Loading player
On Sunday evening, by beating Espanyol, Barcelona mathematically won the Spanish football championship. He did so with four games to spare thanks to a 14-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid. In 34 games played they have lost only three times and conceded just 13 goals, less than half as many as Atletico Madrid, third in the standings and second best defense in the league.
For Barcelona it is the twenty-seventh national title, it comes four years after the last one and it is the first won without the Argentine striker Lionel Messi, who went to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021. Aside from the purely sporting part, however, Barcelona continues to have big debt problems, to solve which he has made a series of risky long-term bets that depend above all on his sporting results, especially in Europe, where he is still far from the levels of the past.
A won championship is therefore not enough to solve his many problems (not just financial ones), but it can be the first step in what is called a “winning cycle” in football, the beginning of which could coincide with the arrival , in November 2021, by coach Xavi Hernandez, historic Barcelona player from 1999 to 2015.
Xavi arrived awaited by great expectations due to his remarkable past with Barcelona, but also with very little experience as a coach: until then he had only coached the Qatari team of Al-Sadd, so he had gone to play at the end of his career between 2015 and the 2019.
Xavi Hernandez (Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
Barcelona instead came from what was the worst financial balance sheet in its history, with over one billion euros in total debt and a general situation aggravated by the pandemic. Even at a sporting level, the team, coached by the Dutchman Ronald Koeman and left without Messi, had great difficulties.
As told and reconstructed several times in recent months, even before from a technical and tactical point of view, Xavi focused on managerial and relational aspects, trying above all to bring back the rules and dynamics that existed at Barcelona when he was a player. As he wrote The AthleticXavi spoke for example with Sergio Busquets, his former teammate, and discovered that certain rules (for example those on fines for arriving late) or certain habits (such as spending at least an hour together before training ) were gone, and he reintroduced them.
In his freshman year, a year started running, with a squad chosen by Koeman, Xavi led Barcelona to second place in the league, 13 points behind Real Madrid, and failed to make much progress in the cups. However, he achieved some notable results, including a 4-0 victory against Real Madrid and a run of 15 games without defeat.
Building on Xavi’s reappointment and thanks to new funds from his financial ventures, Barcelona invested a further €150m last summer to buy or sign some players to rebuild the squad. The most significant arrival was that of the Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who despite his age (he will turn 35 in August) was immediately very useful to the cause: both for the goals scored (13 in his first 12 league, and over 30 in his first season at Barcelona) than for charisma and professionalism.
(David Ramos/Getty Images)
Together with other experienced players, such as Busquets and the 31-year-old German goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen, Lewandowski brought experience to a team also made up of highly talented young players, such as Gavi and Pedri, and many other promising but less established players. It hasn’t always been easy to manage this balance between different talents and generations, but it seems that the team has managed to find the right measures, without suffering the retirement, at the end of 2022, of central defender Gerard Piqué, who has been at Barcelona since 2008.
In addition to the signings and management of the coach, tactics played an important role in winning the championship. In particular, Xavi’s ability to change the structure of the team during the season: after having focused on offensive wingers (on paper compatible with Lewandowski, but in practice not always effective), for example he decided, also as a result of the players disposition, to strengthen the midfield to better cover the defense (this year Barcelona have won 11 league games by 1-0) and better manage the quick recovery of the ball, an aspect on which Barcelona have been very effective.
Xavi has also managed to redesign the squad after the World Cup break, prior to which they lost 3-1 to Real Madrid and were knocked out of the Champions League by finishing third in their group after Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
After the break for the World Cup, Barcelona won the Spanish Super Cup by beating Real Madrid in the final and consolidated their lead in the standings, again over Real Madrid, giving confidence to many of their young players (he recently made his debut in 15-year-old striker Lamine Yamal, of whom excellent things are already being said), maintaining defensive solidity and trying to exercise control of the game through ball possession, that is, in the Barcelona style.
However, the Catalan club still has a long way to go to achieve results on the pitch that can repay its financial gambles in recent months. First of all he has to deal with the fact that his “cycle” which has just begun will have to do without Busquets, who will leave Barcelona after 15 years, and will have to deal with the advanced age of his other players, especially Lewandowski.
In the next season, Barcelona will also have to adapt to certain economic parameters of La Liga, which among other things require it to reduce spending on players’ salaries. To do so, he will probably have to give up some of them or ask others to give up part of their salary.
At the same time, however, it is crucial to do well in Europe, as well as in Spain, and to do so he will need to buy or sign new high-level players. In all of this, there is also the possibility, at the moment rather remote, that Messi could decide to return to Barcelona at the age of 36. But for that to happen he would have to give up the many and better offers that he has elsewhere (especially in Saudi Arabia) and that Barcelona decides, in order to get him back despite his age, to sacrifice part of his budget.
– Read also: What will become of Lionel Messi?