Monday was presentation day in Barcelona, as the Catalans hosted their traditional season-opening friendly, the Joan Gamper trophy. Monaco rather spoiled the party, but Barca at least offered fans something to cheer before kick-off.
The first-team players each stepped out onto the Montjuic turf as their names were announced over the stadium speakers. Gavi (who is still injured) and Lamine Yamal received the biggest shouts. The last to make an entrance were the two summer signings, Dani Olmo and Pau Victor.
Olmo, a €60million (£51.2m; $65.5m) arrival made official on Friday, clearly received the most acclaim. He stopped at a central stage in the middle of the pitch, showed off a few keepie-uppies and was then passed a microphone.
“I have come here to win,” said the 26-year-old. “I am convinced we have a fantastic squad with a great coaching staff and that we will fight to do great things this season.”
In the stands, president Joan Laporta and sporting director Deco were smiling and applauding. Olmo is the big name they had been looking for for weeks — especially after the failure to land Nico Williams. He has to be a reason, alongside a fresh new generation of La Masia graduates, to make fans believe this coming season can be different from the last.
On the pitch, however, Barca’s performance didn’t match up with the messaging.
Sueño cumplido ✨ pic.twitter.com/Dy5ed0qjhV
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) August 12, 2024
Olmo did not feature in the game, something reasonable given the fact he has barely completed two training sessions with the team. Barcelona lost 3-0 and deservedly so, in their worst pre-season performance.
Victor — who was signed for €3million from Girona — put in his best effort but missed two clear chances. Robert Lewandowski looked out of sync with the rest of the team. Ilkay Gundogan left the pitch injured after a knock on his head. The youngsters who impressed in the United States tour, such as Marc Casado and Marc Bernal, didn’t have their best game either.
This, in a way, should be normal. There will always be adjustments to make in a pre-season game with a new manager and whole new backroom staff. Barca are not the first to suffer unexpected defeats and young players are very much allowed to have an off night.
Concerns start to build, though, as you look further into Barca’s squad depth right now. Flick will hardly have a better setup to work with for Saturday’s La Liga opener at Valencia. A big part of that is down to Barcelona’s registration problems.
🎤 Las valoraciones de Flick y Ter Stegen después del Gamper pic.twitter.com/nRjs6na4B4
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) August 12, 2024
Barca still can’t register new players with La Liga until they fix the financial problems that have seen the competition body cut their salary limit (reducing expenditure on wages would also help). Right now, new signing Olmo is not eligible to play at Valencia.
Olmo said he was “relaxed” about this situation after Monday’s defeat, adding that he was “just focussed on doing my thing” and that he had “full confidence” in the club’s ability to sort the situation.
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In that very same situation is Inigo Martinez, who played the full game against Monaco. He is not registered with La Liga right now either, and his absence leaves Flick with limited options at centre-back. Ronald Araujo is out injured, Jules Kounde will be needed at right-back and Andreas Christensen might well be required in defensive midfield. That leaves Pau Cubarsi and Eric Garcia, who have just come back from the Olympics.
One option, which would free up Christensen, would be to give 17-year-old Bernal a La Liga debut on Saturday. He has been generally great in pre-season — and his potential is extremely high — but against Monaco he made a big mistake that led to the first goal of the night. Flick will have to decide about fielding him at the hostile Mestalla — but there’s not much else for him to pick from.
Flick watching on from the sidelines on Monday night (Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Casado can be expected to start on Saturday too, given the injuries to Gavi, Frenkie de Jong and Pedri. Like Bernal, Casado is still registered as a youth team player, having spent last season at Barcelona Atletic — the club’s reserve side that plays in Spain’s third tier. He signed a new contract this summer, which will upgrade his status to a first-team player as soon as possible, but for now this will have to wait until Barca solve their registration issues.
The other problematic case is Victor. He too was at Barca Atletic last season, but on loan from Girona. Now he has signed, Barca need to register him from scratch. That’s another thing to work on.
Last week, Barca announced what the club sees as a key development in attempts to fix a €100million hole in their 2023-24 accounts and bring themselves in line with La Liga’s salary limit — which is calculated according to a club’s revenue. Bizarrely, it involves their catering providers stepping in to provide an immediate cash injection as new partners in an old ‘lever’ project related to “Web3, NFTs and the metaverse”.
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Barca hope this will be a step towards satisfying La Liga enough to register their existing and new players — and there is regular contact between executives at the Camp Nou and the competition body’s financial unit. It is even claimed Deco plans to add a left winger to the squad. With what money? That is clearly uncertain.
But also key will be player departures. Deco’s biggest assignment now is to accelerate operations that are already under way. Julian Araujo is set to sign for Bournemouth and Vitor Roque has finally agreed that leaving on loan can be a good step to take. However, moving on Clement Lenglet and Ansu Fati would go much further to helping cut their wage bill.
Fati is still injured, while Lenglet was fit to play last night but was left out of the squad. They are due a combined reported total of around €30million in wages this season. Even if it’s unlikely anyone would want to take on that entire sum (and Lenglet is owned some salary deferrals this term), two loan deals are, for now, considered as the most probable outcome by club sources.
In all this context, a 3-0 defeat by Monaco is not exactly what Barca needed to lift their spirits. Flick will look for a way to do that at Valencia — but be ready for another dramatic end to the summer transfer window.
(Top photo: Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images
