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Barça’s trajectory does not lie

The mess perpetrated in the sale of tickets and, even more serious, the inability to guarantee the safety of the Catalans who did go to the Camp Nou on Thursday have left in a logical background the elimination of the Europa League. Luckily, and unlike the president, the coach did want to take on the mistakes as his own, which will be very useful as learning for the final stretch of the course.

First of all, the surprise of being eliminated at the hands of the ninth-ranked Bundesliga player must be, in retrospect and cold, relative. Because Barça have only won one of the six European matches they have played at home this season and, above all, because the Germans have managed to get the whole qualifier played according to their score. What’s more, compared to the current season with the 2003/04 season, that of the resurgence with Rijkaard, we must remember that Barça fell to Celtic in the round of 16 of the UEFA Cup.

Beyond the environmental confusion, which shouldn’t have helped, Barça needed to play a game close to perfection to tackle Eintracht’s hard-working defensive system, which deactivated the Barça midfield and denied them time to think and accelerate. game. It had already happened in Germany seven days before and, despite the final victory, the Levante match did not live up to the round performances to which the team had become accustomed at the Bernabéu or just two weeks ago against Sevilla.

To the recurring lack of physical freshness, which strikes many teams in the spring, is added the mental wear and tear of not being able to loosen up in any front game, and it is obvious that some footballers have not responded when rotations have been needed. But we must also remember that Xavi is starting as an elite coach and that, in the same way that he inflicted a tactical bath on Ancelotti, he has now received him from his Eintracht colleague Oliver Glasner. .

This final stretch of the League will be even steeper without Pedri, the man who finds light in the dark. But all this only shows that Xavi’s project, started in the middle of the season and forced to row upstream, is still in its infancy, and recommends that bad results, like good ones, be put in context. We may have rushed to take it for granted that Barça had returned early, but the trajectory of the last three months does not lie and must weigh more. The path, I agree with Xavi, is the right one even if the season ends without titles. Just keep walking.

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