Although the defeat of Futbol Club Barcelona by Real Madrid at the Camp Nou this Sunday was within the realm of the predictable - the blaugrana team has not won a classic against the blancos since March 2nd, 2019, two and a half years ago - it is one of those that hurt, it places fans on the edge of the abyss of demoralization, it has its on-field effects, and also leaves numerous aspects for the management of the club to reflect on. It's true that there is a long way to go until the end of the season, but within the club the atmosphere is scarcely reassuring, subject to turbulence that is difficult to manage due to the desperate financial situation.
Thus, the way the defeat was reached, a 1-2 loss with the Barça goal in the last minute of injury time; the inability of first-team coach Ronald Koeman to get the squad under control and define a minimally understandable style of play; the confusion that reigns in the coaching group with Jordi Cruyff, Mateo Alemany and Ramon Planas all there without the functions of each being easily known; and a board with too many problems on the horizon, the product of a poisoned legacy of Josep Maria Bartomeu, all add up to nothing less than a perfect storm at the club. Images like Sunday afternoon's with fans bashing the sides of the coach's car, as well as unfortunate and negative for Barça - where were the security people, couldn't they have imagined that what happened was predictable? - confirm the need for a rapid change of direction.
It is obvious that Joan Laporta knows the team's needs and the sensitivity of the fans very clearly. He has just won the elections with broad support from members - more than 54% of the vote, with his main rival Víctor Font failing to reach 30% and Antoni Freixa under 9% - and he also has his experience as president from 2003 to 2010, when he took a club that was adrift in both sporting and financial terms and turned it around 180 degrees. Barça was a winning team in what, for years, was the best league in the world, which is not the case now with a mediocre and vulgar competition, far from, for example, the Premier League in England.
The situation in 2021 is not the same as that of the distant year of 2003 - nor is the team that accompanies the president comparable with that in his first period, especially in terms of the key players back then - but it's still only eight months since he returned to the organization and he certainly needs more time to put things in order. It is difficult to understand how Bartomeu's legacy was so disastrous that it was possible for the club to reach a situation of technical bankruptcy which it will certainly be very difficult to dig its way out of. Especially if the goal is to preserve the current club model which, no matter what is said, is seriously compromised by the state of the accounts.
For that reason, the first-team coach is always the reflection of a way of acting, thinking and addressing the members at a time when player signings are almost out of the question and the Masia youth scheme is the only possible remedy for the ills of the club. Surely Laporta himself is aware that the results end up marking the fate of any football coach and that Koeman does not have anywhere much left to go in his job on the bench. He already sealed his fate weeks ago and the road since then has not cleared the obstacles that were there, but rather, there are more and more of them all the time.