Luckily, neither Laporta nor Xavi wanted to resign this summer and Barça has turned around like a sock. It seems that Kounde is a player who generates offensive football on his own (three assists in two spells, total). That Dembélé, praise be Xavi, is starting to look like a top level winger. That indeed Lewandowski’s ability to combine is far greater than what we had seen since the first Suárez. And that Eric, Gavi and Pedri are growing up and we don’t know where their roof is.
But today we have come to talk about a key piece of this reinvigorated Barça 2022-23 and which, with so much light and color on stage, has gone largely unnoticed. Those of us who have longed for the vertigo and quality of Neymar have finally found a substitute: Raphael Dias Belloli, Raphinha. He is a quick winger who understands the game and always thinks vertically. He is also generous defensively and has tremendous quality when looking for passes in space.
Raphinha, a player who contributes much more to the game than to his goalscoring record, is the exact paradigm of what this Barça needed: imagination and imbalance, to free Pedri from the burden of being the only downer in a team that last year he was just talented. The goal is not reached by balloons in the area, rebounds, opportunism or pipes. The goal is reached with creativity and talent, and this end has reconciled us with a figure who, after the lead years of the dembelismeseemed lost forever.
I would not want to miss the opportunity to address the readers after having titled my last column with the inauspicious headline “Robert Lewandowski does not weigh me down”. Football is mockery and fun, yes, but it’s also conviction. Everything that was said there, friends, I stand by, and hopefully I can continue to receive headline captures week after week. Football, indeed, is resignation, and that zen calm is easier to achieve when you look at the end and find Raphinha there.
