Why is Barcelona Having a Disastrous Season?

Football Club Barcelona is one of the most emblematic teams in the Spanish League. However, these days it is going through one of the worst performace in the recent history of the club.

There are a variety of reasons that can justify this bad moment for the team, one of them is the difficult economic reality of the club, which has been aggravated by the pandemic; and technical deficiencies that have been reflected in an inconsistent game scheme. Aspects that are expected to be corrected with the hiring of Xavi Hernández as the new DT.

What the numbers say

To date, the numbers presented by Barcelona serve to reaffirm that the Barça team's bad moment is not something temporary and that a speedy recovery for this situation cannot yet be envisaged.

In what has elapsed in the League competition, the culé team has added 23 points out of 45 possible, (6 games won, 5 draws and the 4 defeats they have suffered). With this record, the Catalan team is now ranked 7th in the standings, 16 points behind Real Madrid, the current leader of the tournament.

This bad record can only be compared with the one 18 years ago, precisely during Joan Laporta's first season as president of the club. On that occasion, with Ronaldinho on a stellar plan and Rijkaard as technical director, Barcelona ended up being second in the competition.

What has aggravated this dark panorama is that Barsa's performance has not been very consistent and only glimpses of good soccer have been seen at times. Against Espanyol, the culé had a pretty bad time in the last stretch of the game. Against Villarreal, the Blaugrana team was beaten in a good part of the match and against Betis, except for the first fifteen minutes, the skills they showed were not the best.

At the present time, it is not possible that an effective solution can be envisioned in the near future due to the harsh economic reality that the club is experiencing, coupled with the departure of its star Lionel Messi to Paris Saint-Germain.

The difficult economic situation of the team

Although the fall in income caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the last blow to an economic reality that had already been in free fall for several years, there are several causes that, since the time of the previous directive (chaired by Bartomeu), has given rise to this current situation.

It can be said that this financial decline had its reasons in an erroneous transfer policy with too high costs and whose sporting results were not what was expected, for example, the cases of the players Coutinho and Dembélé.

Similarly, at that time, the board decided to grant a lot of power to the players who used it in order to obtain higher and higher salaries and conditions that were continuously improved.

The current result is that Barcelona today has a short-term debt that is difficult to pay and which it must face in the coming years with income that the pandemic has decreased considerably. All of this continues to be a problem for the current directive of the team and directly affects the sporting results.

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Xavi, hope and optimism

The hiring of the former star has once again excited the fans of the culé, since Xavi Hernández, not only is perceived as a strategist with more modern ideas, but his presence brings to mind the most glorious stage that the culé team has experienced.

However, after the first matches, it has been seen that this process will not be so easy and that the tactical problems of Koeman's stage still remain. That is to say, lack of continuity in the game, absence of goals and the existence of gaps in the defensive area .

Solutions to overcome the bad moment

Xavi has clearly defined the soccer concept that he hopes to implement successfully at Barcelona; the game of position, the pressure for the rapid recovery of the ball, the confrontation one against one of the wingers and the generation of superiorities on the field.

Despite having this clarity, it will not be easy to put this model into practice with the squad of players that he currently has available. This will surely require the recovery of all the injured and getting the right reinforcements in the winter market. Achieving them, despite the financial problem, is one of the difficulties that president will have to overcome.

The injuries have also meant another strong blow to the reality of Barcelona. In the best moment of Ansu Fati, the player had a relapse and was discharged for a few weeks. In the game against Betis, another relevant piece in the coach's scheme such as Gavi, had to leave the game on a stretcher.

What Xavi did bring different from his Dutch predecessor is a much more positive message, since a high mood is also important in soccer. It seems that, for some time, in Barcelona there has not been much happiness in the atmosphere.

One of the real solutions that the team has, in addition to not demanding too much from Xavi, is to make the best use of its quarry of players. The Barça club has to try to solve this season as well as possible and prepare for the next competition, mitigating the economic consequences left by Bartomeu's management and getting around this bad moment for Barcelona.