The Clásico left a locker room discrepancy with Laporta

From what was heard in the mixed zone of Mendizorroza, and Under the prism of footballers, Joan Laporta, president of Barça, made two mistakes in Riyadh after Barça lost the Clásico of the Super Cup. The first was to allow the club’s cameras to record his speech in the locker room after losing against Real Madrid. The second was the content of his words to the players. “All of us culés are proud to be from Barça, today more than ever (…). You have shown talent, pride, you have been brave. This is the way, mister”, said Laporta before embracing the coach between timid applause and some face of disbelief in some footballer.

Ten days later, it was clear that the players were not too amused by the entrance to the dugout and the president’s euphoric speech that some bought. In addition to the invasion of the cameras in their most sacred place, the locker room, it was clear that, even if they are in a bad moment, a squad of a big team does not like celebrating a defeat at all. You just had to listen to Frenkie de Jong. “I was sorry that it was said that we were very proud and that does not have to be that way. When you lose, you have to be disappointed”, said the Dutchman, much more accurate before the microphones than in the field in Vitoria. Jordi Alba had a similar opinion but it was something more committed: “Losing against Madrid is never easy”.

The truth is that it was surprising that, after announcing upon his arrival that “losing at Barça has consequences”, Laporta celebrated a defeat. From sectors close to the directive, they wanted to contextualize his speech by framing it in the Barça reality of recent seasons. But the truth is that Barça played the Super Cup because they had won the Cup…, in which Laporta was already president although he did not consider Koeman his coach.