“We inherited a club that was about to disappear,” Barcelona president Joan Laporta told coach Xavi Hernandez and various directors in a board meeting last summer. “About to disappear,” he repeats for emphasis. “But this is our reality. We were about to go totally bankrupt, especially with the super high salaries we have. Our main objective now is to get out of this crisis.”
Laporta’s speech was followed by a transfer window in which Barca sold off over €700 million worth of club assets to fund around €150m of investment in players, summing up the chaos and the bewilderment that has surrounded the club since 2020. Barca have been the most tumultuous team among Europe’s elite in recent years. Headlines have been written for the wrong reasons. Three coaches have been fired in the past two years, a president has resigned, a global pandemic hit the club hard financially, their greatest-ever player left and there have been various European humiliations.
The above Laporta speech is a scene from a new documentary which attempts to turn the turmoil into hope with the title: “Barca: A New Era.” It focuses largely on matters on the pitch, giving little context as to how the club came to the brink of bankruptcy, as mentioned by Laporta himself, but it is not completely cleansed and does provide some insight into life inside the Camp Nou soap opera.
Here is what we did (and didn’t) learn from the five-part docuseries.
– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga, more (U.S.)
📹 We present to you…
💙 𝐀 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐄𝐫𝐚 ❤️
Coming to @PrimeVideo soon 🍿 pic.twitter.com/0wI0snmpgl
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) December 5, 2022
One club, four coaches
The documentary covers roughly a 30-month period, from January 2020 until the middle of 2022. During that time, Barca had four coaches. The first episode, in fact, begins with the dismissal of Ernesto Valverde and a first approach to Xavi. Coaching in Qatar with Al Sadd at the time, Xavi says no, which leads to the appointment of Quique Setien.
Setien’s stay at Barca lasted just eight months but there are some interesting moments from his tenure covered. The former Real Betis appears overawed by a locker room of stars and egos as he gives a presentation speech to the players, saying it is “not easy” for him to take the job at such short notice when “just yesterday I was walking past the cows in my hometown.” He then seems almost apologetic as he informs the players he has scheduled a training session for the following afternoon, when they were supposed to be off. Tension with some of the heavyweights at the club is also hinted at as he scorns Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba for arriving late to training. They don’t seem overly concerned.
Setien’s stay, perhaps expectedly, is then raced through as Barca throw away the LaLiga title to Real Madrid before being embarrassed by Bayern Munich in the Champions League.
Ronald Koeman comes in and oversees some difficult times related to Messi’s future (more on that to come) and helps Barca win the Copa del Rey in 2021, their only trophy since the dismissal of Valverde, who had won back-to-back LaLiga titles and left with Barca top of the table. However, due to player turnover, financial problems, Messi’s exit and tactical limitations Koeman, who was never Laporta’s choice, is eventually dismissed too.
Celebrated former midfielder Xavi finally decides it is time to return. “Now is the moment,” he says in scenes filmed in Doha when the Barca hierarchy flew out to finalise the appointment.
Dembele and De Jong
“The challenge was to do 50 press-ups,” Lewandowski smiles after one of his first training sessions during the preseason tour of the United States. “Ansu did around 40 and [Araujo] 42 or something. I did 50. So of course I won this challenge… but we can do another challenge next time, maybe 60?!”
Lewandowski is one of the new signings Barca’s new era is being built around. He has been an instant hit and his leadership and goals are already paying off. Around him, he has a cast of talented youngsters who are covered throughout the documentary, including Pedri, Gavi and Ansu.
However, some of the most interesting scenes involve two players that arrived with big fees but have not yet quite fulfilled expectations at Camp Nou: Ousmane Dembele and Frenkie de Jong.
Dembele was banished from the squad in January as the club struggled to reach an agreement with his agent to extend his contract. “This is not an easy situation — for me either — but the club are standing their ground,” Xavi tells the players. “They feel his agent is taking the Mickey. Either he renews or looks for a solution elsewhere. That’s the club’s decision.”
Dembele eventually signed a new contract, which Xavi says is “largely thanks to me,” and the Barca coach makes no effort to hide his love of the France forward. “He can be a world-class player,” Xavi says. “I always tell Ousmane: ‘If I am a full-back, I am bricking myself playing against you.’ It’s as if he has two pistols for feet. In 25 years at this club, in terms of pure wingers, I have never seen anything like him at that level.”
Another player who in another timeline could have left the club is De Jong. The Netherlands midfielder, though, once again takes the opportunity to stress that he does not want to leave despite Manchester United‘s long-running interest.
“I see myself playing here for a long time,” he says. “I don’t really care if there are rumours about if I go to another team or if I stay. We didn’t speak about this, no one from the club told me anything about it. I don’t see it happening to be honest. Of course, when it happens [eventually leaving Barca one day], it will disappoint me.”
What’s missing?
Some of the things that have made Barca so chaotic over the past two years are either ignored or scarcely mentioned. The reasons for Bartomeu’s resignation are glossed over, no depth is added to Messi’s exit, the financial problems which led them to the brink of bankruptcy are not explained, pleas for players to drop or defer wages are not addressed and their financial acrobatics from last summer — which led to a scramble to register all their new signings — are given little air time.
Sources told ESPN this is because the main focus was always meant to be on the pitch, even if it is impossible not to cover other issues at a club of Barca’s magnitude.
Stability has been found with Xavi since, although European shortcomings remain a problem. They will once again be in the Europa League in the New Year, albeit with a mouthwatering tie to come against Manchester United in February.
Money remains a problem, too. Selling assets last summer was always going to be a quick fix and cutbacks and revenue boosts are needed in the long term. A source told ESPN that Barca are around €30m over their threshold to be within the LaLiga-imposed financial fair play limit. The drama at Camp Nou is far from over.
