Barcelona begin their league season on Sunday against Athletic Bilbao. Ahead of the kick-off, Andy Mitten provides a Barca overview, talking points and a focused look at newcomer Arda Turan.
The dream of six trophies in 2015 has vanished for Barcelona and Pep Guardiola's record-breaking legacy is safe for another year after a 5-1 aggregate defeat to Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish Super Cup.
The Super Cup was long regarded as a glorified friendly, but that changed in 2009 when it became one of Barcelona’s six trophies that year.
Given the manner in which 50,000 Bilbao fans celebrated their team’s homecoming in the Basque country on Tuesday afternoon after their team had won their first trophy in 31 years, it is not considered meaningless there, either.
Barcelona will travel again to Bilbao on Sunday for the opening league game of the Primera Liga season. They will field a much stronger team than in the 4-0 defeat at the San Mames last Friday and hope to replicate the 5-2 victory in the league there last term, or the two wins at Camp Nou, including one in the Copa del Rey final.
The Super Cup defeat was a blow, but it did not cause too much concern in Barcelona.
Fans are delighted with 2015, so far. The year had started with a defeat at Real Sociedad, a result which shook the club and led to the departure of sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta, plus clear-the-air talks between coach Luis Enrique and his best player – football’s best player – Lionel Messi.
Those talks were informally brokered by Xavi, Barca’s all-time leader in appearances who left the club for Qatar in June. He will be missed in the dressing room, but the body of football’s finest team remains and there are numerous players schooled in Xavi’s, Johan Cruyff’s and Guardiola’s way of thinking to maintain the status quo.
Daniel Alves, the most exuberant character, was retained in the halcyon days after the club’s fifth European Cup final victory, after a year-long struggle for a bigger contract.
It raised the eyebrows of those who thought that Barcelona could not sign players in 2015 after breaking rules regarding the recruitment of young players when Barca then signed Arda Turan for €34 million (Dh138m) from Atletico Madrid and the Catalan Aleix Vidal (€18m) from Sevilla in the close season.
Neither can play until 2016, when they will enter a side which traditionally dips at the start of the second half of the season.
Barca have signed Sevilla’s best players several times in the past decade with Alves, Seydou Keita and Ivan Rakitic all a success at Camp Nou.
Luis Enrique has to maintain momentum at a club where every defeat is blown out of proportion, a monolith where factions side with varying media outlets and where constant shifts in power are wrought by the democratically elected board every four years.
Helped by the treble win of last season, incumbent president Josep Maria Bartomeu held off a challenge from former president Joan Laporta to win July’s elections.
He is tasked with overseeing a club where expectations around the football team are sky-high, even among older fans who remember the club winning only one league title between 1963 and 1985.
They have won five of the past seven, during which Real Madrid have triumphed only once, the same as their neighbours Atletico. Barca have won seven of the past 11 league titles and four European Cups since 2006.
They are the most successful club this century so far and their front line of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar is football’s finest.
That Suarez settled after starting his first season at the club in October is hugely impressive. Unlike previous Barca forwards, the Uruguayan has the confidence of a fitter Messi, whom he has made a better player.
Suarez’s success has been to the detriment of Pedro’s career. It is understandable that the forward left to get more minutes at Chelsea, though nobody at Camp Nou wanted him to leave a club where average attendances rose by 5,000 to 77,632, the second-highest in the world, last season.
Barcelona talking points
How much will Pedro be missed?
Luis Enrique said that he couldn’t wait for the transfer window to close so he would know where he stands with Pedro. He wanted the wide man to stay, but Pedro has started in only 15 of 38 league games and just four of the 13 Champions League matches last term. He played a token minute in the final against Juventus in Berlin. His 11 goals were another drop from the 19 the season before.
Though not in their best starting XI, Pedro was important to Barca. The players didn’t want him to go, the fans, too. His departure to Chelsea will hurt a side who used him well from the bench, where he was good enough to change games.
Can Vermaelen stay fit?
It’s a big season for Thomas Vermaelen – if he plays. The former Arsenal defender, 29, is back from a thigh muscle injury which ruled him out for all but the last league game last season. He featured in pre-season but was poor alongside Marc Bartra, the home-grown central defender the club refused offers for in the close season while they accepted a bid for fellow defender Marc Muniesa. Barca’s peripheral defenders need to show they are not a liability when they are invariably called upon – as they will be with Gerard Pique banned for the first four league matches.
Who is the No 1?
Barca use two keepers and it usually works. Claudio Bravo plays in the league, Marc-Andre ter Stegen in the cups. The German plays in the matches where silverware is won; the Chilean won the Zamora trophy for most clean sheets. Bravo is more consistent and his wife recently told a Chilean newspaper that “I don’t think now is the time (for him) to be on the bench.”
Can they maintain excellence?
Barca were outstanding last season. Their win percentage of 83.3 was the highest in their history; they were the first Spanish club to win 50 games in a season, the first to keep 33 clean sheets. They won a record 23 away games, scoring a record 78 goals and keeping an unprecedented 17 clean sheets. And all in Luis Enrique’s first season as manager. Coming close to those figures will see Barca win more silverware.
In focus: Arda Turan
The Turkish international, 28, said he had watched Barca since childhood when he signed from Atletico Madrid, the club he helped to win five trophies, including the Primera Liga title in 2014.
Turkey product
Turan, who hails from Istanbul, is a right-footed winger who usually plays on the left. His close control and pace attracted Barcelona, who were unable to beat his Atletico side in eight games in 2013/14.
Attacking style
Turan’s attacking style will suit Barcelona as he runs at defenders. He also takes corners and can take free kicks, though he is unlikely to be Barcelona’s set-piece specialist. He is versatile and can play in a central role – a top-quality alternative to Andres Iniesta or Ivan Rakitic.
‘A bit crazy’
Turan is tempestuous. He said last year: “Before kick-off my heart rate is off the scale, but once the whistle blows, I’m completely calm. I don’t feel nervous and have the utmost self-belief. It’s as if I’m in a Zen-like state. On the pitch I’m at ease, though I’m not sure why that happens. I’m probably a bit crazy!” With that, he burst out laughing. Luis Enrique could also be a bit volatile on the pitch, but if that costs the team then it becomes a problem.
For club and country
Despite links to a six-month loan to former club Galatasaray, Turan is not going anywhere, Luis Enrique said, and will instead spend his first months in Barcelona getting to know his teammates and training with them every day like Luis Suarez while suspended last season. Like fellow close-season signing Aleix Vidal, he can play in training games in the hope that he is ready to play after the two-week winter break. He can also play for Turkey, though he has yet to consistently play well for his country.
Stylish facial hair
Turan’s beard saw him appear on the front of Spanish GQ magazine, heading a special feature about men with beards.
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
