Girona not only steals fans and DNA from Barcelona, it also exposes its shortcomings, not only the team’s football ones but also its institutional ones. Joan Laporta went from euphoria to discontent in the Montilivi box, from dreaming with Pere Aragonés, president of the Generalitat, about a Champions League match between Barça and Girona, to getting angry at the performance of Xavi Hernández’s boys. Nothing new: neither the changing emotional state of the president, nor the cyclothymic path of Barcelona in the season, always defeated by Míchel’s Girona (2-4 in the first round and 4-2 this Saturday). “This cannot be, this cannot be,” Laporta complained in the Montilivi box. He didn’t care that they heard him, nor that they saw him meeting with his football committee at the door of the Girona locker room, a few meters from where the Barcelona bus was parked.
“If you are seeing them, it is because they want to be seen,” said an experienced Barcelona employee, while Laporta, Deco (sports director), Rafa Yuste (sports vice president), Enric Masip (sports commission) and Alejandro Echeverría (trusted man) of the president) were chatting, very close to the Montilivi mixed zone, after Barcelona’s defeat against Girona. “What did Xavi say at the press conference?” asked a Barça manager. The coach’s appearances, basically his analysis of the games, irritate a part of the board of directors.
“In the four games that we have played against rivals who are ahead in the table, we have been superior,” said Xavi. “But,” he continued, “it doesn’t show on the scoreboard. We had control of the two from Madrid and the two from Girona and all four of them escaped,” Xavi stressed. And he added: “We have played 65 brilliant minutes, but we have to correct many things in the mental and psychological sense. Many things have to change for the next season. It is a pity. We fall apart in any negative situation. “They are specific errors.”
“It’s incredible,” the same manager was surprised. Precisely, in the first round match against Girona in Montjuïc (2-4), a change of opinions occurred between Xavi and Deco. “We haven’t played a bad game,” said the coach. The sports director, for his part, thought exactly the opposite: “We didn’t play a good game.” From that duel, on December 10, until the day of Villareal, on January 27, the announcement of Xavi’s failed goodbye took place.
This is what he hinted at in each press conference, “If we don’t win titles I will say ‘this is as far as we’ve come’”; “I have less than more left at Barça”; How long was Guardiola there? Four years, Luis Enrique? Three. I’m around two and a half,” he stated until, tired of the “cruelty” of the environment, he announced that he was leaving “to de-escalate” the situation.
“He announced that he was leaving because he thought they were going to fire him,” explained a member of the board of directors. Football, in any case, seemed to prove Xavi right. After the match against Villarreal, Barça accumulated 10 wins in 13 games until PSG kicked them out of the Champions League and Real Madrid destroyed their last hope in the League. However, something had already changed. Xavi was willing to stay — “rectify is wise,” the coach argued — and Laporta was willing to give him a new opportunity — “This project showed that it was a winner,” the president added. Of course, with some tweaks. “There will be situations where things will have to be changed. The staff is very large, and in the technical part everything will remain the same, without changes,” said Xavi the day he explained his continuity.
It seemed, then, that things were happening in Sant Joan Despí. There was talk of Julio Tous to reinforce the physical condition of the squad, after some players complained, and of Raúl Martínez to coordinate the physiotherapists. The coaching staff also put their likes on the table: Nico Williams, Kimmich, Bernardo Silva, Xavi Simons, Wilfred Ndidi and Guido Rodríguez to reinforce the squad. “It’s time to plan and we will talk with Deco and the president. We will see what we want to do and what we can do,” said Xavi, after Girona stole second place in the table from Barcelona.
But, in reality, nothing happens at Barça. Trapped by the delicate economic situation, the Barça board has approved the continuity of Xavi (an increasingly fragile shield) and Barcelona returns to the same place and with the same doubts that Girona had left in the first round . And between Laporta’s “this cannot be” and Xavi’s “there will be no debate about my continuity”, Barça is trapped at its own crossroads. Stripped, once again, by Míchel’s team.
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