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Show the leg at the Bernabeu

The atmosphere around Barça is depressing. The Real Madrid League and, above all, the classification of the whites for the Champions League final have helped to make everything look even worse than it is. The regression is so obvious that for many Barça players the title of the season would have been for Madrid to fall against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, which was the great Catalan hope. So sad is the situation, why be fooled. And no one could have imagined it after the game display and the 0-4 at the Santiago Bernabéu on March 20. What has happened since then? Mysteries. There is no unanimity in the diagnosis.

We have become accustomed to analyzing football beyond our means under strictly technical / tactical parameters. That if the square, the triangle, the high or low block, the spaces, the lines and other terms that only fit inside a blackboard. Emotions have been wiped off the map, as if they didn’t exist, as if they didn’t influence the game. As if to press the opponent you only need an idea and legs, and not desire. Xavi Hernández has emphasized the need to pick up a style, a way of playing that he believes in, because he considers it to be the one that has given them the most success and joy. He took the desire for granted. And yet, when the team started to fall for him, his explanations have not only been slate, but he has alluded to terms such as hunger, excitement or faith. That is, everything that cannot be trained because you either have it or you don’t have it.

That his footballers are not motivated enough by the goal of qualifying for the Champions League, as if they were in the hands of larger companies, is to make him look. Joan Laporta’s euphoric story, which until two weeks ago kept saying that winning the League was possible, fell silent and diverted the focus. That is why the return to reality has been so hard for the fans. However, it is inexplicable that a squad with players with the experience of Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué and Jordi Alba – three of the captains – has deflated so much in this final that it is becoming very long. Showing the leg at the Bernabéu, as Xavi has claimed, should not be an alibi to swallow the decline of the team. Precisely because they have already shown that if they want, they can, then the question is why they have stopped wanting. The desire, as I said above, was taken for granted.

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