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Graham Hunter, Spain writerDec 17, 2024, 05:00 AM ET
- Graham Hunter is a Barcelona-based freelance writer for ESPN.com who specializes in La Liga and the Spanish national team.
Barcelona are smack bang in the middle of the type of crisis that 99% of Europe’s football clubs wish they had, too: Top of LaLiga, second in the Champions League, powered by 17-year-old Lamine Yamal (a genius who’s already on his way to Ballon d’Or status and is out-achieving Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same stages of their respective careers), they won the Clásico handsomely, plus they’re pretty much assured of hauling in €40 million simply for qualifying directly for the knockout phase of the revamped Champions League.
Throw in the fact — a much-ignored one when people come to evaluate a team’s worth — that Hansi Flick’s side has regularly played some of the most enjoyable, uplifting football anywhere in the world these last few months and the vast majority of clubs in the Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga or Serie A would be entitled to stare incredulously at you and demand: “Crisis! What crisis?”
Some of you might be raising an eyebrow, Carlo Ancelotti-style, to see me using such a dramatic and emotive word as “crisis.” I tend to be on the less hysterical side of the modern journalistic spectrum, though, so I looked up the definition for you. Merriam-Webster defines it as: “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending, especially: one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome.”
With that context, let me set the table for you.
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Yes, Barça were utterly thrilling when they put four goals past Real Madrid, four past Bayern Munich, five past Mallorca and downright entertaining — if defensively flawed — when they should have scored six and conceded just as many in their 3-2 away win at Borussia Dortmund last week (incidentally that was the first time Dortmund have lost at home in the Champions league since 2021).
But there’s a great word in the Spanish football vocabulary and it’s a denigratory, derisory one — “resultadista.” Meaning someone who judges a team — their progress, their worth, their desirability — on results alone, not how they’re actually playing, not how consistent or clear-cut their ideas and decisions are.
If you’re accused of being a resultadista by someone who speaks Spanish, then have no doubt about it: you’re being sneered at … insulted even. And if you’re against the lazy, surface-level analysis of a resultadista, then the cracks in the Barcelona facade are all too easy to identify and are mounting towards the critical level which begins to define “crisis.”
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at home to Leganés was embarrassing, hapless, avoidable — and grim.
The list of consequences was: Barcelona failing to take advantage of Madrid dropping two points in a 3-3 draw at Rayo Vallecano and failing to give themselves a three-point cushion on Atlético Madrid before Diego Simeone’s Colchoneros come to play at Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium this Saturday (stream LIVE at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN+ in the U.S.).
Moreover, that was Barcelona’s second consecutive home defeat (following the shock 2-1 defeat to Las Palmas) and their fourth defeat of the LaLiga season. Just FYI: Madrid only lost once en route to becoming champions last term.
After a strong start to the season, Barcelona have struggled in recent games, allowing Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid to catch up in LaLiga. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
Another consequence was that every time Barcelona have fallen behind on the scoreboard since late-August they’ve gone on to lose — no counter-punch, not enough character or energy to wrench a bad situation back under some kind of control. No evidence that they understand that every single point dropped, in November and December just as much as in April and May, can be vital to your chances of being champions.
And, don’t forget, that now means Barça, who some people were treating like champions-elect in early November when they beat Espanyol to put a nine-point lead on Madrid and a 10-point gap on Atlético, have now taken just five points out of a possible last 18.
It rubs even more salt in the open Blaugrana wounds that in the two draws which helped earn those measly five points, at Celta and at Betis, Barcelona were leading but conceded, respectively, goals in the 84th, 86th and 94th minutes to fritter away four points by turning wins into draws.
There are a few things which, beyond the dramatic turnaround at the top of the title chase which scream: “Crisis!”
Firstly, teams in LaLiga have totally figured out how to play against Barcelona’s daring, high-risk defensive line which was such a muscular point of their early-season identity. Secondly, the vast majority of Flick’s players look like ghostly, pale versions of their best selves. Tired, lacking in sharpness …. going through the motions. Thirdly, the coach himself has most certainly added to the ongoing malaise by failing to rotate the team sufficiently often or sufficiently well.
Finally, when the team is flying and dominating high up the pitch, Robert Lewandowski has been effective in his finishing. That’s hidden the continuing fact that when he’s not being supplied with glaring, gilt-edged goal opportunities by teammates in brilliant form, he’s a passenger. Slow, dreadfully prone to neither controlling the ball nor passing it well, and a zero-impact asset who’s leaving his team feeling like they are 10 vs. 11. When he throws in the Keystone Cops finishing which he showed against Leganés on Sunday, you could be left wondering: should he even be starting the matches right now?
If you want an icon for the image Barcelona are giving out in LaLiga right now then you could choose their lowest attendance of the season, the slumped shoulders at full-time, Yamal limping around in the second half, kept on when he was clearly injured — or you could choose Antonio Rüdiger at an event in Munich laughing gleefully, maliciously at the final score ‘Barcelona 0-1 Leganés.’
It’s not hard to understand his sentiments. The Champions were behind at Rayo, looked like getting a rinsing, equalised, then led but finally conceded to Isi Palazón to drop two points in Vallecas. But they still cut the gap on Barcelona.
All of this makes the visit of Atlético Madrid on Saturday look absolutely volcanic. Flick will still be absent from the touchline through suspension and the fact that Yamal is out injured, depending on medical examinations, might already determine the result days ahead of kick off (Barcelona have been unable to win a single match in LaLiga when he’s not been in the starting XI).
For all the things which the eccentric, idiosyncratic but undeniably mighty Simeone has achieved whilst in charge of Atléti over these last 13 years, winning away to Barcelona in LaLiga isn’t one. In fact, Atléti haven’t done so for nearly 19 years.
Even though we’re talking about the team which has thrashed Bayern and Madrid and which has occasionally played with scintillating, arrogant vivacity over the last few months, that’s a record which could easily change this weekend and leave Los Colchoneros out on top of La Liga for the Christmas break, heading into a tumultuous 2025 as Spain’s outright league leaders. Make a date with your TV, don’t miss it.
