FC Barcelona is one of the most well-known soccer clubs in the world.
Their famous blue and red shirt is almost a brand of its own, and over the years, they’ve become synonymous with success. Whether winning the Champions League or featuring world-class stars such as Neymar and Lionel Messi, there isn’t a soccer fan on the planet who doesn’t know who they are.
Sadly, the Goliath of Spanish football appears to have been slain, not by another team, but by years of decadence, opulence, and spending they simply could not sustain. They are in disarray, stripped of their stars and devoid of hope in either the Champions League or La Liga. This, with only a few matches of the current season having been played, is utterly unthinkable.
Barcelona, known affectionately as Blaugrana, has won the Champions League on four occasions and lifted the World Club Cup three times this century. They have won La Liga 26 times and finished as runners-up on 26 occasions. The last time they finished outside the top four in their domestic league was 2003; before that, it was 1965. They are an institution, one that sadly appears to be fading fast.
CNN explains how they were beaten 3-0 by Benfica in the Champions League, their second 3-0 defeat in as many games. They look certain to be eliminated from the competition, which will heap pressure on manager Ronald Koeman. They are currently sixth in La Liga, already five points behind the leaders and looking increasingly vulnerable. They needed a last-gasp leveller to prevent defeat by Granada in September and failed to score against Cadiz a week later. Ronald Koeman, a former player for the club, is on very thin ice.
He has the right ingredients to succeed; a post on football managers by Bwin on what makes them successful, suggests as a legendary player, he commands respect in the dressing room, but that isn’t enough at Camp Nou. He might have won the European Cup with Barca as a player and with PSV Eindhoven, and he may well have taken the Netherlands to the Nations League Finals, but he doesn’t have the respect of troubled president Joan Laporta. Their relationship is beyond strained; Forbes believes Laporta didn’t speak to his manager after the Benfica defeat.
Anger at the manager is all well and good, but Barcelona’s problems run deeper than an underperforming boss. Their wage bill has been slashed due to years of decadence and their insistence on playing a part in the unpopular breakaway European Super League. There is a belief that a recent equity deal ratified by La Liga was an attempt to tie Barcelona and Real Madrid to the domestic league, killing the ESL. Those two clubs, along with Bilboa, have launched legal actions against the deal, according to Sports Lumo. Before that, the bad blood meant when Barcelona needed to reduce wages and hoped for leniency from the league. They didn’t get it.
That meant they lost Lionel Messi to PSG; he offered to take a 50% pay cut, but the governing body had no sympathy and refused to grant them any scope for negotiation. Messi’s contract offer was spectacularly withdrawn. It left Barcelona robbed of one of their best players and unable to replace him adequately. Their squad looks average, at best, and they’re getting worse. Koeman, a veteran of nine domestic clubs, with seven titles or trophies to his name, will be gone before Christmas, but who would come in? They had been linked with Julian Nagelsmann, but such is their decline he was never going to choose them over Bayern Munich. Roberto Martinez has been mentioned, but in 14 years as a manager, he has one trophy to show for his efforts; the 2013 FA Cup.
Quite where the great Barcelona go from here is debatable, but silverware is highly unlikely, and it seems their shared dominance within Spanish football is at an end. How far they sink is yet to be determined.
