Securing a third Champions League title in six years to go with five La Liga championships and numerous other trophies is certainly cause enough to dub Barcelona one of the all-time great club sides.
The quality and beauty of their style of play is indeed, a wonder to behold. They are so much better than anyone else in European football right now it is almost laughable. The magic of Messi, the ingenuity of Iniesta, the power of Puyol, the passion of Pique, the verve of Villa, the athleticism of Alves, the of Xavi. They are simply incredible.
If you are a football lover, then you cannot help but admire them. Despite the play acting and diving that they partake in, the sheer entertainment value of their play is wonderful as is the success it brings. They are a tactical evolution in football; bringing together a solid backline and a scintillating attack into one wonderful package with the added bonus of the majority of their players being trained at the club’s youth academy, La Mesia, steeping these players in the ethos of Barcelona football.
However, it is when people bring in the argument that Barcelona are something wonderfully fresh and different as an institution that gets my goat.
At this point, it is probably best to differentiate between the club and the team of Barcelona. The team represents everything to do with the playing side of Barcelona; the players, the manager, the coaches and so on. This side of it, I have no problem with at all. Indeed, quite the opposite; I adore the footballing ideology.
The club, on the other hand, represents everything above that; the president, the chief executive, the marketing men and so on. Here is where my problem with the arguments of Barcelona lovers starts.
Barcelona tend to be portrayed as an antidote to the corporate football in which we live in these days; a symbol of the days when footballers and their communities had a sacred bond and the 11 men on the pitch represented escapism for the masses of the classes in the crowd.
This is multiplied when you take into consideration the unique geopolitical aspect of Spanish culture; the rivalry between Castilian Madrid and Catalan Barcelona and the historical aspect of the civil war and Franco’s quelling of Catalan and Basque nationalism. Out of this, came the ‘Mes que un club’ philosophy of Barcelona as they became an outlet for opposition to the regime of the Generalissimo.
All well and good and something I rather enjoy as a football romantic, the history of a club and a community wrapped up together.
However, it is my opinion that this philosophy has been bastardised and adopted, given new clothes and been rebranded as the anti-corporate, almost left wing side of football, sticking it to the financial man that runs Real Madrid, Chelsea and AC Milan.
For starters, going out and splashing the best part of 80 million Euros on Zlatan Ibrahimovic, deciding it wasn’t working and then spending another 34 million Euros the next summer on David Villa can only be described as beating Real Madrid at their own game. Even the historic decision to finally sell the front of their shirts for sponsorship shows this capitalism creep; charging a charity $170 million over 5 years smacks of corporate capitalism to me.
Secondly, the dirty politics that characterises football is in evidence at Barca as much as it is elsewhere. That’s the role fan ownership plays; you get wannabe presidents coming along, promising the sun and making dirty deals. It’s as much of the Barcelona model as it is the Real Madrid model.
Lastly, whilst Barcelona are wrapped up in the history of their city as much as any other club, no other club markets that fact quite as much in an effort to sell themselves. Sadly, a once poignant message has been taking over by the marketing men.
So, by all means, talk to me about the wonderful football Barcelona bring to the table, but leave the ‘Mes que un club’ bullshit at the door, please. The football of Barcelona is something different and a joy to behold but above that, they are the same as any other club. The historic philosophy, for this observer, is just another marketing tool now.
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