It was as symbolic as it was significant: at the beginning of a week that has such a deep sense of finality about it, the first act for Barcelona was a farewell. On Monday morning, at the club’s expansive but somewhat isolated Ciutat Esportivo training ground, Tata Martino’s squad had a surprise visitor. Goalkeeper Victor Valdes came to properly say goodbye to so many of his old friends, and wish them luck ahead of Saturday’s monumental must-win league decider against Atletico Madrid.
It was the first time the squad had really seen their injured goalkeeper in over a month, other than the formal club events for the passing of Tito Vilanova. It was also the first time one of the true playing totems of this era has had to do something like this.
Since Pep Guardiola took Barcelona to Rome for the victorious 2009 Champions League final against Manchester United, eight players have consistently served as pillars of the side: Valdes, Dani Alves, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro and Lionel Messi.
The goalkeeper is the first of them to go through this process, before a likely move to French side Monaco at the end of the season, but he isn’t the last. The retiring Puyol is following him out of the door this summer, having evoked some emotion himself in Thursday's official farewell event, as speculation also grows about the future of others.
Valdes’ farewell was emotional. Special words were saved for Iniesta and Xavi, the teammates closest to him. Shortly after, Iniesta showed emotions of a different kind: defiance and positivity. The midfielder was scheduled to face the media less than 24 hours after the 0-0 draw at Elche, which surprisingly kept Barca in the title race, and fronted up admirably. Far from a last chance, Iniesta painted the showdown with Atletico as a unique opportunity; one to fully square the circle for this team’s cycle. The team sit three points behind Atletico ahead of the final day and, with Real Madrid out of the race, need to win to take the title by virtue of a better head-to-head record.
“To have this situation of deciding the league at home with our people, this group has never had this situation and to succeed would be something else,” Iniesta said. Many other players put it in similar terms: “We can’t hold anything back,” added Adriano. Alves simply said: “We have to give everything we have.”
The great question underlining Saturday’s grand showdown, of course, is how much actually remains in Barcelona? How much does this team still have to give, especially in such an intensely demanding situation?
From one perspective, it is remarkable that a team on the verge of yet another title are viewed in this way. It is also the inescapable reality. After over half a decade of historic triumph, this incredible group of players are possibly vying for their last trophy together.
It adds another dimension to a fixture that barely needs more depth. Saturday’s clash at Camp Nou will not just decide the Spanish title in a uniquely direct final-day face-off, but also mark defining milestones in the path of two very contrasting teams.
Much has been made of Atletico’s rise, and how they require a title to fully peak. Barca represent the exact opposite, but also so many fundamentally epic sporting narratives. They are Muhammad Ali in Manila in 1975, an established champion defiantly battling to stay on top, but also fighting the tide of time. Added to that, Barca are struggling with the eternal football challenge of when exactly to break up a great team in order to stay great, and how far to go in doing it. It has always been one of the toughest tasks in the sport.
The balance is too fragile, the extent of success too extreme to be sustained. Motivation starts to inevitably wane, intensity drops, players change, and the sum of all parts is no longer quite what it was.
REINVENTING THEMSELVES
Looking back over the last 59 years since the European Cup was founded, only a handful of great teams have managed to evolve without enduring at least a few seasons of struggle.
Real Madrid effectively did it for 14 years from 1955 to 1969; Liverpool for a similar spell between 1975 and 1990. Sir Alex Ferguson trumped both at Manchester United, persevering for two decades since 1993, only once going more than a single full season without a league title.
He found the formula: it was groundbreaking chemistry, if not outright alchemy. Speaking to reporters in October 2010, Ferguson revealed some of his core thoughts about constructing teams.
“I always believe a four-year cycle is probably the most you can achieve,” he said. “We realised that to maintain that high consistency, we had to inject youth.”
This Barca group have already defied Ferguson’s dimensions. They have been at the top for six years but that also leaves a deeper quandary. Barca must keep a certain amount of senior players in order maintain a defining psychology and experience, and at the same time replace enough of them to reinvigorate the side.
Talking to ESPN FC a few months ago, club patriarch Johan Cruyff touched on this as he spoke about the rise and fall of great sides.
“There are a lot of circumstances where it could go wrong,” the former Barca manager said. “People don’t behave the same, could be married, could have children, they were poor, now they’re rich. There are thousands of details and, as soon as one of these details are making the team weaker, you need to change; not the team, but some pieces. So it’s a question of one organisation to control the whole thing.”
Cruyff’s comments virtually sum up Barca’s relative problems from top to bottom, starting with organisation. There hasn’t been enough of it.
The Catalans have suffered a startling variety of hierarchal issues, even by the standards of their regularly crisis-riddled history. While the club has enjoyed commercial growth, that has come at the cost of serial controversies, some of which have been seen as an erosion of core ideals. Money, in fact, has often been the root of many ructions. It began with the association with the Qatar Foundation, and the appearance of a proper sponsor on the club shirts for the first time when it had previously been UNICEF, and continued with the departures of figures such as Cruyff as honorary president, Eric Abidal and even Guardiola as manager.
Bringing people in, however, has caused the most consternation. A breach of FIFA rules regarding 10 under-18 players led to the currently-suspended transfer ban of two windows. The tumultuous signing of Neymar, and the revelations his transfer cost far more than initially stated, eventually brought down former president Sandro Rosell. To add to all that, the club have had to emotionally deal with the sad death of Vilanova. It is a tragedy that should not even really be considered alongside the farce of a football club's decisions, but that has been the unfortunate reality for the team.
Radomir Antic managed Barcelona at a similarly acrimonious point in the club’s history, back in 2003, and tells ESPN FC that such issues can affect what happens on the pitch.
“I remember it was very difficult to manage the concentration,” Antic says. “The club is always going to suffer if you’re not talking about the actual football. They’re talking about new coach, new players. It’s all very strange.”
SIGNING THEIR FATE
What has been strangest of all, and most directly impacted the first team, is the chronically poor recruitment policy. It has left incomprehensible gaps in the squad. The purchases in Rosell’s time have left Barca badly needing at least two centre-halves, a midfielder and a more pure centre-forward before a potential transfer ban takes effect.
Barcelona’s signings under Sandro Rosell:
FB: Adriano, 13.5 million euros from Sevilla
DM/CB: Javier Mascherano, 26.8 million euros from Liverpool
FW: Alexis Sanchez, 26 million euros from Udinese
MID: Cesc Fabregas, 29 million euros from Arsenal
FB: Jordi Alba, 14 million euros from Valencia
MID: Alex Song, 19 million euros from Arsenal
FW: Neymar, 86 million euros from Santos
The right signings do not just replenish the team. They also replenish the mood. Sporting director Ando Zubizarreta has come under immense pressure and, reflecting the tension on all levels, it is understood he has not spoken to Valdes in a year. The revelations about Neymar’s signing are said to have caused some resentment in the squad, and that only feeds into all the whispers about Messi, from his form to his future. The Argentine has obviously still been effective, but far from his best, which sums up the team in general. It is as if a freshness is required throughout, something Alves hinted at when quoted about a “negative energy” at the club this season.
The appointment of an outsider like Martino was supposed to begin addressing this but he has rarely struck the right balance, as illustrated by so many different approaches. Neymar was supposed to add energy, but his inclusion has only sapped the team of fluency, as players like Messi and Iniesta have been denied some of the space they do most damage in. Barca currently look less static when the Brazilian is not there.
The Argentine coach was supposed to add a new energy, but has conversely sapped fluidity. Messi himself seems like he has taken it personally. Having not played to his best, his movement and energy have been lacking; a problem emblematic of the entire squad.
While all of these are very specific details, they also prevent the team generating something intangible: the kind of spirit achieved under Guardiola. It is possible that is a quality that only comes with rare type of mix, that it cannot be forced. Martino alluded to the issue after the Elche frustration when he said: “When we miss early chances our patience runs out and it turns into desperation.”
Compare that to the clear-minded focus of Iniesta’s injury-time equaliser to send his side through in the Champions League semifinal against Chelsea back in 2009. That mentality also reflects the most important point of all, and perpetuates a problem that began under Guardiola. While much has been made of Barca’s famous tactical philosophy and the potential need for change, the biggest change of all is required in application. Cruyff absolutely maintains the passing-pressing approach, when properly executed, has not yet been bettered. The issue is the team simply do not play with the tenacity of old.
It also cuts to the paradox Barca must solve, given the centrality of the philosophy to this group’s success. The exact style makes it very difficult to sign the right sort of players, but that failure to sign in turn affects the intensity of the style.
Yet, after all that, here they are involved in the most intensely-poised single fixture Spanish football has ever seen. The cycle, in so many ways, must be broken.