DELUSIONS
I recently heard something on the Legion TV show that stuck with me: “A delusion starts like any other idea; as an egg, identical on the outside, & perfectly formed. From its shell, you’d never know anything was wrong, it’s what’s inside that matters…. For a delusion to thrive, other more rational ideas must be rejected and destroyed”.
Only after the most recent divide in the Barcelona ‘Twitter-verse’ did I make the somewhat odd connection to football. Bear with me.
Ivan Rakitic, a brilliant player in every sense of the word, arrived in Barcelona on the back of a Europa league winning season with Sevilla, in what was perhaps the bargain of the decade (€18m) in Spain, retrospectively speaking. His adaptation was seamless, helping to faze out Xavi Hernandez, the Barcelona captain at the time who was in the twilight of his career with the club.
Ivan’s first two seasons at the club were brilliant at best, and solid at worst, but his signing was also a major indicator of something bigger; there was an ongoing change in the club’s ideology.
With Xavi coming to the end of the road, Cesc Fabregas being a relatively failed experiment, and more teams setting up in deep compact block’s against Barcelona’s possession-oriented style of play, there was a need for directness, and Rakitic met that need ideally, thereby making him a crucial first team member almost immediately.
The problems began for Ivan on a more systemic level, when Dani Alves, a player crucial to the Barcelona set up, decided to call it quits with the club. Subsequently, poor squad planning meant that Sergi Roberto, an Inexperienced central midfielder, would be the starting right back the next season. Ivan’s workload grew, with him having to cover for a central drifting Messi, and an inexperienced Sergi Roberto in defence. This increase in responsibilities led to a decreased presence in midfield, and coupled with a wave of nostalgia for Xavi Hernandez and the ideology he represented, an idea was starting to form.
Ivan Rakitic wasn’t deemed a good enough midfielder in the eyes of the Barcelona fans anymore, and with each passing game, the resentment grew. Of course, that Idea was the birth of a delusion because it disregarded the context of his situation. He sacrificed his own game as a midfielder for the greater good of the team, essentially becoming an invisible cog in the side.
Nevertheless, the fans were unhappy, choosing to fixate on ‘flaws and limitations’, instead of seeking to understand & appreciate what he brought to the table, and why his managers for both club and country saw him as indispensable. That dissatisfaction spread on various social media platforms, with tantrums resembling that of children that don’t understand why they have to eat veggies. “He adds nothing to this team!” the fans would complain, unable to appreciate a ‘behind the scenes’ worker because of a fundamental misunderstanding of his roles in the team. The irony being that majority of those fans would also get agitated when supporters of other teams couldn’t appreciate what Sergio Busquets, the original unsung hero, brought to the team.
Rakitic would produce brilliant performances and showcase his array of talents whenever he got the chance to play in his traditional midfield roles for Barcelona and Croatia, but in light of overwhelming evidence contrary to the delusional idea, dogmatism reared its ugly head as it usually did in any community of football fans, consequently creating an environment conducive for the delusion to thrive, as alluded earlier, thus allowing the delusion to develop in to a full-blown psychosis.
The fans are now unable to distinguish reality from the need to be right, as evidenced by the blatant denial and rejection of any evidence contrary to their arguments. As a result, the fan-base is littered with incessant nitpicking, absurd justifications, straw man arguments, and halfhearted compromises, while the rest of the football world looks on in sheer disbelief.
There is a delusion in the Barcelona fan base. The solution to the problem? the introduction of critical thinking, open discussions, and the abolishing of blame culture.