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The biggest names among Bayern opponents: Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay
Photo:
Xavier Bonilla / imago images / NurPhoto
At least the thing with number 10 has now been resolved.
Contrary to the suggestion, borrowed from the tradition of US sport, to leave it vacant for all time, the shirt number of the migrated Lionel Messi has already been given again at FC Barcelona - to the charismatic attacker Ansu Fati.
The 18-year-old is Barça's great hope for goals and glamor in the future.
The succession to the throne not only produced the anecdote that the next day his father Bori was spotted doing bulk shopping in the club fan shop, where he bought eight shirts for the family. It should also convey the message that the new Barça comes from where the glorious team around Messi and Xavi, Puyol and Iniesta was born: their own offspring.
"Nobody else in Europe currently has a group of young players with so much perspective," said coach Ronald Koeman, under whom midfielder Pedri, 18, matured from nobody to EM star last season.
»Gavi« (Pablo Páez), Nico González - son of the former national player Fran - or the Austrian Yusuf Demir are the newest teenagers to remember.
"There is a great generation coming at Barça," cheers veteran Gerard Piqué, whose defense partners, like Eric García, 20, who has been brought back from Manchester City, or Ronald Araújo and Óscar Mingueza, both 22, also have development potential.
So much for the future.
The present is more difficult to classify before the Champions League kick-off on Tuesday against FC Bayern in the evening (9 p.m.; Stream: Amazon Prime Video; Liveticker SPIEGEL.de) - not only because Pedri is just out of the pre-season after his mammoth program post olympic vacation is back. Or because Ansu has still not played again ten months after a fatal knee injury. In the first month after Messi, there is only one real certainty at Barça: the horrific debt level of 1.35 billion euros.
In terms of sport, there was a lively match (4: 2 against Real Sociedad), a combative (1: 1 at Athletic Bilbao) and a shaky match (2: 1 against Getafe) until the most recent international break.
Since then they haven't played at all, the game on Saturday in Seville was canceled by the league because South American professionals from both sides were still in the World Cup qualifiers on Friday night.
This makes a visit to Bavaria all the more important for determining one's position.
As if the historical ballast wasn't already powerful enough.
The last duel with Bayern was a trauma
2: 8, the biggest notch in Barça's club history: the historic quarter-finals in Lisbon were just over a year ago. It was the brutal final chord at the creeping end of an era that, with Messi, has now also lost its most important protagonist. Whether the loss of its class can be compensated for by better team play or, in the end, perhaps even outweighed, is not a question for a game, but for the whole season. After clapping at home in the Champions League against Juventus (0: 3) and Paris (1: 4), a respectable result against Bayern would at least be an initial sign against the blues.
Because every form of optimistic mood has so far been kept within narrow limits. Only 31,213 of the approximately 57,000 season ticket holders have registered for the first accessible Champions League game in Barcelona since November 2019; the remaining tickets up to the permitted capacity of almost 40,000 spectators went on sale to the surprise of the club. Already at the previous league home games, the permitted capacity utilization was not reached. Pandemic caution or mask fatigue may play a role, but they don't explain everything.
In the middle of the shock processing about Messi's departure, the supporters experienced on the last day of the transfer period how Antoine Griezmann was also given up.
Without the two top salaries and thanks to the voluntary cuts of the veterans Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, which made it possible to register the entries under the wage cap of the Spanish league, Barça's pay slip is slowly approaching an acceptable range.
The transfer surplus of 70 million euros (plus 40 million next summer for Griezmann) was sorely needed.
But the audience of this club is so spoiled by big names that it is very strange with the less dazzling squad 2021/2022.
The notorious pessimism of many Barça loyalists does the rest.
Above all, one of them is committed to overcoming it: Memphis Depay, who came from Olympique Lyon on a free transfer and has so far exceeded all expectations with his goal-threatening and imaginative attacking game. He will have to show himself especially against Bayern, as all offensive players are injured except for himself, the 18-year-old Demir, the eternal problem child Philippe Coutinho and the ex-Bundesliga professional Luuk de Jong, who was loaned out from Seville shortly before the goal was closed. For his part, Coutinho has been indisposed since the end of 2020, de Jong is more a special agent for physically demanding game situations than really "barça-like".
But where many only see emptiness, at least Memphis sees the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. For Barça, the Dutchman accepted a crisis salary below market value, the fans are already singing his name, and he himself, like Marc-André ter Stegen or his compatriot Frenkie de Jong before him, is interested in integration. On the weekend of the Catalan national holiday, he tweeted a message of greeting; Some at Messi waited in vain for such gestures for over 20 years.
After the ultimately auto-destructive dependence on the superstar, the club should now be above everything;
What is a matter of course for opponents FC Bayern, for example, Barcelona has to laboriously work out again.
This includes not fulfilling players' every (salary) wish and setting examples like this summer at Ilaix Moriba.
The midfielder from his own offspring had grandiose performances submitted after a promising debut season.
The club first put him in the stands and then sold him to RB Leipzig for 16 million euros.
One less bearer of hope, but if nothing else: talented young people, as you see it at Barça, they currently have enough.