Ten minutes into the game against Real Madrid, the Camp Nou began to chant Messi’s name. “Messi, Messi” It was the sound that came from the stands. A mixture of nostalgia for the past and contempt for the present. The Barça stadium remembered a footballer who in his last two years at the club only won one Copa del Rey. And the Barça fans did not yet know what would end up coming their way. Probably the worst night since that painful 8-2 in the quarterfinals of the 2020 Champions League against Bayern Munich.
That day Messi was playing with Barcelona and Lewandowski, with Bayern. Now it is the Pole who wears Barcelona, but he could not change the sign of the party. In fact, Real Madrid’s first goal came after a shot from him that Courtois cleared.
Xavi said that it was not his worst night since he sat on the Barcelona bench, “even if it is a hard night in which it will be difficult to sleep”, warned.
The Barcelona coach He takes refuge in the title he has already won, the Super Cup and with an exhibition against Real Madrid, and the one that is to come, the Leaguein which he has a twelve-point advantage over the madridistas.
But not even that seems consolation at this moment for the Catalans. Although football is a fleeting emotion and last year Real Madrid went through exactly the same thing when Barcelona won 0-4 at the Bernabéu in the League. The humiliation was forgotten after Ancelotti and his players won the League and the Champions League.
«We have to take note and improve, not only for the next games, “warns Barcelona’s sports director, Jordi Cruyff.
Xavi came to the Barcelona bench as a guardian of style, like a new Guardiola who saved the club from Koeman’s legacy. As if the name of the Dutchman was not linked to the history of the club and he had not been the one who gave Barça its first European Cup with Johan Cruyff on the bench. He also left the inheritance of footballers like Gavi, Pedri and Balde, who played in the last World Cup with Spain. But the style that Xavi defended has been lost along the way.
He did it in the first leg at the Bernabéu, when he locked himself up to wait for Real Madrid as Atlético would have done for his reviled Simeone not so long ago. But the roles are reversed and now the Cholo team is one of the most attractive in the League, at least in their field. On Barça’s return there was no trace of the identity that it has exhibited in the last 30 years.
The Catalans had many absences, but Barcelona is touched after the defeat, although they have to assess the end of the season. They have won the Super Cup and only a catastrophe would prevent them from winning the League. That did not earn Valverde, for example, to keep the position after the eliminations in the Champions League against Roma and against Liverpool. But Valverde was not Xavi.