Barcelona once again navigate between mediocrity and despair in a League that escapes him, the never seen before, in the first week of December. Four defeats in ten games played and 12 points behind an Atlético de Madrid that can, with all the honors, dress as a favorite, with Real Madrid passing halfway through reaction and disaster but well above this Barça that flies in Europe and crawls in Spain.
33 years ago, it is said early, that the Barça team did not start the league championship in such a disastrous way. And the memory invites us to discover that that 1987-88 season ended in a bad way. It even provokes one to think about the 2003-04 season, Laporta’s first as president at the time, when he had only won four of the first ten games. The depression of that time is beginning to be seen with certainty now.
The big bet of Ronald Koeman for Braithwaite, who had responded with goals in recent weeks, led to a complete fiasco. It is not the Danish, at all, the maximum, nor even minimum, responsible that can explain an unthinkable collapse. From Lenglet, horrifying, and even Messi, unassisted, Barça turned in Cádiz what was understood as an exercise of patience into one of impotence. “It is difficult for us to play against teams that are so close behind,” said Busquets at the end of the game. What he did not say is that they did not know, directly.
Cádiz had already been able to beat Real Madrid, yes, but at its Carranza stadium it had barely added two points, two draws, in five games, presenting itself a priori as an affordable rival in which Barça’s best moment was supposed, that after consecutive thrashes he received all kinds of praise that in the end proved as exaggerated as out of place.
The league drama is explained in numbers. This is the worst start to the course in the national championship since the 1987-88 season, when he added four victories, a draw and five defeats after playing the first ten dates of the tournament, he was number 13 in the standings and ended up closing a campaign for the oblivion, sixth to the conclusion and saved by the conquest of a King’s Cup which, considered today a residual tournament, at that time prevented it from being left out of Europe … And gave way to the revolution commanded by Johan Cruyff.
A revolution of that size is not guessed right now. It gives the feeling of being a too mild awakening thinking about the collapse of last season but in need of a shake up in the club, all of it but starting with the dressing room, which Ronald Koeman cannot carry out today. And in view of the financial situation of the entity, neither who enters the presidency from January.
Barça, which has been unable to win a single game that it started losing, is on the ropes in a championship that escapes without remission. If the League is not won in December, it can be lost … And the Barça team seems to be trapped in that transit.
– .
