Barcelona 2020-21: 10 Things

 

10 Things From Barca’s 2020-21 Season

credit: scroll.in

      ̴̴Mitansh Kagalwala̴

THE NEGATIVES

1. The Defense is still leakier than a dam hole: In the 2020-21 season, Barca conceded 38 goals in 38 games, at an average of a goal a game. For comparison, Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid, who finished above them, conceded 25 and 28 goals, 10 and 13 less than Barca, respectively. Barca had the worst defensive record in the top 4. Not good enough. Individual mistakes cost Barcelona dear, with even the usually dependable Marc Andre Ter Stegen culpable of a few. Too often Barcelona threw away a lead with lousy defending. Barca dropped 9 points from winning positions this season. If they had kept the lead in those games, they would have won the title. Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba are aging, Clement Lenglet’s form has taken a massive dip, Umtiti is no longer the player he was two seasons ago, Roberto was injured for the greater part of the season, and in the games he did play, he wasn’t nearly as good as one has to be to play for Barcelona, and while Dest, Mingueza and Araujo have shown promise, they are still young and will take time to become world class defenders. Reinforcements, apart from Eric Garcia, are required to change the defense for next season.
2. Oh Bartemou, what hast thou done? The end of last season was marked by an embarrassing 8-2 loss to Bayern, Barca’s heaviest in the Champions League, and the La Liga title slipping through our fingers. Managers were sacked, players were sold, and salary cuts were applied. But perhaps the biggest change, with calls for his resignation growing, Bartemou and his board resigned on 27th October, 2020, a few months before the Barcelona elections were to take place, throwing the club into further chaos. Bartemou’s reign has been marred by controversy in the recent years, with several transfer decisions supposedly made for business, instead of sporting, reasons (Paulinho’s move from Shanghai SIPG, even though it was a success), terrible transfer decisions that made no sense to the Barcelona faithful (Malcolm, Arthur Melo, selling Suarez to a direct rival). However, the true length of his mismanagement came to light in the previous season, with Barca on the brink of financial ruin, the Barcagate scandal, and Messi’s contract leak (which, while note being definitively proved, has been strongly linked back to Bartemou). Suffice to say, Culers will not be smiling when they hear his name for a long time to come.
3. Tactical Rigidity: Ronald Koeman has done several great things this season after taking charge of a broken team, but one of his most severe shortcomings this season has been a lack of tactical fluidity, squad management that raised a few eyebrows, and bad substitutions. To be fair to Koeman, he did switch to a 4-3-3 when the 4-2-3-1 was no longer working, and when the 4-3-3 stopped doing for him too, he switched to a 3-5-2 to get the most out of Busi and Alba. However, he failed to switch formations when needed, or when Barcelona needed more numbers up front or a new strategy to counter their opponents. The 3-5-2 looked particularly stale at the tail end of the season, with Barca winning only 3 of their last 7 games, dropping 8 points in the process, which would have secured the title.
4. Squad Management and In-Game Substitutions: While Koeman has been largely applauded for his faith in the youngsters and awarding them game time, his squad management has been far from perfect. Pedri, who was brilliant for most of the season, tailed off in the business end of the campaign due to sheer exhaustion, the 18-year old having played a massive 51 games. Even then Koeman did not play Riqui Puig, who would have given Barca a much needed extra dimension going forward, and whose emergence in the previous season was one of the highlights of that campaign. At this point, one must wonder if Puig egged Koeman’s house to have been this severely underworked. Players such as Pjanic (who was deemed good enough to be exchanged for exciting youngster Arthur) and Junior Firpo weren’t put to the best use either, having played only 627 and 289 minutes in the league respectively.
5. The tail end of the season: What a roller-coaster of a season. It started terribly, suddenly turned upward in the middle, and then nosedived at the end. Aprill 11th onwards, Barca dropped 11 points from 9 games in the league, starting with that heartbreaking loss to Real Madrid in the Clasico that ended Barca’s unbeaten run. Though Barca did follow that with a win in the Cup final, Moriba’s shot hitting the crossbar in added time still causes a twinge in the heart. From there Barca still had the title in their hands, Real and Atleti having stumbled, but let it slip through, not once, but twice. Barca fell to Granada, could only manage a scoreless draw against Atleti (courtesy MATs), a 3-3 draw against Levante, and a loss to Celta Vigo on the penultimate match day that mathematically put Barca out of contention. Barca’s dependence on Lionel Messi was especially highlighted during the tail-end of the season. When Messi played well, so did Barca. In his absence, Barca barely limped to a 1-0 win against last placed Eibar. Those eight dropped points would have been enough to win the title. If only…

THE POSITIVES

1. Lionel Messi: 38 goals and 12 assists in all competitions. An average season of rating of 8.5 (the best in Europe). 24 Man of the Matches in the La Liga and Champions League. That strike against PSG. Need I say more?
2. The Youngsters: 2020-21 was supposed to be a “transition” season for Barcelona, with some of the older players being sold in the summer: Luis Suarez, Arturo Vidal, Ivan Rakitic. Questions were raised regarding Barca’s squad depth and quality, and at the start of the season, these doubts seemed well founded. Injury woes were abound, and Barca endured their worst start since the 91/92 season. Koeman turned to the youngsters and the famed La Masia academy, and boy, did they step up. Oscar Mingueza was possibly Barca’s best defender, Araujo too, Frenkie De Jong was brilliant all season, Dest was a bright spark down the right, Trincao (who, in all fairness, didn’t have the best of seasons) chipped in with an excellent winner against Real Betis, Ansu Fati looked golden until he got injured, Ilaix Moriba looked extremely promising, and Pedri and Messi seemed to share a telepathic connection. While they may not be the world class players Culers are used to seeing playing for the Blaugrana (yet!), they stepped up when it was needed and showed they are ready for the big time. Who knows where Barca would be without this group of 17-23 year olds? And with Eric Garcia and Emerson coming in, Alex Collado and Nico supposedly being promoted, the future is shining.
3. Pedri Gonzalez and Frenkie De Jong: We know we mentioned them in the previous point, but these two were just so good that they deserve their own part. Frenkie De Jong finally burst into excellence this season, reminding us just why Barca paid 75 million euros for the Dutchman. He got off to a slow start, but then shone for the rest of the season in a range of roles, from box-to-box midfielder to libero. De Jong showed his class in the 4-0 final win against Athletic, bossing the midfield, and linking up superbly with Messi. For a player who was supposedly to be loaned out at the start of the season, Pedri certainly defied expectations. His link up play with Messi was gorgeous and his ball retention was reminiscent of a certain Barca legend. For all the millions spent on finding Barca’s next great attacking midfielder, who thought he’d be bought for 5 million euros from second division club Las Palmas. 10 goal contributions, an 87.7% pass success rate, two filthy backheel passes for Leo Messi, and a game against Juventus which would surely have given Rodrigo Bentancur and Juan Cuadrado nightmares. Oh, and did I mention he’s still only 18? Phew.
4. The Copa Del Rey Run: While it may not be the biggest trophy, the Copa Del Rey was still an important competition for the Catalans, in more ways than one. Of course, it was our only silverware of the season, but for the first time since Anfield, Barca’s fighting mentality was on display. 2-0 down against Granada in the 88th minute? We’ll score 2 goals to tie things up, and score 3 more in extra time. Against Sevilla in the semi-finals, Barca completed this season’s La Remontada, coming from 2-0 down in the first leg to win 3-2 on aggregate after extra time. This is not to say all the games were easy. It took extra time to beat giant-killers Cornella, and Barca were just about winners in a hard-fought game against Rayo Vallecano. Antoine Griezmann was undoubtedly Barca’s player of the tournament, the Frenchman finally rocking up to the Nou Camp and showing his class as he orchestrated the comeback against Granada. Ousmane Dembele shone in the semi-final against Sevilla, scoring a cracking long ranger. The Copa Del Rey Run was far from straight forward, and while it may have landed one or two Barca fans in the hospital with heart problems, it was certainly worth it just to see some sort of resilience in this squad.
5. Real Madrid didn’t win La Liga: Sure, Barca didn’t win the trophy either, and sure, it was a Madrid based side who did, but at least Real Madrid went trophyless. Silver lining on a dark cloud.