Joan Laporta has returned, Xavi Hernández has also returned and, however, Barcelona has remained blank the season in which Leo Messi left.
The challenge is to prevent the game of 10 from causing the same discomfort that the departures of Ladislao Kubala and Johan Cruyff generated in their day.
The solution is precisely to recover the figure of Skinny and return to Wembley.
The London stadium was the setting in which the Barça team won the first European Cup 30 years ago.
Cruyffism is
offered
as a religion in the moments of doubt of a Barcelona fan orphan of footballers who make a difference at the Camp Nou.
The reference is the Dream Team that 30 years ago won the Champions League and four leagues (1990-1994) when Messi was a boy from Rosario.
So Los Amigos de Johan brought together the members of that legendary team to commemorate the success of Wembley —May 20, 1992— in a ceremony presented by Jordi Basté and held in the Mediapro auditorium.
The impact of that victory against Sampdoria in extra time by 1-0, a goal by Ronald Koeman in the 111th minute, marked the history of Barça.
The victimizing story of the team became the winner after that goal and that game and also Cruyff's direction.
“Although there have been better teams, like Luis Enrique's and Guardiola's, ours was the most special.
And it is that we were the first to win the European Cup”, resolved Laudrup.
"No one thought that we could lose," Amor added. "We needed her, we needed her."
The players caught on to Cruyff's winning mentality.
“The desire was such that what happened had to happen.
Johan led us and dragged everyone.
He removed all the pessimistic complexes that had been ”Insisted Guardiola, who agreed with Txiki Begiristain in pointing out:“ Barça was one and now it is another through Johan ”.
The mystique that surrounded the final was illustrated in Cruyff's expression “Come out and enjoy”.
The game, however, was very difficult for most of the Barça players.
"I don't know what the coach said in the talk because I disconnected when he ordered me to follow Mancini all over the field," explained Chapi Ferrer, who had only been training for 10 days after suffering a serious injury in November in Logroño .
“I had a lot of nerves, an excess of responsibility and I had a bad time until 1-0″.
Juan Carlos agreed: “He told me to stop Vialli and I spent the game wondering whose turn it was for Lombardo”.
"With the exception of Zubizarreta and Koeman, who gave us the trophy, the rest of us suffered in a very even game", Guardiola certifies.
“We got infected by Koeman's personality and Johan's way of being.
The coach convinced you: we are the best and we will achieve it, he told us”.
He called Julio Salinas on Friday to announce that he would be the starter: "I'll tell you in advance that you're going to play so you don't go out on the weekend," said the Basque striker, the bachelor of the group.
"On Thursday nights I used to go through Fiber Optic while married people went to Up & Down," he confessed.
"I didn't drink," he clarified.
“I was a winner;
I did not like to play, but to win”.
Johan Cruyff's 'Dream Team' after winning Barcelona's first Champions League at Wembley, in 1992.Agustí Carbonell
"Luckily Julito Salinas didn't score because if he got the chance he had, he would still be playing for Barça", smiled Nadal, who expected to go out on the field when Koeman scored and Cruyff then preferred to take the captain Alexanco out onto the field, who commented : “Johan was always right;
sooner or later you admitted that he had been right.
He anticipated things and tried to make us focus on our task and not worry about the rival”.
He did not notice the strategy either and both Stoichkov, Bakero and Koeman agreed that they had not rehearsed the free kick with which the Dutchman finally surprised Pagliuca.
Although Stoichkov and Koeman sometimes stayed at the end of training to shoot and practise, the Wembley move was concocted on the fly at the will of the Wembley hero.
"Nothing happened in any case by chance," warned Txiki.
“A Champions League and three leagues don't just happen.
Johan was decisive in generating an incredible atmosphere in the locker room and putting an end to that fatality I experienced when I arrived when only the final in Seville was being talked about”.
Laudrup intervened: “15 seconds were enough for him to explain to you what other coaches took 15 minutes” and Zubizarreta concluded: “We went from not being able to to going to win”.
“He took risks, he was brave and he trusted the young people: he gave them continuity and confidence,” recalled Amor. Bakero picked up the glove: “He knew how to free us so that we could concentrate on what was ours.
You earned their respect with your work.
He would sometimes invite three or four couples to his house, serve them wine and even go for bread, but the next morning he would crush you in training.
He made a clan with us;
Even if you were angry with him, you were with him," Bakero continued.
Koeman added: “He was very demanding, but also very human and familiar.
He conveyed confidence in winning.
He was ideal to change things at Barça”.
"I met him at Ajax," Koeman finished.
“And at Barça he changed a lot.
We all had a lot of character, and yet he knew how to lead a difficult team to run.”
Cruyff himself, who always considered himself the best as a footballer and was not afraid as a coach, certified it on his day: “It was a formed team, not bought;
it was done little by little and managed to play as a unit due to the respect that the players had for each other;
the good ones knew that to make a difference they needed the work of others and the others worked because they knew that the best ones resolved”.
Word of Cruyff, whose work is invoked today at the Camp Nou.
Barça looks again at Wembley and the Dream Team after a closed season without any title after Messi's goodbye.
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