I don't know if Fútbol Club Barcelona - the president, the coach, the players, the structures - is aware of the slippery slope on which it finds itself. Having virtually lost the Lliga, already eliminated from the Copa and hanging by a very fine thread in the Champions League, from which it could be ejected by Napoli on March 12th and thus bring to an end a disastrous season. There will be time to analyze everything that has been done wrong, which is not a little. The question is, how to approach the end of a season that, depending on how it ends, could lead to a crisis for the institution, at a time when, in addition to the problems on the field of play, there is a serious financial problem that even calls into question whether the currently existing club model can be maintained.
On January 27th, coach Xavi Hernández announced that at the end of the season, on June 30th, he will leave the club, claiming that after a meeting with Joan Laporta both had concluded that the situation deserved a change of course. Everyone understood that Xavi's decision to step aside was the right one, since the coach - whose Barcelonisme is not in question, nor his status as a club icon for his brilliant years as a player - was unable to provide sporting solutions. But halfway-responses can be either a route to renewal or, on the contrary, a brake on progress to the solution. Today we know that, very likely, it is much more the second than the first. And that the current situation cannot continue, since experience shows that a small spark can be enough to set the whole club ablaze.
Until now, Xavi has had a presidential shield, in a season which, from the first moment, there seemed to significant chance of everything going south. But now, with the coach's postponed resignation, all eyes are on the president's box. With the team playing away from the club stadium - having relocated to Montjuïc due to the remodeling of Camp Nou - a protest that would have been at boiling point in the club's own home is only simmering. It is true that Xavi has put a delayed resignation on the table, but it is also true that June 30th is a long way off. The mistake is to see the current problem as a crisis of results, when the truth is that that is just one further danger. The results might put an acceptable shine on everything, something that already happened last year when La Lliga was won.
Barça looks like a small team, it is physically and mentally weak, unable to keep up with the match pace of clubs with much less entity and budget
The real problem, the one that goes to the nub, is in many other things. From the preparation to the lack of commitment to the club among the veteran players, the ones who earn the most. From the absence of a stable game pattern to the lack of leadership. Barça looks like a small team; it is physically and mentally weak, unable to keep up with the match pace of clubs with much less entity and budget. Matches end up as nightmares no matter who the opponent is. One of the best midfield line-ups in Europe, De Jong-Gündoğan-Pedri, ends up losing all the duels regardless of the opponent. And at Barça, crises do not develop slowly; when they are not controlled, they go at an unusual speed.
On Monday, I was told that the newly appointed coach of Brazil, Dorival Júnior, who was at the Lluís Companys ground on Sunday to watch Barça's match with Granada, could not fathom the match that FC Barcelona played nor the football he had witnessed. You don't need to be an expert to realize that the situation is likely to collapse if there is no remedy or the goddess of Fortune does not decide to change sides. But gambling it all on luck, in this case in the Champions League, is an exceedingly risky venture.