A legendary team is the Barça of 1992 and a legendary team is the Barça of 2021 in the women’s version. There will be other teams that are more or less better, more or less successful, more or less attractive in Barça history, but that and this one have a common characteristic that makes them unique: they were the first. The first to be champions of the European Football Cup.
The 92 player repeated the final two years later, but succumbed to Milan (4-0). The 21 had fallen two years earlier with such a crash (4-1) against Olympique Lyon, today’s rival. Barça interrupted the reign of the French team, seven times champion, five in a row. The final gives the azulgranas the priceless opportunity to get rid of the backbone they have had since Budapest in 2019. Nine of the eleven Barça starters are still in the team.
New references
The heroes of Wembley relive the feat that was exactly 30 years old yesterday, when they beat Sampdoria and they settled in Olympus culé, and they recognize in them, the components of this Barça, the condition of referents that they still retain. Not only because of the historic victory, accompanied by four consecutive Leagues as well, but because of the style that distinguished them on the pitch.
That idea of football, that philosophy imposed (instilled sounds better) by Johan Cruyff, modeled over time, modernization, wisdom and technology, is the same with which Jonatan Giráldez’s squad is inscribing itself in football history Spanish and European feminine.
They remain in memory and they predict that they will also remain.
“Now the players are enjoying a wonderful time and the club can feel very proud of the category that the team has acquired”
Guillermo Amor / Barça Midfielder (1988-98)
30 Years ago today, one of the greatest moments in my career ? #FC Barcelona pic.twitter.com/0O7GrKl0Q7
— Ronald Koeman (@RonaldKoeman) May 20, 2022
Barça is the locomotive
“Any sport needs a benchmark that makes it grow: a cyclist on the Tour, Ballesteros in golf, the girls in synchronized swimming… and Barça is the locomotive that pulls Spanish women’s football,” says Julio Salinas, who like the The rest of his Dream Team colleagues believe that this growth should be consolidated with a more competitive league, an increase in sponsors and a greater echo in the media.
Juan Carlos Rodríguez assures that the projection of women’s football has only just begun. “The germ has already taken root,” he maintains. He is a voice authorized by his experience.
“Twelve years ago I was the women’s coach of Castilla y León. Following up throughout the region to put together the regional team was extremely complicated: today, only in Valladolid, there are several teams to choose from. The girls have options when they have to leave the mixed teams,” says the former defender. “Barça has grown so fast that it hasn’t given the others time to catch up to their level,” understands the former Leonese soccer player.
Popular and media attention is a consequence of a job “of a long time and many years”, underlines Guillermo Amor, recalling that in his time as a player the women’s team already existed, cornered 30 years ago to a merely testimonial presence, supported by the will of a few and amateur dedication.
“12 years ago I was the women’s coach of Castilla y León. Following up for the national team was very complicated: today, only in Valladolid, there are several teams to choose from”
Juan Carlos Rodríguez / Barça Defender (1991-94)
And two world records
“Now the players are enjoying a wonderful time and the club can feel very proud of the category that the team has acquired,” emphasizes the former midfielder of this Barça holder of the treble last year and undefeated in all competitions of the current one (except the second leg against Wolfsburg), with the brilliant 30 of 30 in league wins. Another symbolic title is the two blockbusters with two world attendance records in a row in the last two Champions League qualifiers against Real Madrid (91,553 people) and Wolfsburg (91,648). A crowd continues in procession towards Turin.
Although the panorama invites you to dream, to remain “alert”. “They are as favorites as they used to say about us in the final in Athens”, warns Juan Carlos, recalling the thrashing suffered against Milan in Athens five days after winning the third consecutive League. That upset was a turning point in the Cruyff era.
Juan Carlos asks that they be alert: “They are as favorite as they said about us in the final in Athens”
An example of “the repercussions” generated by the first football team as opposed to the other sections of the club. “If we hadn’t won in ’92, they would still have fired several of us; in fact, we lost in ’94 and they fired Zubi and me, among others,” says Salinas. The former striker from Bilbao asks an uncomfortable question: “This year you can win several European Cups at the club. How many would people change for Barça’s football?”
Methodology that works
Juan Carlos also left in 1994, and then he realized that the football played by Barça was much more complex than that of the others. “And I didn’t go to Valladolid, but to Valencia!” He stressed. The traumatic exit was added to that qualitative and competitive slump in which he was immersed. That is why he places great value on the women of Barça playing the same as the men. With all the caveats in the world.
“It’s not about distinguishing between boys and girls, grassroots or professional football. Barça has an already tested methodology that works for any team,” says Salinas of the footballing style with which the feminine prevails. “I like it a lot and it makes me proud as a culé that they follow the same idea after so many years,” says Amor, one of those who coincided with the change in the club with the arrival of Cruyff and the total transformation of the quarry.
Albert Ferrer lived through that revolution, difficult and traumatic at first, while acquiring his “own identity” that has managed to endure from Wembley-92 to Turin-22. The defender confesses that he is enthusiastic about the level of Barça for women and predicts a brilliant career “which will not be temporary”. “It is a new attraction for the public, but this will last,” he predicts, denying that the culé partner has found a refuge of joy and celebrations with the Alexia, Mapi, Graham Hansen and company. “They are two teams that go in parallel.”
Salinas wonders: “This year several European Cups can be won. How many would people change for Barça’s football cup?”
to mark an era
Conquered a Champions, now it’s time to stay. The most difficult, they all agree. Stick to the old motto of win, win, win. “He has a team to mark an era. There are teams that spend three good years and then collapse without fighting for the titles, they have to avoid it!”, remarks Amor.
The women’s Barça began in a solar, between barracks, forgotten, waking up on their own. They swim in this season among the abundance, riding a wave whose sunset cannot be guessed.
“They have already won the Champions League. They are plenty. They come from a treble and have finished an undefeated League. It is not the same situation we were in,” Salinas envied healthily.
“They have already won one. They are plenty. They come from a treble and have finished an undefeated League. It is not the same situation we were in”
Julio Salinas / Barça forward (1988-94)
“You have to take the game for what it is: a 90-minute game in which you have been given a task and you have to fulfill it, without thinking that it is a final or what will happen next”
Albert Ferrer / Barça Defender (1990-98)
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The individual approach to the match, the mentality with which each one has to jump onto the Turin pitch, should not vary from what Albert Ferrer felt on May 20, 1992. Apart from the fact that he had reappeared 17 days before from a serious injury to cruciate ligaments in the knee and that caused him “suffering that lasted from the first minute to the last”. First for the mission of marking Roberto Mancini –“Follow him to the bathroom”, ordered Cruyff– and then for being able to last 120 minutes.
“You have to take the game for what it is; a 90-minute game in which you have been given a task and you have to fulfill it, without thinking that it is a final or what will happen next, that this does not affect you in the least You just have to worry about doing the job as well as possible, everything else, good or bad, will come & rdquor ;, advises ‘Chapi’.