Barça Lost in Transition.

Barça’s transition from the last regime to the new regime under Laporta is off to a horrendous start. Poor performances and results in La Liga and in the Champions league along with the loss of Messi has not made the Blaugrana faithful happy. Things were supposed to improve but instead, things are getting worse with no optimism on the horizon as long as Ronald Koeman remains.

Barça’s elections were supposed to usher in a new era under President Laporta. What we didn’t expect was for Barça to hang on to Koeman and lose Messi. Back in November, I wrote that

Elections can’t come soon enough. The longer Koeman stays in charge, the more hopeless this season feels for the fans, and for the players. A fresh start is needed with a new board and a new manager because the results are not there to save Koeman. Koeman was presented as the solution, but he’s become part of the problem.

Almost a year later, and Koeman continues to be part of the problem. Koeman has an abysmal record in big games while subjecting us to horrible football. Laporta should have fired Koeman during the summer but he did not because firing Koeman would result in Barça having to pay him €12 million. Nonetheless, this is the same club that haven’t paid Koeman’s predecessors Quique Setién and Ernesto Valverde after they were fired. Because money is tight, Laporta stuck with Koeman and informed the fans “Ronald Koeman will continue as Barca coach. We feel he deserves a certain amount of confidence for many reasons.”

Well, nothing has happened that reinforces that confidence or justifies holding on to Koeman as a manager. Barça have been awful in La Liga and the Champions League under Koeman. Last month, Koeman said “Thanks to me, this club has a future.” Well, if he meant an uncertain future, then he has done a marvelous job.

After Laporta won the Barça presidential elections, he promised us things will be different. “Before, if we lost, nothing happened, but with me there are going to be consequences.” Well, the consequences thus far have been that we lost Messi and replaced him with Memphis Depay, Kun Aguero, and Luuk “more dangerous than Neymar inside the box” de Jong. Well, things sure are not different, things are worse and we have yet to see any consequences; just videos from Laporta asking for support from us.

The transition from the rotting decaying Rosell/Bartomeu era to the Laporta era is one mired in confusion and frustration. Are Barça afraid of firing Koeman because of money? That didn’t stop them with Valverde and Setién, so let Koeman get in line and sue. Eventually Barça will be financially settled and can afford to settle those cases out of court. It sure beats hanging on to Koeman and risk early elimination from the Champions League and make it harder for his successor, Xavi or Francisco Javier García Pimienta (whose firing from Barça B is still a puzzling decision) or anyone else, to help this club finish in La Liga’s top four and qualify for the Champions League. There has been enough damage done under Koeman and this transition will never launch if he stays in charge.

Time for UEFA to convert the Champions League into the Super League.

It’s time for UEFA to be proactive and convert the Champions League and make it become the Super League that most clubs so desperately seek. The big European clubs keep discussing creating a Super League and UEFA needs to realize they must to satisfy the needs of both clubs and the fans. UEFA has to embrace the idea and embrace it quick, because failure to do so will be costly.

The Champions League was launched by UEFA in 1955 as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, although everyone called it the European Cup before taking on its current name in 1992. It was only open to the European domestic league champions until deciding to expand to include runner ups in 1997 before expanding to include clubs who finished 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th in the big leagues. With so many non-champions competing in the Champions League, it doesn’t justify carrying its current name anymore. Nevertheless, UEFA made changes to its most prized tournament to satisfy the European elite clubs.

The last time UEFA tweaked the Champions League format was in 2003 after they dropped the awful second group stage. Now, UEFA has to revamp the Champions League again and turn it into the Super League. It should remain a 32 club competition with the 8 groups of 4 teams, but without allowing the smaller clubs, the minnows, of Europe in it. As much as we love a good underdog Cinderella story, i.e. APOEL FC reaching the Quarter-Finals in 2012, nowadays we look at Ajax and Atalanta advancing to the knock out stages as the Cinderella clubs. Regrettably, the likes of Midtjylland, Ferencváros, Cluj, Plzeň, Molde, Malmo, and BATE belong in the Europa League and not in the Champions League where the competition gets watered down with their presence.

UEFA’s revamp of the Champions League should be simple. As a I previously mentioned, keep the number of participating clubs to 32, but what needs to be changed is who gets to compete in the Champions League. UEFA should keep it the way it is with 8 groups of 4 clubs. These proposed ideas of having one big league of 32 teams or groups with 10+ teams would be a mistake because it will not be entertaining once you’re halfway through the competition and have teams already eliminated with plenty of games to be played with no interest for those clubs and their fans.

      Final 16 of the 2020-2021 UEFA Champions League consisting of teams from La Liga, Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1,                        and Primeira Liga.

As part of the restructuring, UEFA should grant the top five clubs from Spain, England, Italy and Germany automatic qualification to the group stages. If a big club can’t crack the top five, then that’s their problem. UEFA should also continue awarding a spot to the Europa League winner, thus giving those clubs an incentive to win the Europa League, and to make it even more interesting, why not award an additional spot to the league that the winning club belongs to. UEFA should also award two spots for the French, Dutch and Portuguese leagues, which would leave us with just 4 slots left for the remaining clubs from Russia, Turkey, Scotland, and whoever is eligible based on UEFA’s coefficient. It’s far from the fairest or the perfect plan but this new revamp would essentially make every group be a group of death, and not what we commonly see with groups with two big clubs coupled with two minnows, such as FC Barcelona and Juventus with Dynamo Kiev, and Borussia Dortmund and Lazio coupled with Club Brugge and Zenit Saint Petersburg. Even the qualifiers would become more competitive and entertaining for the fans.

Let’s face it, money talks and this is why the big clubs want the Super League; for more money. A product on television has to be entertaining to be a cash cow. At the moment, the Champions League is mostly entertaining during the knockout stages. But when every group is a group of death, then that would ensure that all groups matches would be competitive, and also entertaining must see TV, which in return would allow UEFA to charge networks more for the rights of these games. More money for UEFA means more money for the clubs, which will make everyone happy, except the non-elite European clubs.

Barça, Just OK is Not OK!

FC Barcelona are in first place in both the Spanish League and in their Champions League group. Even though they look good in the standings, their performance hasn’t been good at all. Barça still have issues to resolve and hopefully they can get it together after the international break or else we risk witnessing another disappointing season.

Even though the results do not show it, Barça keep regressing under Ernesto Valverde. The defense keeps leaking goals and the offense looks predictable, which is extremely reliant on Messi. The Blaugrana resemble a car in dire need of a tune-up as they struggle to fire on all cylinders. New signing Griezmann is struggling to click with the team, especially with Messi.

The bigger concern is whether Valverde can actually get the team to play better. Not one player has improved under his helm, so how can we expect him to improve the team. The blame doesn’t fall entirely on him seeing as the players also bear a brunt of the blame. Perhaps Pique needs to cutback on his non-football activities and focus on playing football and rest. Also, it would be nice to figure out why so many Barça players are coming down with muscle injuries.

It’s still early into the season, but Barça being just OK is not OK. Things have to change or else they will be heading towards another disappointing finish. The Blaugrana have been fortunate that Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid have also stumbled early on into the season but eventually one of them will get hot and if Barça don’t get their act together, they may have more concerns than just coming up short in Europe.

Barça’s worst enemy continues to be themselves.

The winter break is over and Barça will be back in action as they resume their pursuit in conquering all three competitions. Their path consists of the likes of Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, and Sevilla in Spain, while battling Lyon and the other remaining clubs in the Champions League. However, the Blaugrana need to come to grips with their worst enemy; themselves.

The club’s start to the 2018-2019 season has been exceptional thus far.  Barça sit atop of the league table and won their Champions League group stage. However, a few bumps in the road due to on the field and off the field issues have to be resolved as they prepare for their second half of the season.



During the first half of the season, the big issue was Ousmane Dembélé. Fortunately, it seems the matter has been resolved. Yet, I feel it won’t be last time before we read another negative story about the young Frenchman. It’s not unheard of to see someone who is 21 and immature. Messi needed Pep Guardiola to tell him to change his diet habits at 21 and make him shine on the pitch. The club knew they were signing a young player who was not a model citizen at Rennes and Dortmund. Obviously, the lack of professional people managing and advising Dembélé is not helping and he would probably benefit from having an experienced agent to advise him properly. Hopefully Éric Abidal, currently the club’s football first team technical secretary, can be that father figure and take him under his wings to teach him to become more professional athlete and steer him from squandering his opportunity.



Another issue of concern is the manager himself, Ernesto Valverde. Last season, Valverde could hang his hat upon the fact that his team almost went unbeaten in the league and defended well which saw them capture the domestic double. Last season, the Blaugrana conceded only 29 goals. This season however, they have already lost twice and have conceded 19 goals after 17 games. Fortunately, the Blaugrana have kept a clean sheet the last four games and here’s hoping the trend of not leaking goals continues.

Nonetheless, under Valverde, the team is unbalanced with the midfield failing to support the backline. Some of his decisions when it comes to the starting eleven is also baffling, such as immediately starting players who have just returned from an injury. He also benches players after a good run of games and starts players out of the blue. Last season, there were complaints that he kept playing the starters for too long and didn’t rotate enough down the stretch after amassing a big lead in the league standings. This season, Valverde was rotating often which saw the team drop points during the first half of the season.

It is clear that Valverde has not settled on 4-3-3 and often reverts to 4-4-2 which at times has been dull to watch. This is Barça, not Athletic, and with the talent at his disposal, we should not be watching dull football. However, the main concern is that Valverde still seems to make the team become more conservative when they have the lead or he fails to adjust when the team is struggling to gain control on the pitch, with the loss to Real Betis as the perfect example with the bitter taste of being eliminated by Roma in the Champions League still lingering. That Roma elimination is a dark cloud that continues to hover over Valverde to this day.



Another major issue is what to do with Coutinho. Valverde does not consider him as a starter, due in large to Dembélé’s performances lately. With Valverde unable to play 4-3-3 or any other variation, the big signing Coutinho, and other signing Arthur, seem destined to ride the bench for now. However, the bench was not what many had in mind when the club spent €160 million for Coutinho. Nonetheless, Coutinho has failed to shine up front, in the midfield, and in Messi’s absence, so it’s not entirely Valverde’s fault. With any luck, Valverde can find a way to get more out of Coutinho or the board will live with the fact that they spent €160 million for a substitute.



Finally, Valverde needs to give more minutes to La Masia players. Carles Aleñá is a recent La Masia who has made the jump to the first team and here’s to hoping he gets to feature in all three competitions. No one is demanding that Barça B players be inserted into the starting lineups and play a full 90 minutes but with Copa del Rey on the horizon, we should see more of the youth in these games. None of the key starters should feature in the Copa del Rey in order to be rested for the league and Champions League which should be the main priorities this season. Chasing a treble, as much we love to win it, can be costly if it means coming up short in Europe because of fatigue from playing in Copa del Rey, again.

The board also has to do better in terms of protecting its players and investing in the squad. It was no secret that the stories of Dembélé being late to training were being leaked to the media and its unfathomable how this was supposed to improve the situation. Additionally, the club needs to improve on re-enforcing the squad.



Ajax Amsterdam’s Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt are players the club should be signing as heir apparent to Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets, who will be 32 and 31 by the time next season starts. Yet, it seems Barça will ultimately sign Adrien Rabiot and Jean-Clair Todibo instead. It is true that signing two of these four players could impact the youth players who want to make the jump to the first team. However, since these signings are going to be made anyways, then wouldn’t it be for the best to sign the finest talent available and not make another André Gomes/ Marlon type signing? The board needs to stop with the poor signings and not waste Messi’s final years with these types of teammates. Elections are a couple of years away but it would be nice for the new board to inherit a strong, if not the greatest, team like this current one did.

The league resumes today with a tricky away fixture to Getafe. Will Barça stop being their own worst enemy? Only time will tell. Hopefully we are not wasting Messi’s talent and time at the club.