Barcelona, Dec 6 (EFE) .- They say that History moves like the pendulum of a clock and Barcelona is already an example of this by drawing in this 2020 a situation similar to that of 2003: unworthy results like yesterday’s Saturday in Cádiz, provisional president with a taste for the position, a gelatinous economy and an election just around the corner.
The distortion that drags the classification due to the blow of the pandemic, with Barça with one or two games less than most of the other teams, aggravates the Barça debacle in the League: seventh after 10 games played.
But the coronavirus does not serve as an excuse to justify the 12 points that Atlético de Madrid, the leader of the competition, gets right now, which has played the same matches as Ronald Koeman’s team.
And the pending games do not explain either that this is the worst start of the Barça League since the winner of a game scored three points, a change that happened in the 1995-1996 season. Koeman’s men have only achieved 14 points after 4 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses.
Not even Joan Gaspart’s Barça offered such a painful mark in the first sprint of the season. In 10 days, the Catalan team has already suffered the same defeats as in the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Leagues together. So it was one and three, respectively.
With Enric Reyna acting as president after the resignation of Joan Gaspart in 2003, Radomir Antic, a replacement for a Louis Van Gaal dismissed mid-term, coached a decaying Barça aiming to qualify for the UEFA Cup.
After an acceptable second round, he finally succeeded on the last day, disputed already in June, with a plethora of Joan Laporta in the box after winning the presidential elections. Thus he became the fourth maximum president that the club had that season. Between Reyna and him, Joan Manuel Trayter chaired a Management Committee.
This year there will be three presidents who will have governed the entity: the resigned Josep Maria Bartomeu, the president of the Management Commission Carles Tusquets and the winning candidate of the elections of January 24, 2021.
On the night of June 22, 2003, Barça beat Celta de Vigo 2-0 with goals from Sorín and Saviola at a Camp Nou that only attracted 48,557 spectators.
The two teams were left with 10 players in the 26th minute (Kluivert and Ángel were sent off) because of a tangana. The fourth consecutive season was certified without titles for the Barça team.
Before that slightly cheerful classification for the entity, the 2002-2003 League had debacles whimsically similar to those of Cádiz or Getafe this year, especially between the months of December, January and February.
A 1-0 against Rayo Vallecano, a 0-3 against Sevilla (which ended with the cloth that Gaspart endured alone in the box) and a 2-4 against Valencia were the first dishes, which had a 2 as desserts -0 against Celta de Vigo that cost Van Gaal the position and a 3-0 against Atlético de Madrid with Toño de la Cruz as provisional coach.
Then a certain Andrés Iniesta began to dazzle in the midst of horror in a similar way to what Pedro González ‘Pedri’ now shows, who came out against Cádiz after the break, but could not turn the situation around.
In Cadiz, the solid Lenglet became a vaporous orphan from the refuge of Piqué, Jordi Alba revived ghosts of Anfield and Coutinho once again worked as a dispensable bureaucrat. None of these players, like the rest of their teammates, will get paid in January because Barça does not have money to pay their salaries.
In spite of everything, the outlook is not terrifying enough to scare away the desire for an armchair of the nine candidates willing to lead the entity for the next six years (in 2003 six candidates exceeded the signature cut).
The good news for Barça is that the pendulum of the clock never stops moving if there is someone willing to wind it.
Sergi Escudero
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