Little dividend yet from Barcelona’s Real move

“They were a lot better than us. In Munich, we were better, but we weren’t today. We were not enough in a footballing sense,” said Barcelona manager Xavi. “We have to disconnect from the Champions League, face the reality.”

Barcelona are a team in transition despite Xavi having said, “This is Barca and there are no transition seasons.” And a team in transition will make individual errors that have hurt Barcelona in the Champions League and in the Clasico. Look no further than how Manchester United started the season, how shorn of sophistication they looked against Manchester City and the penalty that Scott McTominay gave away against Chelsea.

The surprising part was how far Barcelona, who till 2021 had been in 17 consecutive Champions League knockout rounds, have moved from the idea that made them the ideal club not so long ago. This is not just about the crop from La Masia that shaped into a Europe-conquering outfit −three Champions League titles including one that had Alex Ferguson admitting that his Manchester United had been given a hiding. Or the team that even the Santiago Bernabeu grudgingly admired and Real Betis gave a standing ovation to after being handed a football masterclass.

In November 2012 after Martin Montoya replaced Dani Alves, Barcelona had 11 players who were from the famed La Masia academy. The team that started on Wednesday had three.

In 2018, against Celta Vigo, Barcelona played an 11 that had no one from La Masia.

Short-termism of coaches at La Masia, Barcelona not believing enough in their cadets and not enough talent coming through – after all, you can’t get a crop that has Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique regularly −were cited as reasons and maybe all were partly true. As was possibly radio journalist Miguel Agut’s comment to World Soccer last year. “Over the last few seasons, the club has used academy players to make money, not to feed the first team,” he said.

Barcelona have overhauled La Masia. Changes include more focus on academics like it is at Manchester City as everybody needs a Plan B, having more psychologists to help boys cope with living far away from home and recalibrating the coaching set-up with all La Masia coaches asked to take an annual training programme so that all teams play the same way. The effects of these will take time.

Yet, it is through their youth system that Barcelona discovered Ansu Fati, Gavi and left-back Alejandro Balde. “He is the future of the national team, like many other players, but he also showed he is part of the present,” Spain coach Luis Enrique has said of Gavi. Barcelona also have the phenomenal Pedri. In another time, maybe they would have chosen to build on that, groom more players who would then take the team to the heights it was used to. It would take time and it would be financially prudent.

Instead, by cranking levers, Barcelona, whose debt had ballooned to $1.3 billion and stood at $597m in June, sought to buy their way back to success. A club which trusted its system so much that it would look for managers from within (Pep Guardiola, Tito Vilanova) went on a spending spree. Players were asked to pay cuts even as the club signed big names. In came Robert Lewandowski, who is still looking for his first goal against Bayern in a Barca shirt, Raphinha, Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen, Marcos Alonso and Jules Kounde. It increased the salary burden to $644m from $508m.

It fetched one win, against Viktoria Plzen, in the Champions League. But it has also got the crowd back in a cauldron that can hold 99,000. On Wednesday, 84,000 came to see Barcelona who were eliminated before kick-off because Inter Milan beat Plzen. So what if Barcelona did nothing that troubled Bayern’s stand-in goalie Sven Ulreich as they lost through goals from Sadio Mane, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Benjamin Pavard.

This was the kind of approach Florentino Perez’s Real Madrid was famous for. Remember the Galacticos? Well, check Real Madrid now. Eduardo Camavinga is 19; Rodrygo is 21; Eder Militao is 24 as is Federico Valverde who is in red hot form and Marco Asencio is 26. Real have also been able to move players more efficiently. That Barcelona have to follow Real could sour this exit further but, as Gerard Pique had said after elimination last year, “it is what it is.”