Kicking About 14: What is Eating Barcelona FC?

Serge and Cam sit down to talk all major transfers of the winter window as well as get to the bottom as to what exactly is happening in Barcelona.

Sometimes, seasons of unquestioned dominance can be followed by a brief slide, or a descent into madness (much like Chelsea last year), but it is usually easy to pin point and fix the malady (well, at least to pin-point). It is difficult however to do so when you’re can’t tell quite what’s happening.

Cameron: Here’s the thing, they’ve been horribly inconsistent this year. They just can’t figure it out and they can’t capitalize when Real Madrid drop points. Real lost to Sevilla last week and everyone said okay “here’s our chance, we can close the gap,” only being behind four points behind Real, with game in hand to Valencia which is effectively 7 points. And then they went and drew with Betis and honestly, there’s an argument that Betis should have won that game. They hit the post once, they hit the crossbar once. Barcelona had a goal disallowed a goal for an offside that wasn’t, but Betis was the better side.

Serge: That’s fair, and watching them this year has been a weird experience. I can’t even imagine how you feel.

Cam: Part of the problem is that it’s just, and I keep trying to come up with a coherent explanation of what’s gone wrong and I can’t really find one. There are all sorts of theories that have been offered, especially by the deeply politicizes Barcelona Twitter… There is a lot blame to go around, in particular Luis Enrique. A lot of that boils down to where do you stand in the long running civil war in the Barcelona socio community.

I don’t know what’s going wrong. It just seems to be a bunch of little things happening.

Serge: That is fair. It’s hard, especially with a big club. With Chelsea last year we could point to their effort and kind of go… They’re not putting in the effort that we want to see. It was lethargic, it was almost embarrassing. Whereas Barcelona… I don’t know. They still have the best player in the world.

Cam: Well even in season where they have done poorly, there was still an easily identifiable culprit. The 07/08 it was that they weren’t trying because they weren’t pushed hard enough. In the late Guardiola era it was the defense that wasn’t as critical as it has been.

I don’t know. The bottom line is they are four points back and Real have a game in hand so they’re effectively seven points back. Especially in La Liga, that is an enormous gap to make up.

Serge: That is something that is going to be very difficult for them to overcome. Do you think anything changes in La Liga with Real or do Chelsea and Real go on to win it. Do they have it sewn up?

Cam: I think Real probably has this title in the bag, barring a calamitous turn of events. I don’t think Barcelona have the consistency to pull it out.

The one that’s interesting to me is the battle for four, five, six has been bloody.

Fourth — Atleti with 36

Fifth — Sociedad with 35

Sixth — Villareal with 34

Serge: And Atletico are uncharacteristically up and down.

Cam: Well this comes down to the fact that Atletico and Real Madrid are both under transfer ban for violating FIFA rules for underage players.

Serge: Spanish clubs violating FIFA transfer rules? Noooo! That can’t be.

Cam: No comment.

Serge: What we’re saying is if you want drama you want to go lower in La Liga and EPL. If you want Championship Drama, Ligue 1 is the Ligue for you.