Barça, a pineapple before a decisive week

The template of FC Barcelona of the 2021-22 season posed yesterday for the family photo, including the first team coaching staff, with Xavi Hernández at the helm, and the club president, Joan Laporta. The Barcelona team he exercised yesterday at the Camp Nou so that the photograph could be taken at the Estadi. Last season it took in the Sports City on April 13, 2021, just three days before the King’s Cup Final that Barça was going to play and win against Athletic Club. Eleven months later, Koeman and Messi are no longer in the photo, the stage is more solemnthe Barcelona coliseum, but in the same way that a year ago the week was a decisive week, with a final through, now it is no less: visit to Turkey to continue aspiring to a European title and a Clásico at the end of the week in which the Barcelona team aspires to give a good blow to the hierarchy of Spanish football. The team is what is normally said a ‘pinya’ while watching weapons to face a key week in terms of present and future.

The group photo and the decisive week arrive in a good time for the Barcelona team. After general cooling caused by the unexpected 0-0 against Galatasaray last Thursday, the reaction was forceful on Sunday against Osasuna and the good feelings have been recovered for the round of 16 second leg of the Europa League and, above all, for the Bernabéu.

Even though everyone is aware of the difficulty of reaching Madrid in the table, something that seems almost like a utopia, the team has gradually been consolidating a regularity that makes it feel strong enough to maintain the good line, let’s see how far he can go to arrive the team. The priority, and Xavi’s own attitude demonstrates it (rotations are made in the Europa League and the coach reserved Araujo against Osasuna so that he would not see a card that would lead to suspension in the Clásico) is LaLiga. On the one hand, because you have to ensure your presence in the next edition of the Champions League. And on the other hand, the team has marked the Bernabéu game, with a lot of extra motivation to win it. The parallels with Madrid-Barça in the 2003-04 season, resolved precisely with a goal from Xavi, are undeniable and in the Barcelona dressing room they are very much looking forward to this match against Madrid, despite Madrid’s new triumph in Mallorca.

good results of the last matches they make the sensations between the players unbeatable. The team feels strong enough to be competitive and there is confidence in evolution of the group in recent months. Very little to do with the general depression of the weeks of the KO in Champions and Koeman’s dismissal.

The two Super Cups, within reach

The photograph portrays a present, obviously, of minimums, with the team out of the Champions League but with chances to win a European title that in its modern version does not have in its list of winners (it does have its predecessor, the Fairs Cup) and that would give access to the European Super Cup and also with a comeback in LaLiga that means that, for now, he is already on the lookout for second place, which gives access to the next edition of the other Super Cup. So right now the bottle looks half full.

But what it shows the most the photograph taken yesterday of the Barça squad is of the future. A team under construction that is already getting results and that has players like Pedri, Ansu, Araujo, Eric Garcia, Gavi, Nico, Frenkie de Jong, Ferran, Adama and even Dest or the youngsters from the subsidiary Jutglà, Balde, Arnau Tenas or Abde, what they may have a lot to say in the next years. In some cases, they are already authentic realities; in others, it is about young people called to be European protagonists in the coming years. With them, you can already make an eleven that right now can go out and compete anywhere.