World Cup: Can Barcelona’s Quintet Lead Spain’s New Generation to Glory in Qatar?

Just over a decade ago, Spanish football was in the midst of its greatest-ever era. Firstly under Luis Aragonés and then under Vicente Del Bosque, Las Rojas romped to back-to-back European Championships, with a first and only World Cup success sandwiched in the middle. And that success was built off the back of one club, FC Barcelona.

Back in 2008, Luis Aragonés led a new-look Spanish side to Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Out went the old guard such as Real Madrid legend Raul and in came a wealth of younger technical players, including the likes of Cesc Fabregas and David Silva. But the jewel in the Spanish crown was of course the Catalonian duo of Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

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Will Xavi Lead Barcelona to a Title This Season?

How successful will be Xavi's side this Season? Will they be able to remain at the top of La Liga when the Season draws to an end?

FC Barcelona had a rather confusing season so far this season. They strangely find themselves at the top of the La Liga summit during the winter break. It's been some time since they have become the winter Champions. But at the same time, they find themselves out of Europe's Most Prestigious Competition - UEFA Champions League; and that too in a rather disastrous fashion. And they also lost the First Clasico in a similar way against the Current Champions.

Despite all these most of the bookies have Barcelona as their top target to win La Liga this season. But in reality how good is Barcelona's odds of gaining silverware, that too the most prestigious one in Spain this season?

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Has Barcelona gone Mad dealing with Ousmane Dembele?

Viewed from any angle, the decision regarding Ousmane Demebel's future at Barcelona is a very simple one to take. A decision which would have taken a long time ago, even a school kid could have realized that. It appears that's a huge task for FC Barcelona management!

FC Barcelona continues to suprime us all! The ability to create newsworthy items out of rather Innocuous daily affairs surprises us all. The ability of Barcelona management to shoot itself on its foot is jaw-dropping. There is no explanation for this incredible phenomenon.

We are not talking about the earth-shattering news of Messi's departure or Griezmann's departure or Xavi's arrival. Instead what surprises is the ongoing saga of Ousmane Dembele's renewal at Barcelona. There is one logical decision regarding his renewal - his exit, something the Club failed to see the whole time!

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Who are FC Barcelona looking to add to their roster during the January transfer window?

With the January transfer window fast approaching, many club chairmen and head of recruitment will be looking at their squads, to see which positions need adding to. It can be a difficult time to find players at a reasonable price, but those who are desperate to improve their form will happily pay whatever is necessary, to make sure they get the players they require.

Just as each match has its own set of odds, once a transfer rumour is announced, many soccer fans will look for the betting odds to see how likely it is that a player's transfer will actually happen.

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Barca hopeful for Europa League cheer

source: @FCBarcelona | Twitter

FC Barcelona will be competing in Europe’s second club competition for the first time in 17 years in February, following the humiliating exit from the Champions League group stage earlier this season.

The Blaugrana needed a miracle in their final group game to progress to the knockout stages of the continent’s premier club competition, but barely fired a shot in anger against Bayern Munich and were dumped out by a second 3-0 loss to the German champions.

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Latest news from FC Barcelona

For many years, soccer fans have enjoyed the thrills and excitements that La Liga has to offer. In the last few seasons alone, we have seen Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Barcelona win the league, each with very strong sides who looked like they would go on to dominate for some time. Thankfully, soccer isn’t that predictable, with all of these sides having experienced dips in form.

Barcelona are in one right now, having started the season very poorly. They are now on their winter break, and soccer bettors will be taking time to evaluate the Catalan’s sides odds in their coming fixtures in January.

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Barça before the second half of the season: Cautious optimism at the Camp Nou

Just one win in December! And with 3: 2 against Kellerkind Elche, they were actually quite happy. Hardly any club in the Primera División in Spain longed for the winter break as much as FC Barcelona. The "returnees" and a few new signings are now hoping for a good start into the new year.

It was already clear to everyone in the summer that after the fundamental upheaval at FC Barcelona (including Messi's departure!) this season, it was hardly a question of playing for the championship.

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Will Barcelona Be Successful in 2022?

It has been a tough year for Barcelona – on and off the pitch. But the season is only halfway through, so what can the Camp Nou fans expect from 2022?

It has not been a good year at Barcelona

Barcelona’s (Realistic) Hopes for 2022

It is fair to say that 2021 will not go down as one that Barcelona fans look back fondly on. There has been chaos and farce behind the scenes – and the performances at the Camp Nou have not always been that much different.

We lost possibly the greatest player there has ever been due to internal and financial problems - and have recently crashed out of the Champions League at the group stage for the first time in nearly 20 years. We could be forgiven for thinking that this season should be written off. But there is still half of it to go – and there are still trophies to be won.

We are realistic here though. So read on to find out what can be expected from Barca in 2022 – and why the odds at the Vegas betting sites may well be worth a closer look.

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Xavi's Struggling to Kick Old Habits Out of Barcelona. Barcelona Still Have Hopes Left!

With Xavi at helm, we have seen enough reason for hopes. But the fear still lingers around the background with the team collapsing towards the end of every match. This won't be an easy task for Xavi, and the good news is that Xavi acknowledges the same.

Barcelona moved to the 7th spot in the La Liga ranking with a 3-1 victory over Villareal. Many could be fooled thinking that the match was one-sided or at least an easy affair looking at the scoreline. Nothing could be far from the truth! Barcelona was pretty lucky to escape with three points at the end of the match.

Xavi: "It's an amazing victory in an extremely difficult stadium. We got lucky. That's football. Sometimes luck helps you and sometimes it doesn't." pic.twitter.com/5luNULzED8

— Barça Universal (@BarcaUniversal) November 27, 2021

Barcelona's new coach, Xavi Hernandez didn't hide the fact that the team got lucky last match. He also acknowledged that times will be tough and these tough times will decide Barcelona's season this season. He was happy seeing the results of the hard work that they put in the training. Even though the results were not fully satisfactory.

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Lionel Messi Wins 7th Ballon d’Or of his Career

Lionel Messi pipped Lewandowski to win the 2021 Ballon d'Or, his 7th Ballon d'Or overall. Messi managed this feat on the back of a great triumph in the Copa America Tournament.

Barcelona Legend and Ex-Barcelona Player, Lionel Messi secured the 2021 Ballon d'Or ahead of Robert Lewandowski. In the voting, Lionel Messi secured 613 points, 33 points ahead of second-placed Lewandowski who secured 580 points. Lionel Messi's crowning comes at the back of this summer's Copa America triumph where he was a Champion, Highest Goal Scorer and Highest Assist creator.

Alexia Putellas Wins Women's Ballon D'Or

For FC Barcelona, the Ballon D'Or has arrived once again at Camp Nou. This time it's our Femini Captain Alexia Putellas who brought the Award to our home. As everyone expected, Alexia Putellas won the Woman's Ballon D'Or award for 2021. This was not any surprise after she lead Barcelona to a treble last season and now continues destroying any team which gets in front of them.

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Barcelona's Champions League Hopes Hangs by a Thin Invisible Thread

With the failure to win against Benfica, Barcelona now needs a positive result in Allianz Arena, and that may be not enough!

In the end, Barcelona has to be considered extremely lucky to be still alive in the competition, even though that hope is more or less extinguished the moment you look into the next match. Benfica, who were the second-best team for the majority of the match had a great chance to secure their passage at the end. One has to wonder whether they have to pay a huge price for that miss.

Barcelona's hopes very much lies in the hope that Dinamo Kiev will be able to win against Benfica away from home. Barcelona's last match of the group is against Bayern Munich away from home. Getting a point from that itself is going to be very tough, but Barcelona will be hoping to prevent a massacre in the first place.

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The Last thing FC Barcelona Fans should Worry about in Granada Match is the Result

The one thing Barcelona fans should take comfort with the performance against Granada is the scoreline. The rest of all was atrocious, especially what Koeman is doing to this side.

What did we witness last night at the revered Camp Nou! The Cathedral of 'Tiki-Taka' witnessed an atrocious performance on its pitch, which would have left the earlier generations shell shocked. The fact that Barcelona ended the match with Pique and Luke De Jong as the centre forward paints the reality at Barcelona.

Barcelona should consider themselves lucky to have garnered a point out of this match. We may have created more chances, but none of them was clear cut by the usual Barcelona standard. Ironically, Ronald Araujo scored the equaliser, he was the only player who looked like scoring a goal in the whole match.

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How impactful is the loss of Messi for FC Barcelona?

The speculation of Lione Messi leaving Barcelona in search of a new challenge became a reality during this transfer window. The talismanic Argentinian eventually departed the Nou Camp for Paris St Germain.

The move signaled the end of a glittering career for Messi at Barcelona. He left the Catalan club with 10 La Liga winners medals, seven Copa Del Rey titles and four Champions Leagues spanning nearly 800 appearances.

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Sorry #UEFA, Jorginho was the Most Successful Player in Europe, Not the BEST Player of EUROPE

By awarding Jorginho as the best player in Europe, UEFA has made a mockery of the Best Player Award they award annually. They got it all wrong with the definition of the awards.

So as per UEFA, the Best Player in the whole of Europe in the last season was Jorginho! Yup, try to get your brain to accept that nonsense. Who would have thought we will be witnessing such a disaster class from UEFA!

But then honestly, UEFA's awards have become some kind of joke for some time. At least at the Women's section, it was given to well-deserving players. I am not supporting that because they were all given to FC Barcelona Femeni players, but because they were all given to the best players.

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The End of an ERA. In the Most Tragic Way Possible!

This is no way to handle the exit of the Greatest Player who featured for Barcelona. But then coming to Messi, the Club has got a lot wrong than right in recent years.

Barcelona fans across the Globe is slowly coming to terms with the ultimate reality which was thrown at their face on Thursday night. We have been all going through the five stages of acceptance - denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. I am pretty sure I am endlessly stuck in a loop that takes me back to denial and then whole up to bargaining. Like many of us, I am hoping for a miracle that says that this was done to only put pressure on Tebas, but Messi will stay!

The way it was broken felt like a classic play on poker table. This looked absolutely like a move to put pressure on Tebas to allow leverage with the salary cap. Everyone o thought that. That was the reason not even a single team raised an attempt of signing Messi. That all changed with Laporta's press conference.

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Does More Need to Be Done to Fix Barcelona’s Biggest Problem of Last Season?

Barcelona have made some remarkably high-profile, and equally as remarkably cheap, signings this summer. Memphis Depay and Sergio Agüero are the big names joining the attack, both for free, but alarmingly, the area that needed the most attention was the defence.

The only new addition that could help in this regard is former Manchester City centre-back Eric García. Still, as detailed in this The Athletic piece, he only played 35 games for City and is still only 20-years-old. While certainly a talented prospect, the Spaniard isn’t the upgrade that Barça’s stats would suggest they need.

Naturally, finalising a new deal for Lionel Messi and getting finances in order is the priority for the club, but should attention be turned to reinforcing the backline?

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Why It Isn’t All Doom & Gloom at FC Barcelona!

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If you believe the papers, FC Barcelona is in the midst of a nasty crisis. The wage bill is too high, there’s no money for transfers, and the club’s reputation is in tatters after the Super League revelations. Fans of one of the biggest brands in world football have certainly had happier days when the trifecta that was Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, and Leo Messi controlled the sport.

Still, the idea that Barca is in turmoil is a little farfetched. Yes, money is a problem at the moment, yet the good news is that every cloud has a silver lining.

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Why Barcelona and Every Liga Clubs should Battle against Killer Salary Cap?

The Salary Cap was introduced to make sure that no Clubs in the League is living beyond its living means. But has La Liga made a huge mistake in insisting on it in a Pandemic time?

Barcelona is indeed in a crisis! Some of it's making and other due to the ongoing pandemic. The salary cap which has been imposed on Barcelona is the death blow to Barcelona's ambition to remain as Europe's Powerhouse. Without any doubt, it was this necessity that forced Laporta to accept the European Super League concept.

Barcelona's wage cap was €671 million before the pandemic. Last year it was reduced to €348 which we naturally went over. This year we need to reduce further the wage bill as the cap has been reduced further.

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Beggars Can't Be Choosers! FC Barcelona's New Reality. Get Accustomed to It!

Barcelona Fans are agitated that Atletico Madrid is not properly evaluating Griezmann. My simple question to these fools will be - WHY SHOULD THEY?

If there is a fan base that is slowly becoming the synonym of fools, it has to be the Barcelona fan base. The kind of garbage the bunch of fools are ready to swallow baffles even the dumbest person on Earth. Count me out of it!

In my last post, I wrote why the Cules should not get excited much about the Griezmann and Saul deal. Now I feel like a brilliant oracle as the deal is currently rumoured to be off. It still may go on, but the chances of it failing is much higher than success.

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Barca cannot afford to take Messi's sacrifice for granted

Lionel Messi has provided Barcelona with a massive boost by committing his future to the club and taking a significant pay cut to ease their financial woes. The Argentine was out of contract at the end of June, and Barca’s financial issues left his tenure at Camp Nou in doubt. However, Messi agreed to take a 50% reduction on his contract to secure a five-year deal with the Catalonian club.

Barca is undergoing a rebuild of their squad due to their problems off the field. Junior Firpo, Jean-Clair Todibo, and Matheus Fernandes have all been allowed to leave in a desperate bid to balance the books, while further departures are to be expected. Sergio Aguero, Eric Garcia, and Memphis Depay have all been added to the squad on free transfers, highlighting how prudent Barca has become in the transfer market.

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