The second consecutive League title for the same group of players is always more important than the first. It refers to consistency, reaffirms the path taken, and ratifies the work done. Hansi Flick’s Barça (the project carries the German’s first and last name just as PSG carries those of Luis Enrique Martínez) is very young and has a vocation for permanence, and that is what distinguishes it most from Real Madrid, a former competitive beast now fallen and weakened, whose insipid passage through Spotify Camp Nou has only confirmed its crisis, on the field as an extension of everything happening in the rest of the club.
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Team football and a defined style of play versus a patchwork of individuals serving who knows what pattern or idea. That is the result of the comparison between Barça and Madrid today. Mbappé landed as the supposed cherry on top of a Madrid with a French emperor, and these days of fury see signatures being collected to guillotine the king, today of course the Frenchman who is blamed for everything, singled out as the symptom of all evils. The volatility of the fans and allied media judge with open eyes, unlike justice, which applies a bandage. What was sweet promise yesterday is bitter desolation today.
The Spotify Camp Nou was a celebration both for the present (League champions) and for the pride of belonging. Also for the deliciously stubborn choice of a way of playing, offensive as history dictates (from Samitier to Kubala; from Cruyff to Guardiola; from Ronaldinho to Messi; from Xavi to Iniesta; from Flick to Lamine Yamal…) and with a sense of closeness, represented by La Masia as a universal spot.
Barça beat Madrid through a new collective exercise with a strong local flavor. Without Lamine on the field, the locker room has become even more compact on the pitch, so much so that after the match against Madrid, one did not know whether to highlight Cubarsí, Gerard Martín, Eric Garcia, Gavi, Pedri, Fermín, Olmo, Ferran Torres, or even Rashford. Significant. The sensations were such that the crowd started shouting olés at every pass of their team 25 minutes into the match. If that is not a thrashing to the cautious and now residual fearful Barça character, may God come down and see it.
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Beyond mismanagement and locker room fistfights, there is a football explanation for what has happened to Real Madrid. The white club got rid of Kroos and Modric as if taking out the trash at dusk, without realizing that the container was taking half the football team. Blunders of that magnitude are like building buildings starting with the finishes. In elite football, especially nowadays, those mistakes are usually paid for. The Madrid midfield, with Güler and Valverde injured, was like a hole at Camp Nou, especially compared to Barça’s. Tchouaméni, Camavinga, and Bellingham are physically imposing, and they are not exactly clumsy with the ball, but opposite them is the best midfield nursery in the world, the Kroos and Modric of today, in fact. Barça played with Gavi, Pedri, Olmo, and even Fermín (a false winger), but on the bench were De Jong, Bernal, and Casadó, not to mention Eric Garcia, who has played as a defensive midfielder at times this season with a solidity that would suffice for Madrid. Three of the most expensive reinforcements (Mastantuono, Carreras, and Huijsen) barely feature. And obviously none (two defenders and a forward) came to fix the midfield.
Barça adores Flick and Madrid clings to Mourinho. Madrid has not only lost its identity card (Juanito, Santillana, the Quinta del Buitre, Fernando Hierro, Raúl, Casillas, Sergio Ramos…) but has also fired the scriptwriters. The possibility of bringing back the Portuguese has gone from a joke to a possibility. The cerebral Xabier Alonso was fired, the unstable Vinícius was crowned leader, and Arbeloa was chosen as coach simply for being an obedient employee and has failed spectacularly. Madrid is lost and Barça has found itself again.
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