The words spoken, exactly one year ago, by mateu alemanysports director barca, still resonate before dozens of microphones and cameras: “He does not want to continue and is not committed to the Barça project. In this scenario he has communicated to Ousmane Dembele and his agents who, before January 31, must be transferred immediately, must leave Barça, because we don’t want players and the technical staff, led by Xavi Hernandezwho are not committed to this project & rdquor ;.
It was more or less the same time that Alemany himself summoned, almost clandestinely, a good handful of journalists in his office at the club to ask them to help him, excuse me, to help Barça, to get rid of frenkie dejongan overly expensive player whom they wanted to get rid of in order to lighten, as soon as possible, the payroll of the Barça squad.
the reconstruction
A year later, the Barça story has been transformed in such a way, in such a way, that the two players they did not want to see even in paint have become vital men to redirect the situation both when it comes to discarding, in the important games, the mythical 4-3-3, turning it into an effective 4-4-2, thanks to a trotting and fine stylist De Jong, who acts as fourth midfielder (discarding the third striker), as if transforming the seasoned Gavi in the new iniestaon the left wing.
And Dembélé, who, thanks to Alemany’s impulse, came to be whistled at and hated by the Camp Nou, is now the boy who has turned what started out as Laporta’s Barça, continued as Lewandowski’s Barça and went on to be Barça of Xavi, at Dembélé’s Barça, that out of place, misplaced boy, who called at two in the morning to Josep Maria Bartomeu to thank him for having signed him for Barça and he received the only answer: “Ousmane, it’s two in the morning and you should have been sleeping for four hours already& rdquor ;.
This reappeared Dembéle is the same one who called Bartomeu at two in the morning to thank him for having signed him for Barça
Because one thing is the beautiful story that always accompanies Barça’s speech and another, very different, reality. It is one thing to say that the 4-3-3 is immovable and another to realize that, to face the greats and even thrash them, as Xavi’s team did against Real Madrid in the Arabian Super Cup, it is more sensible Protect yourself with a fourth midfielder, especially if he is much better than your third striker.
It is one thing to say that you do not want to win 0-1 at the Bernabéu “without playing well& rdquor; and another that you are already accumulating several victories, good victories, victories fought for and suffered much, as valid as the brilliant beatings of yesteryear, to continue being the leader of LaLiga and a semifinalist in the Copa del Rey.
That is why, at the end (and at the beginning, but he never dared to say it), Xavi knows that, in his first great year, he has no choice but to embrace any victory and, if necessary (as it is, he cannot afford the luxury of any) go out against Real Sociedad with Ter Stegen between sticks and not with Inaki Pena. We haven’t talked about that these days either and that, the fearful relay (I would say more than sensible: can you imagine what they would have said to him if he fell against Real with Peña in goal?), is another symptom of the tsunami of reality (and needs ) that Xavi confronts in front of the story.
Related news
And one more thing. It would be a sign of good sense, I say, for us to wait three or four more games to affirm, to ensure, to dictate that this is Dembélé’s Barça. I mean, I don’t know, this guy has made them in a thousand colors to suppose, as I heard yesterday from a daring commentator from the most listened to radio station in Catalonia, that “after Messi Y mbappé, now there is Dembélé& rdquor ;.
A little please, because after Barça’s victory in the Super Cup we also believed that we had seen the light and against Getafe and Real Sociedad, this team ended up asking for the time.