Barça looks to the future to say goodbye to a symbol of the past (2-0)

On the other hand, when you’re young, time frustrates you, you want it to go quickly, for the next match to arrive, the next opportunity to score. And Barça has a lot of future, with a lot of young blood. But to pay tribute to Piqué it was necessary to remember the glorious past of men like Busquets or Alba, brilliant against Almeria (2-0). The survivors of that era when Barça seemed untouchable, far above the rest of mortals. Pique’s final game was a tribute to the past, but with a host of young faces surrounding the veteran captain as he bid farewell.

Piqué’s name will always be associated with the most glorious Barça of all time, although the stain of recent seasons means that Barcelonians do not always want to talk about the past. Now it’s about building a future, having new heroes, praising youth. Another time that Barça plays at Camp Nou, Piqué will no longer be there. And Xavi’s team, who knows, maybe they will be leaders of the League. At the moment he has been doing his homework after being suspended from the Champions League. He has been winning everything in the League and has come out of purgatory jumping from three points to three points. If he wins in Pamplona on Tuesday in the last game before the World Cup, he might be able to be the leader if Madrid strike again. Who would have said that a few days ago, when everything was wobbly.

The calendar, inflated by men in ties who want to keep their pockets full, means that every three days the players have to sweat their bacon. A revolutionized, accelerated football, where the defeats that did so much damage now seem distant. Help to win. Triumph intoxicates, stimulates the senses, makes pigeons fly. And Barça has managed to cover the waterways that Inter and Bayern made in the hull of the ship to get back on course. Xavi’s team is still too passionate, at times. It is difficult for him to play with a cool head, between the nerves to win and the young blood of slightly crazy players. He makes mistakes of the height of a steeple, like the two counters in which Ter Stegen prevented the goal of Almeria, but he knows what he wants to be, in a few months. He lacks calm. It will come, if the results arrive before then.

Piqué’s farewell party, in fact, was pretty crazy, as all the parties in Piqué’s life must have been so far. A tribute to the multifaceted personality of the centre-back, so serious when he plays, so laughable at other times. With a little more cool-headedness, the game would have been completed in the fast way, but this Barça is in such a hurry to rebuild and be great again that sometimes they make absurd mistakes, as in Lewandowski’s penalty . The Pole, usually infallible, cold as if he were a robot, offered Piqué to kick a penalty at the hands of an opponent in the first minutes of the match. Piqué declined and the Pole, for the first time, seemed unsure. Instead of kicking without hesitation, he kept taking breaks, he thought too much. And he kicked out comically.

Seeing a mistake from Lewandowski is rare. It leaves you speechless, out of sorts. On the other hand, Ousmane Dembélé lives in a world where mistakes and successes coexist in a disorderly manner, as if they were two lovers who love and hate each other. The Frenchman, playing on the right, missed an opportunity in the first half when it seemed impossible not to score. But as if he were an ally of Almeria, he handed the ball to the rival goalkeeper. In the second part sins were forgiven. Every game Dembélé gives for a lot, always living on the edge. It was he who was responsible for scoring the first in a mad dash in which he turned his opponents into statues of salt, taunting them, before kicking at the far post. As if he wanted to make it clear that he does not want to score goals in easy plays, without merit. He seeks beauty. And on the way, more than one causes a broken plate in which his ears are pulled.

De Jong, omnipresent

Barça never suffered, but they never looked calm, not even when Frenkie de Jong made it 2-0 after a lucky rebound. He seemed to be in a hurry to score, when Almeria had already taken out the white flag. Xavi revolutionized the match more in the second half by bringing Ansu Fati on for a Ferran Torres who had done almost everything well, until then, except score. The Valencian, in fact, had been more consistent than Dembélé, but without a goal there is no glory. Yes, he was lucky enough to score a De Jong who has finally shown Xavi that he can play without that meaning that Sergio Busquets is a substitute. The one from Badia brings order and the Dutch, adventure. A formula that seems to work when Pedri completes the triangle in the middle of the field of a Barça in which, to dismiss Piqué, Xavi made the other survivors of the era in which the man from Terrasse ruled the middle of the field play: Busquets and a Jordi Alba plugged in enough for the side that he helped make Joan Francesc Ferrer’s five-man defense suffer, Rubi.

Almeria did what she could, but it wasn’t her party. It had to be a festive day in which to forget all Piqué’s misdeeds, all the debates and isms. And the party was round, with a triumph to cheer for the future and an image to remember Piqué as he deserves: as a winner, as the man who knew best how to celebrate when Barça was triumphant. A Barça that Piqué wants to see again, either as a partner or as president. Who knows.