Of the triplet to the fed up of Messi

Luis Suárez, Lionel Messi and Neymar celebrate the Champions League in 2015.Reuters

Cornered by pressure in the Barça environment, after the dismissal of Zubizarreta and the confrontation between Luis Enrique, then coach, and Messi, Josep Maria Bartomeu brought forward the elections to the presidency of Barcelona in January 2015 by one year. At that time, he was exercising As a boss after the resignation of his friend Sandro Rosell after the bizarre signing of Neymar was made public in 2013. “The main reason is to reduce the tension suffered by the club.

A tension that does not adjust to reality ”, justified Bartomeu.

Six months later he won the elections.

Their slogan: “We have a Triplet.

We have a Trident ”.

Luis Enrique and Messi had signed peace and the team was crowned with the Champions League, LaLiga and the Cup. "Until everything was resolved there was a time of tension that I had to manage," acknowledged the coach today.

Bartomeu had little to do with the truce between the Argentine and the Asturian, but instead he capitalized on his success.

A triumph, in any case, without the ability to manage.

"We touched the sky with the triplet of 2015 and from there the club has been falling instead of growing," Piqué complained in an interview in

Last March, after

exploded

(Cadena Ser revealed that the club had hired a company to defame Barça players and those around them on the networks), the central defender said: “In recent years the results have endured the club.

You have to try to keep winning on the pitch because the waters don't go down completely calm ”.

And when the team showed the world its cataclysm, in the humiliating defeat against Bayern in Lisbon (2-8), Piqué returned to the charge.

“The club needs changes and I am not talking about the coach, about the players.

I don't want to point at anyone.

Structurally, it needs changes of all kinds, because it is not the first, second or third time, ”insisted the central defender at the Estadio da Luz.

Piqué's rage was that of a dressing room that was embarrassed again in the Champions League, as had already happened to them in Rome (3-0) in the quarterfinals of 2018, and in Liverpool (4-0) in the semifinals in 2019 , but none more shameful in the club's history than Bayern in the quarterfinals in 2020. Barcelona's football decline had little to do with investment in the squad.

In fact, the opposite happened.

From 2015 until this last summer, the club spent 1,092.35 million euros on transfers (33 players) and last season the Barça dressing room was the highest paid in Europe (392 million; this year the club has not yet revealed its budget in the first team).

Bartomeu changed and changed the sports director: Zubizarreta, Robert Fernández, Pep Segura, Abidal and Ramon Planes.

He also had five coaches at the Camp Nou, Martino, Luis Enrique, Valverde, Setién and Koeman.

And he even fired a Barça B coach, Eusebio, for the first time in the club's history in 2015. “I always said I wanted to finish here.

But he wanted a winning project and win titles with the club to continue expanding the legend of Barcelona at the title level.

And the truth is that there has been no project or anything for a long time, they are juggling and covering holes as things go by ”, Messi complained after Bartomeu forced him to continue at the club under the interpretation of a clause (he could go free once the 2019-20 season was over) that he had signed in the 2017 contract. "The president did not keep his word," insisted on 10.

The 13 titles of the first team with Bartomeu

Leagues (four): 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Copa del Rey (four): 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 Spanish Super Cup (two) : 2016-2017 and 2018-2019 Champions League (one): 2014-2015 Club World Cup (one): 2015-2016.

European Super Cup (one): 2015-2016.

The dispute between Messi and Bartomeu was not new.

The captain had already complained about the sports project in 2018 and 2019. The Rosario wanted the return of Neymar and was left without Luis Suárez.

Burdened by economic pressure, Bartomeu had to hand over the Uruguayan to Atlético to cut an uncontrolled wage bill.

Messi did not have his friend Luis Suárez or Koeman with Depay, the 9 he requested.

Without a clear sporting idea, Bartomeu pleased a winning and flawed wardrobe until the portfolio held.

The keys to power were in the wrong place.

“When a club works better and everything is healthier for everyone is when the hierarchies are well defined.

The president must be the first and then the coach must rule over the players.

When this hierarchy is broken, things don't work ”, summarized Piqué.

Bartomeu won with the Trident and lost with Messi pissed off until he resigned as president of Barcelona.