What Now For Barcelona?

To say that Barcelona's season has been a failure would be the biggest understatement of the year. The Spanish giants complete the 2019/2020 season without any major silverware for the first time since 2008, losing the La Liga title to Real Madrid. They were knocked out of the Copa Del Rey to Athletic Bilbao and were completely humiliated in the UEFA Champions League at the hands of Bayern Munich who inflicted an 8-2 defeat, Barcelona's worst defeat in 75 years.

Barcelona's decline has been noticeable for some time from the Roma defeat to the capitulation at Anfield last year. A team that was seen as the gold standard of club football just about a decade ago are a shadow of their former selves with drama both on and off the field, an ageing squad and a heavy reliance on Lionel Messi to make things happen. The embarrassment against Bayern truly marked the end of an era for Barcelona with massive wholesale changes needed to refresh the squad. There is also a question mark surrounding Lionel Messi's future at the club and whether elections will be moved to this year. So does the future for the Blaugrana look bleak or is this the wake-up call that they needed?

The defeat to Bayern Munich ended Barcelona's season with a whimper. The instability behind the scenes has been reflected in the field. Gerard Pique and Frenkie de Jong after the game stated that Barcelona need changes from top to bottom and what they said is absolutely right. Barcelona as a football club is broken from the top down with a lot of criticism getting in the way of Barcelona President Josep Bartomeu. Bartomeu has been a very unpopular figure at the club since assuming the role in 2014. Under his watch, the club has spent close to a billion euros on transfers acquiring the likes of Arda Turan, Andrè Gomes, Yerry Mina, Paco Alcacer, and Ousmane Dembele, Philippe Coutinho, Nelson Semendo, Kevin Prince-Boateng, Antonie Griezmann and Martin Braithwaite. Many of them have either left the club or are still there but are not key players in the squad.

The criticism of Bartomeu goes beyond Barcelona's poor transfer record. La Masia, Barcelona's academy, which has been a source of pride for Barça fans, has run dry in its production of young talent over the past couple of years. Many young players from La Masia found first-team chances very slim and would rather go elsewhere with Xavi Simons a great example, leaving Barcelona for PSG. Despite the news coming out that Presidential elections have been moved to March next year, it's a point of no return for Bartomeu as many goes want him gone from the likes of Carlos Puyol and Joan Laporta to even Lionel Messi.


On the field, Barcelona is an ageing squad with little quality that has been masked by the quality of Messi. The key players now are the same players that were key to their treble-winning season in 2015 which was five years. Six of the starting eleven that started against Bayern were over 30 and according to FBref, only five players under the age of 30 played over 2,000 minutes in all competitions. Messi's brilliance has been enough for Barcelona's season to be successful over the past few years but that would eventually run out and it has. The problem is how to ease them out. They have little value in the transfer market and are on massive wages which makes it a lot more difficult. Despite being linked to Lautaro Martinez, Barcelona doesn't have the money even to get their desired targets. The coronavirus pandemic has affected the club's finances and plans have already been made to renovate the Camp Nou.

Speaking of Lionel Messi, he is now in a situation where Barcelona can't compete at the highest level. Despite making 55 goal involvements this season, he is becoming a bit of a problem for Barcelona. At 33, Messi is at the twilight of his career. Even though he can still produce world-class performances at his age, he is culpable of being dispossessed in games and wouldn't try to regain possession which was noticeable from the Bayern game. Now, anyone would want Messi to stay high up the pitch because of what he can do but now attackers have to contribute in the defensive phase of the game, not be lethargic and stay idle high up the field.

Changes to get Barcelona, where they are to be, will be long and hard. Quique Setien is gone with Ronald Koeman his likely successor. Players will have to go to breed in a new generation of young players from Ansu Fati to Riqui Puig and decide if Messi will be part of that rebuild or not. The Camp Nou needs a shake-up and it needed it for quite some time now.