Barça has completed a very meritorious first round if one takes into account the club's bankrupt situation and the difficulty of putting together a competitive squad after Messi's departure in the summer of 2021.
"We talk a lot about debts and little about an equally bad football situation," they warn from the Ciudad Deportiva.
"It is still in the reconstruction phase and hence the satisfaction of the locker room for the progress in the League and the Super Cup title."
The Catalans have added 50 points out of 57, 16 games won out of 19, after losing at the Bernabéu and giving up two draws at the Camp Nou against Rayo and Espanyol.
The victories in fields as demanding as that of Real Sociedad, Atlético, Sevilla, Osasuna or Betis reinforce Barça's leadership for numerical purposes.
In any case, it is not a record figure if one takes into account that the Barcelona fans have added 50 points or more in five previous seasons: 2010-2019: 50;
2010-2011: 52. 2012-2013: 55, 2013-2014: 50 and 2017-2018: 51.
On four of those five occasions, Guardiola (twice), Tito Vilanova, who reached 100 points, and Valverde, ended up winning the League.
The exception was in 2013-2014 Tata Martino.
Barça lost the championship when they drew at the stadium against champion Atlético.
The rojiblancos players left the Camp Nou applauded by fans who for the most part did not quite like the Barça game.
It was not surprising that the Argentine coach gave up continuing after being described as an intruder for not applying the style of play implanted in the days
of Cruyff 's
dream team .
Martino felt like a victim of an environment that somehow assumed that Barça was not deserving of the league title.
That inertia condemned Barça and favored Atlético.
"Your luck depends on whether the public blows so that the ball enters or leaves the goal," recalls Charly Rexach.
The field factor is today the best ally of Xavi's team.
The fans have decidedly sided with the team even after the elimination from the Champions League.
The average number of viewers exceeds 70,000.
The fans know that the viability of the club depends on the success of the players and therefore the militancy prevails over skepticism or even absenteeism without noticing the work of President Laporta's government or discussing the doubts that the government has generated for a while. Xavi's plan.
The parties with the Madrid
Barça corrected itself after the 3-1 loss at the Bernabéu and freed itself with 1-3 in the Super Cup.
The two games against Madrid were key for Xavi.
The coach came up with a formula that respects the Barca ideology for the prominence of the midfielders regardless of the drawing —a 4-4-2 or a 4-3-3.
Frenkie de Jong's fit in the base instead of acting as an interior, more important in driving and breaking lines, has favored the operation of a team that maintains balance with Busquets and in attack delivers to its midfielders Pedri and Gavi .
Xavi has won a fourth midfielder who attacks on the wings in exchange for losing one of the two wingers he was betting on —Dembélé and Raphinha.
"How to win is not given up because it is the best way to victory", they maintain at the Camp Nou.
"We do not forget, however, that each game is like a final", they reiterate at Barça.
The role of each player has begun to be defined since the settlement of Christensen, the recovery of Araujo and the willingness of Koundé to play on the right side while on the left Balde ousted Alba from the starting position with his depth and speed.
With the defense confirmed, the forward turns on Lewandowski.
The Pole is the Pichichi with 14 goals in the same way that Ter Stegen leads Zamora with seven goals conceded, a figure that evokes the times of Liaño, Deportivo goalkeeper, when they only scored six in the 1993-1994 academic year.
The Catalans have gotten used to winning games by the minimum —this has happened with the last four in the League and the Cup against Real— without forgetting that they need to “be more aggressive in front of goal, have more precision in the last pass , generate more chances, shoot”, as recognized by Xavi.
Only one of his 39 goals has been from outside the area and it was scored by Lewandowski against Villarreal.
The improvement is progressive if one takes into account that Barça defeated Betis with two set pieces and that the withdrawal worked better than ever because the team was more compact and played as a unit at Villamarín.
The challenge is for football to have the same continuity as the numbers and add players to the cause to favor rotations and temper possible injuries such as Dembélé's.
"We have shown that not everything is theory but that what is said can be put into practice even if it does not always work out how", they defend in the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper.
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