-year-old Rosario, it is convenient to mark distances with respect to a flawed wardrobe, the oldest and best paid in Europe, also responsible for the decline.

A captain is required not to point out those he hates and portray himself with those he likes, friends like Luis Suárez, Jordi Alba or Arturo Vidal, but to win over dissidents and sew into the locker room with those who come to regenerate the team, consecrated footballers like De Jong or Griezmann or who have made a career at the club, few like Ter Stegen. The locker room is ungovernable since he not only imposed the habits of coexistence but also of the game, unlike what happened with interventionist coaches -Cruyff or Guardiola-, skilled -Luis Enrique- or pragmatic -Valverde.

The ecosystem generated around the 10th limits the operation of any coach and technical secretary, confused as Bartomeu is. The president was wrong when he believed that football was simply a matter of players, a tremendous mistake considering Barça's history. It's not just about hiring a technician who has Jasikevicius's aura. Basketball has nothing to do with football and the Palau is not the Camp Nou. Barça's problem is structural and, therefore, affects the different departments of the club, even the immaculate ones, usually distinguished by FIFA itself.

The ruin is not only economic but also sporting and threatens to be moral for a club that preaches with a universal football catechism since the appearance of Cruyff. The Dutchman's legacy has been so manipulated that today it is even doubted whether the model implemented with the dream team and which has been exploited so many times at La Masia is viable . Barça is at the crossroads of ending up like Milan or being reborn like Bayern Munich. It is enough to compare Friday's line-ups in Lisbon with the Barça postcard from 2015 and the German one from 2013.

Indebted and mortgaged

The situation is so extreme that it demands answers not only football but also business, and the board has no credibility or authority and less leadership to attend to either of the two, confused and lost since they came out victorious with the trident and the Berlin treble as antidote to Laporta's mandate and work.

There is no money, the club is deeply in debt, and it is still not clear what happened to Barçagate . Up to six executives, the majority linked to the economic area, resigned while it was being discussed whether someone had reached into the Camp Nou box. The board's reply was as tepid as it was disconcerting, half truth and half lie, as most of the explanations it has given to its government policy since the still judicialized signing of Neymar Junior.

You have to remodel the squad and it is also necessary to rebuild the Camp Nou in times of famine due to covid-19. Extenuations no longer serve as an excuse for a board that sometimes acts like the trileros on La Rambla, especially in capital matters such as Espai Barça, pending approval in a referendum or in the assembly of delegates, the sovereign body of Barcelona .

It will be difficult for Bartomeu to defend his projects after a legacy that has decapitalized the club and the team, lacking in character and identity after 2-8. The best team in history will also carry the worst defeat at Barça for life. The bucolic images of Paris 2006, Rome 2009, Wembley 2011 and Berlin 2015 have been made obsolete by the impact of Lisbon 2020.

The tsunami unleashed in Lisbon threatens to dethrone Messi and precipitate the fall of Bartomeu after sentencing Quique Setién. Football travels at breakneck speed for a club that plays in slow motion like Barcelona. There is no longer room for indulgence or masking but for exigency after the team has expired and the club collapsed in its bid for the Champions League. Barça never knew how to play or wanted to be like Madrid, all the more reason for its crises to be existential and not temporary, unique in the world like its football, right now lost in the limbo of the Camp Nou.

The board decides tomorrow on the elections

Until tomorrow, from 11 a.m., when the Barcelona board of directors is scheduled to meet, no news is expected from the Camp Nou. The announcement of the dismissal of Quique Setién could be one of the measures adopted by the Bartomeu council and it is also expected that the planned electoral calendar will be explained: the question is whether the president will resign and facilitate the formation of a management board or will exhaust his term until the beginning of 2021.