Worst time for Barcelona
With Xavi’s arrival as head coach of the Catalan club, the situation for Barcelona has improved and a Champions League place for next season is guaranteed. Despite this, the team has produced their worst performance since the turn of the century, and that does not please the team’s fans.
In their last league match, FC Barcelona faced Betis and won 2-1, and currently the Catalans have 69 points and sit 2nd in the standings. The closest pursuer is Sevilla with 34 matches and 64 points.
Of course, Barcelona are a great club and second place is absolutely not the result the owners expect. Especially with the gap between first place and first place reaching 12 points, which was not the case, especially after only 34 games. And it is worth noting that this is the third year in a row that Barça have finished the season without a La Liga title, and it is their worst ever result. A similar situation occurred from the beginning of 2000 to 2004, and after that the situation was stable and the team regularly became the champion of Spain, with a break of maximum 1-2 seasons.
It is worth mentioning the fact that during the season the team had a new coach. Ronald Koeman left his post on 28 October and was replaced by the former player of the team – Xavi Hernandez. Of course, in a short space of time, the team failed to make any real impact in the league, especially as they did not even qualify for the Champions League group stage. Furthermore, things didn’t go well in the Europa League either as Barça were knocked out in the first leg.
Some matches did indeed come as a surprise, with the Catalans beating their arch rivals, the Real Madrid CF 4-0. That was the highlight of the whole season, but it all went downhill from there.
In terms of statistics, Xavi’s starting line-up was worse than that of his previous coach. Under the guidance of the former player, Barcelona have won 19 times, drawn 8 times and lost 7 times. But you can’t blame the new head coach for that, as under Koeman the team had a major star, Lionel Messi, and the troubled team Hernandez took charge at the beginning of the season, not having the proper experience. Prior to that, Xavi coached a team from Qatar, of course, these are different levels.
But in fact there has been no significant progress with the change of head coach. And not so long ago Ronald said his word, who criticized the team, both the coaching staff and players, pointing out all the weaknesses.
In any case, you have to accept reality and understand that the current state of affairs is not the Barcelona it might have been before. We need to think about the future and give the head coach the support he needs. There’s really no fault of Xavi’s in the fact that Barcelona have lost their DNA. At the moment, the team does not have the ability to sign the best players in the world and it is not about the financial state of the club at all, although there are problems here as well. Many world-class stars simply refuse to negotiate because they see no prospects and no development, everyone wants to play in the Champions League and occupy a leading position. From the clear leaders of football Manchester City and Liverpool, the Catalan club lags behind with a huge gap and comparing matches does not even make sense.
