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For a team that comfortably won the La Liga title once again this season – an eighth success in 11 attempts – Barcelona ended the 2018/19 campaign under a dark cloud.
If their experiences in the semi-finals of the return leg in the Champions League semi-finals at Anfield broke them, their defeat against Valencia in the Copa del Rey final was the decisive moment for which they were beaten while they were already on the ground.
When Lionel Messi appeared before members of the press during the preparation for Valencia, an event that has now become a rare rarity, the hot topic of the interrogation remained the astonishing surrender of Barcelona against Liverpool, by Jürgen Klopp.
Winning and upset to the same extent, he presented a new excuse. For whom this apology was intended, it is not entirely clear. There is certainly nothing that can be said to the faithful of Barcelona that alleviates their current pain. Messi may have felt the need to apologize to the journalists present. Maybe Messi apologized to the gods of football and gravity itself.
The weight of the world on his shoulders, Messi becomes more and more irritable with football. Aside from the last 15 minutes of the Champions League semi-final first leg, throughout the two games against Liverpool, he has made a largely desperate figure despite his flashes of genius. He was frustrated for most of the 180 minutes.
Conversely, Messi has produced even more shocking moments this season, including inventing what is essentially a Panenka free kick. His repertoire knows no bounds; his talents do not have better contemporary bettors. However, the older he gets, the more he becomes incorrigible when it comes to absorbing defeat. His temporary retirement after the 2014 World Cup after the World Cup was undoubtedly the first real sign of this concept.
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You do not want to take defeat, but only those who are blessed with the most beautiful gifts mourn a loss as they were supposed to be immune.
This season Barcelona won the LaLiga title by 11 points and finished 19 Real Madrid points. The last time they had won the Champions League in 2015, it did not sound so far before you realized at the first opportunity to win it again, it would have been a five year wait. They have won the tournament only once in their last eight attempts.
Messi and Barcelona have been pained to see Real Madrid win four of the last five leagues of the Champions, a Real Madrid that has remained largely under their control in domestic terms.
When Real won the LaLiga title in 1989/90 – a fifth consecutive win – it was for the 25th time. Nearly three decades later, Los Blancos has added only seven other national championship titles to his list. They have been champions of Europe during this period as many times as they have been champions of their own nation.
At the end of the 1989/90 season, Real Madrid won the LaLiga title 15 times more than Barcelona. This gap has now been reduced to seven.
What Real Madrid did in the summer of 1990, is that it held its national domination for granted. A group of defeats in the semifinals of the European Cup and a drought in this tournament dating back to 1966 have become a heavy burden to bear. They lost focus on domestic affairs and Johan Cruyff Barcelona won the following four titles in LaLiga, while writing a new set of sacred texts at Camp Nou that most coaches would follow almost literally, in the footsteps of Cruyff.
Basically, while Real Madrid was distracted by its quest for a European holy grail of football, Barcelona built a dynasty that still resonates today.
But suddenly, Barcelona is at a similar crossroads in 2019 to the one at which Real Madrid arrived in 1990. Ernesto Valverde The future at Camp Nou is openly questioned, although his team managed to stand out with the title of LaLiga via a nice margin of victory.
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To throw a big advantage in the Champions League, as in Rome last season, was careless. Throwing a second big advantage in the Champions League, as in Liverpool this season, proves difficult to forgive and forget.
A final defeat of the Copa del Rey against Valencia, which rejuvenates regularly, is now superimposed.
A gap of 11 points to win the title leaves almost melt. Instead of rejoicing all summer, Barcelona is going to smolder; they will lick their wounds. Even worse, Zinedine Zidane will be conspiracy at the Santiago Bernabéu.
If this is not Valverde himself, Barcelona will have food for thought this summer. Messi can not be the flag bearer forever; Luis Suarez did not fire on all the cylinders; while Philippe Coutinho has never been welcomed to the club with open arms, despite the strength with which he was pursued.
With Messi and Suarez, Gerard spades, Jordi Alba, Ivan Rakitić, Arturo Vidal and Sergio Busquets are all in their thirties. Carles Puyol, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi are always mirages at a distance. An aging team trying to absorb the painful psychological suffering of the Champions League. The landscape of La Liga should perhaps be changed if a club moved forward with a convincing alternative to that of Barcelona, located at a crucial juncture.
A LaLiga championship title won convincingly, a semi-final of the Champions League reached and a final of the Copa del Rey lost: for a face value, it does not look much like a crisis, but scratch the varnish and you will find a Barcelona that looks much more exposed than it should be comfortable.
At the very least, they have to go back to the drawing board because they have made the potentially fatal mistake of staying still, of stopping evolving. In this context, if they fail to consolidate at the national level to get a short-term thrill on the European scene, they may then bet on the next generation of national supremacy that could see them reach the winning parity of LaLiga with the team. from the capital.
By Steven Scragg @ Scraggy_74
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