The keys to Mateu Alemany’s ‘return’ to Barça

2023-05-17 19:22:16

He left and has returned after 15 days. Aston Villa’s offer, which was “irresistible” then, has not seduced now Mateu Alemanywho has starred in a strange round trip to Birmingham to finally not move from his office at the Camp Nou.

He did not explain the reasons for his goodbye (the club issued a statement after Barça-Osasuna indicating that the football director “started a new path”) nor does he do so now on his return after such a sudden turn, which will make him the Deco boss.

Silence presides over this sudden and unexpected movement, revealed by the newspaper Sport, because he was attracted by the English proposal, where he should have control and money that he would not have at Barcelona, and this Wednesday, on the other hand, he appeared in the office of President Joan Laporta to take him at his word that he gave him on May 2. He had previously told Aston Villa that he was not accepting their offer.

“If you think about it better, the door to return is always open,” the leader told him on Tuesday the 2nd before Barça set out on the road to the title with Alba’s decisive goal against Osasuna, together with Madrid’s defeat in San Sebastian with the Real. The executive was clear about his decision. Was going. Yes or yes.

surprise at the club

He left, but has returned two weeks later, arguing that he still feels as his own the Barça sports project, which has just won the League with a 14-point advantage over Ancelotti’s team. The executive feels that he still has work to do at the Camp Nou. The same job he had when he chose to go to Aston Villa, although, at no time, was that pact made official.

Alemany did not reveal the reasons for his departure to Aston Villa, who did not make the agreement official. He didn’t even explain the reasons for his return

An agreement, however, that the Barça football director did not announce. Neither did the English club reveal it, which has been left without the executive who was to lead the reconstruction of Unai Emery’s team. Neither was any document signed, which always left the door of return open.

A door that Alemany crossed with enormous speed. A return that nobody imagined, causing real surprise among the players themselves and various sectors of the club. Not even Xavi himself, the coach who described Alemany as a “capital in the restructuring of the club”, imagined this surprising outcome.

Capital piece in the ‘fair play’

Capital piece that was. A capital piece that will continue to be because Alemany took Laporta at his word, who happily accepts this unexpected return because it allows him to maintain the sports structure that he had designed two years ago where Alemany is not only the football director but the person who has direct dialogue with LaLiga (something that neither Jordi Cruyff at the time nor now Deco can do) in addition to having the salary fair play map on his computer. It is not enough to transfer these excels but to interpret them and act on them.

Even more so in this summer where Barça must put many pieces together to register Gavi, Araujo and Balde first – priority objectives – and then address the return of Messi, a key issue for the economic recovery in Montjuïc. And, of course, emotional.

In this unusual movement, Barça has not moved from its place. Germany, yes. The Barça club could not compete financially with Aston Villa, which is why the executive, who has an excellent personal relationship with Laporta, maintains the same conditions he had before his ephemeral departure, including the contract he already had until June 30, 2024 and identical salary.

From Jordi to Deco

On this round trip to England, the only change that Alemany will have is his co-worker in sports management to lead the demanding reconstruction that Xavi needs to give Barça a new boost. He changes Jordi Cruyff for Deco, although the club stresses that the coexistence between Cruyff’s son (he was the sports director) and Alemany (he was, is and will continue to be the football director) had been good. It is not, therefore, that they slip from Barça the argument of his departure nor of his subsequent rectification.

Related news

Jordi left because he understood that “the time had come to close a cycle”, as he himself wrote on his Twitter account. Alemany stays because he considers that he can still contribute to an unfinished project, which he has dominated in Spain (Super Cup and League), but has not reached him in Europe, eliminated four times in less than two years.

After picking up the message from Laporta, the executive went to work as if he had never left. Actually, he hadn’t left. A couple of meetings with Deco, one in the morning, another, in the evening, to outline the keys to the new Barcelona, ​​forgetting his fleeting English adventure. And the president has his ideologue again.