Having won just one of their last nine away Champions League knockout games, Barcelona knew it would take a lot from a team whose order was rapidly ageing to oust Bayern Munich. The clubs went into Friday’s quarter-final with five European titles each but the manner in which Bayern sliced and diced Barcelona showed pedigree alone doesn’t win football games.
Lionel Messi’s comments about Barcelona not being good enough felt like the chronicle of a disaster foretold when midway through the first half and at the end, Bayern scored in bunches of three. “We have hit rock bottom now,” said Barcelona centre-back Gerard Pique summing up the night which ended their first season without a major trophy since 2008, one climaxing years of gradual slippage in Europe. Barcelona’s worst European defeat means for the first time since 2007 no club from Spain will be in the semi-finals.
A rejuvenated Thomas Mueller netted twice and had an assist evoking memories Germany’s 7-1 rout of Brazil in 2014. That night in Belo Horizonte, Bayern coach Hansi Flick was on the bench as Germany assistant-coach. This was more brutal, said Mueller after Bayern’s 19th consecutive win. Fullbacks Alphonso Davies and Joshua Kimmich combined to score; Robert Lewandowski got his 54th goal of the season and Philippe Coutinho scored a brace but didn’t celebrate because he was on loan from Barcelona.
Coutinho, projected as Andres Iniesta’s replacement, is symptomatic of how Barcelona have botched up transfers, sporadically earlier like selling Thiago Alcantara to Bayern in 2013 but regularly since 2014 when Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic and Marc-Andre ter Stegen joined. Approximately 800m euros were spent on over 30 players without any real impact.
Some like Coutinho were loaned, some sold. Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong --- “born for Barca like (Johan) Cruyff 50 years before,” said a Catalan daily when he joined -- have stayed as fringe figures. In Lisbon, Barcelona started in a 4-4-2 formation to not cede the midfield and hope De Jong could be the artist he was at Ajax. “We gave their midfield practically no room, we did what we wanted to do,” said Mueller.
Player recruitment is not an exact science but there have been many theories as to why Barcelona keep bungling --- overreliance on one agent, first team scouts not given importance and too many decision makers are some. “The directors never knew why the team won, so how would they know now why they are losing.” That comment from Cruyff could ring true now for a club which reportedly considered Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and Timo Werner, promised Neymar’s return before signing Martin Braithwaite.
A report in the sports website The Athletic also said that data science, increasingly the bedrock of player recruitment, is not given its due at Barcelona even though they have some of the best data analysts.
All this meant that replacements for a set of club greats such as Carles Puyol, Dani Alves, Javier Mascherano, Xavi and Iniesta who helped Barcelona lord it for much of 2008 to 2015 were not be found. 2015 was when Barcelona last won the Champions League. As the squad including those from La Masia’s golden generation aged --- Barcelona’s average age in 2009 when they won the treble was 25.5; it is 26.6 this season --- Messi tried to keep it all together evolving from a winger to a False Nine to a playmaker who was deployed as a striker on Friday.
That is not where Barcelona’s problems end. When Ernesto Valverde was sacked in January, they sounded out Xavi and Ronald Koeman. Both club legends reportedly refused possibly because presidential elections are due in 2021. As did Mauricio Pochettino. So it came to Quique Setien who said getting the job was “beyond his wildest dreams”. “Structurally, the club needs changes of all types,” said Pique.
Barcelona will have to rebuild and it is unlikely Setien will be in charge. Like in 1987 after Terry Venables was sacked, in 2003 after Louis van Gaal left and in 2008 when Pep Guardiola took charge, they will have to do what former president Josep Lluiz Nunez said in 1999: “(We) remembered a group of players who were famous. But this belongs to the past; it is history now.” (Barca, A People’s Passion by Jimmy Burns).
In young ones such as Pedri, Trincao, Monchu, Ansu Fati, De Jong, Ronald Araujo, Jean-Clair Todibo, Riqui Puig and possibly Eric Garcia, they will have to trust. Covid-19 induced fiscal impediments could mean Miralem Pjanic and possibly Lautaro Martinez will be their only major signings ahead of 2021-22. “If fresh blood is needed to change this dynamic, I would be the first to go,” said Pique. There were six players above 28 in Barcelona’s starting line-up on Friday.
“Hopefully it (the 2-8 result) serves for something. We all need to reflect,” said Pique after darkness hit Barcelona at Lisbon’s Stadium of Light.
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