There was a strange irony when it was announced during last month’s 2021-22 UEFA Champions League draw that Barcelona’s first Group E opponents would be Bayern Munich.
The news came one year and 11 days after Barca had been thrashed 8-2 by Bayern in the COVID-delayed knockout stages of the 2019-20 competition, a quarter-final defeat that had drawn an emphatic line under the end of the club’s golden generation.
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The fallout was initially dramatic, as megastar Lionel Messi stated publicly for the first time that he wanted out of the club he had been with since he was 13, and with whom he had become synonymous after a dozen years of spectacular domination.
In the end, it all kind of fizzled out; the deadline for the loophole in Messi’s contract that allowed him to leave had in fact already passed, and Barcelona were not willing to let their talisman head elsewhere, even if it meant bad blood and a likelihood he would depart on a free transfer the following summer.
Which is what ultimately happened. But this time around, it wasn’t at Messi’s behest. Yes, even the very best players are at the mercy of the footballing economy, and it was a combination of new salary cap restrictions introduced by La Liga, and moreover, Barcelona’s gross financial mismanagement over a number of years, that forced the Argentine out the door.
“We wanted (Messi) to stay,” said FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta, “but when we saw the situation the institution is in … we had to prioritise the club’s interests.”
It is a stark portrayal of Barcelona’s financial crisis that kissing goodbye to perhaps the greatest player of all time is considered in the club’s interests, but when Laporta went on to describe the extent and nature of the hole Barcelona had dug for themselves, it provided some context; a total debt of AUD $2.17 billion, with player salaries alone exceeding the club’s income.
If Barcelona had been on the decline before Messi’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain – which they certainly had – the exit of their No.10 has left a gaping chasm in not only the squad, but the club’s ambition and even its very identity.
A generation of football fans do not recognise the Blaugrana without the wizardry of Messi. And while pieces of the club’s golden era have slowly been stripped away over the years, and even as others such as Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique cling on, it is impossible not to feel an irrevocable shift now that the touchstone of that generation has moved on.
On the field, the evidence of a fallen powerhouse has been there for a while. For the first time since 2007-08, when the Messi era was in its infancy, Barcelona have gone two campaigns without claiming the La Liga trophy.
It is a similar story in the Champions League. Their second-round exit at the hands of PSG in March was the first occasion since 2006-07 they had failed to reach the last eight of the competition, while four European titles in a 10-year period has become none in the past seven, as arguably the greatest passing team in history devolved to become overly reliant on the individual brilliance of one man.
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This week, the Champions League returns, and Barcelona’s opponents are once again Bayern Munich, the side that first exposed the truly ruinous state of the Spanish giants in that quarter-final hammering.
Rarely has Barcelona entered a Champions League fixture (let alone a group match) as underdogs on their home turf, but at the Camp Nou on Wednesday morning, that will very much be the case.
So how has it come to this? How has a club that produced one of the greatest-ever domestic teams, that possesses a legendary footballing academy, slipped into the second tier of Europe’s elite in the space of a decade or less, all the while sinking into such catastrophic debt?
Laporta’s blame game landed on his predecessor Josep Maria Bartomeu, whom he said left him with a “dreadful inheritance” after spending “too much, and at the speed of light”.
Much of that expenditure came following the world record sale of Brazilian superstar Neymar to PSG in 2017 for $357m, as Barcelona attempted to rebuild their squad via a series of expensive and ultimately disappointing signings.
Philippe Coutinho ($258m), Antoine Griezmann ($193m) and Ousmane Dembélé ($169m) have all become cautionary tales in their own ways following eye-popping transfer fees and underwhelming stints to date, while Yerry Mina, Malcom, Arthur and Paulinho cost another $258m-plus for their combined services, though none are still with the club.
From the outside, it appears the product of a sort of footballing arms race, as an ailing Barcelona tried to retain their European supremacy over the likes of PSG and Manchester City, two clubs with bottomless financial reserves.
As the wastefulness continues to impact the club in the present, Barcelona supporters could be forgiven for dwelling instead on the Messi-led glories of the recent past.
As for the future? They would be wise to keep their minds away from the finances and focus instead on the wispy figure in midfield – an 18-year-old named Pedro González López.
Pedri, as he is known, is at once a link to that glorious past, and the brightest ember for Barcelona moving forward. Watching him glide across the park, picking shrewd passes and cleverly turning out of traffic, one can almost feel the ghosts of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi shadowing him.
But even Pedri might feel the reverberations of the Catalan club’s financial mishandlings. With players taking pay cuts and stringent La Liga restrictions now placed on Barcelona’s spending, the central midfielder has already been linked with Liverpool and Manchester City next season.
For a club so accustomed to success, such an outcome would represent just one of the types of failure they might have to start reckoning with more regularly.
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