Barcelona's end of an era was coming... but was ignored

Barcelona conceded eight, and logically, they have rearmed themselves. This isn't the end, but something that has been coming for a while now. That popular phrase "the end of an era" is doing the rounds at the moment. It's still a surprise that in this day and age a club like Barcelona, who have so much experience of eras coming to an end, can allow things to reach this point. Anyone could see that Barcelona had been in decline for years and that a disastrous situation like this was getting closer and closer.

It was eight in Lisbon. Before that it was three in Rome and four in Liverpool and this time there wasn't a league title to soften the blow. The league, though, is a competition whose value depends on whether you win it or not. In recent years, Barcelona have been winning leagues and Real Madrid have been winning the Champions League. Fans weren't necessarily delighted, but it was an acceptable balance. That balance, however, has been tipped. Real Madrid are the only ones walking away with any silverware this term and they also triumphed in the Clasico, which is a success in itself.

How have Barcelona ended up in this state after so many years of success? There are a lot of people who know far more about Barcelona than I do, but I'm going to dare to put it down to complacency, to conservatism and to a reluctance to change things in the club. We're not going to say that the trust in Lionel Messi is why the club is in the state it's in now. Messi has, however, been used to cover up many of the cracks. While having Messi in there was still enough to bring in silverware, it was reminiscent of what coach Phil Jackson used to say to his Chicago Bulls team. "Give it to Michael and get out the way," he would say.

The fact of the matter is that this team that used to rub shoulders with Europe's elites haven't reached a final since 2015. This doesn't seem like such a big problem, but it can't be forgotten that over the last two years everything was in their favour in Europe, and they really did underachieve.

When Messi said before lockdown that "today we're not in a position to win the Champions League" what he was really saying was that even he couldn't stop the decline. He didn't say anything publicly when it was clear things were going downhill despite being the captain, leader and figurehead of the club.

People are also still thinking back to the Pep Guardiola years. Guardiola created a fantastic team, but his greatest success was creating the best style possible to suit the great players he had. With other players, it's almost impossible to implement this style of play if you want to win anything. Some Real Madrid fans admitted to me that they actually enjoyed watching that Barcelona team, which is normal if you're a football fan. However, those extremely fast combinations, touches and rondos, can only be done if you have Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and co at their absolute peak. With other players, that tempo, inevitably, will drop off and a slightly loose touch will favour the opponent.

Messi isn't the problem. What may be the problem is that this "end of an era" that so many haven't wanted to address for so long has now arrived and is hitting the club hard. During lockdown we all watched 'The Last Dance', the series about Michael Jordan's final season when the Chicago Bulls decided to disband their hugely successful team in order to start afresh (which they didn't do very well, but that's another story). The management of a professional club should always be two or three steps ahead of the day to day running of the club. As we can see, Barcelona haven't been looking forward, but backward.

Of course, always being two or three steps ahead would mean doing something that neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid have ever managed to do well: say goodbye to their star players. Alfredo Di Stefano, Johan Cruyff, Romario, Ronaldo, Raul and Iker Casillas have all left over the years, and have done so controversially. This is something that never pleases a board of directors. In recent times, Real Madrid have seen this problem solved by Cristiano Ronaldo, a pragmatic Zinedine Zidane and the help of a Barcelona in crisis.

For the Barcelona faithful, however, what is most worrying is the uncertainty over whether this could be the end of the Messi era, or simply the beginning of the end.