Last season culminated with Barça’s cycle coming to a crashing half. The system was in dire need of a reboot with someone new to take over command of this team. Thus, Barça fans will see their beloved club managed by a new manager yet again this upcoming season. Hopes are high while Barça attempt to reboot this club like Hollywood does with a movie series. The problem is, much like Hollywood, rebooting is no guarantee of duplicate success and fans need to be realistic with their expectations.
As the old saying goes, “Sequels Suck”. FCB is embarking on a sequel, or a reboot of a successful franchise that had lost its appeal. Barça struggled last season and lost two leaders, Puyol and Valdés when the season was over. Tata Martino’s era was brought to an end after one season and Barça went back to their roots by hiring a former Barça player, and their former Barça B manager, Luis Enrique to be their manager. Seems similar to Laporta’s era when the team made numerous changes to the squad after appointing a new manager.
I was a big fan of Luis Enrique “Lucho” when he played for Barça. I loved his spirit and his never die hard attitude. However, I think it is a bit naïve that people think Barça hiring Luis Enrique to manage the team means he is going to be another Pep and we’re heading back to the glory days. Just because Pep and Lucho played together for Barça doesn’t mean you’re getting the same type of manager; Far from it.
Lucho will bring back the discipline and intensity that was lacking last season under Tata. However, Lucho comes from a different school of thought than Pep. Pep had the luxury of playing under Johan Cruyff. Lucho played under another Dutchman, Louis van Gaal and he also played under Bobby Robson and other, and less, successful managers too. So it was no surprise to me when Barcelona sport dailies were reporting that Lucho might go with three at the back or five at the back, like van Gaal did with Holland this summer in Brazil instead of the traditional 4-3-3 we are used to seeing from the Blaugrana.
I also noticed that many fans were excited about Barça signing Luis Suarez and proclaiming that the front three of Neymar, Messi and Suarez would be akin to the days of Messi, Henry and Eto’o. Everything always looks great on paper but let’s not jump the gun and think this those three will score 100 goals between them and make this team a force to be reckoned with. We still don’t know how many matches Suarez will miss and the fact that he won’t have a normal preseason with the team, let alone train with the team, obviously will affect him getting assimilated with his new teammates and manager. We also have Neymar recovering from a back injury too so these three will have to find their chemistry on the pitch and probably won’t be hitting on all cylinders soon.
I hope the Blaugrana faithful will show more faith in this team that has a new manager and new players and give them time to adjust and gel. However, I do not have much faith in this inept board. Nevertheless, veteran players and new players will be introduced to new roles and positions under a new manager. Let’s not forget that even Pep’s treble team stumbled out of the gate at first and I expect Lucho’s team to also start slow. The season opener is just a few weeks away and it would be best to be cautious about our expectations with this team and get carried away. This is not Pep 2.0, but a cheap version of it so let’s not expect a treble and just take it game by game like Lucho and his team will. Just hope the board don't muddy things along the way and further complicate things.
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