FC Barcelona and the Case of the Swollen Collective Ego

I sincerely hope I’m not the only one who’s gotten tired of Barcelona’s Mes que un club shtick. What had always been, for me and many others who aren’t Real Madrid fans, one of the more admirable clubs in the world has now turned into an entire organization of stuck-up, elitist snobs who think it’s the destiny of every world-class Spanish player in the world to play for them, claiming that their team is the only one which plays the game the proper way. They’ve made Madrid look humble and even likable in comparison, something that was previously unfathomable.

Arsenal fans surely would have something to say about the way Barcelona have handled their courtship of Gunners captain Cesc Fabregas, with Xavi, Gerard Pique, and co. all having made clear they believed it would only be a matter of time until Cesc made the journey home to his native Catalonia to play for his beloved Barca. But besides the Fabregas affair, Barcelona hasn’t spared other clubs from this sort of treatment either. I was furious when Xavi came out this summer and said Fernando Torres deserved to play for a better, more prestigious team than Liverpool (seeming to forget our convincing defeat of Barca in the Champions League four years ago, only one year after they won the competition). It pissed me off even more when they poached Javier Mascherano from us at the end of the summer transfer window, in the process turning the most dominant defensive midfielder in the game into a mere bench warmer (but hey, if that’s what Masch wanted, good for him).

Regardless, the Barcelona set-up is perhaps the definitive reason why Spain has dominated international competition over the past couple of years, winning the World Cup this summer for the first time. And indeed, Barca do play the most attractive football in the world, have the best player in the world in Lionel Messi, and generally are the best team in the world at the moment. But we know this, and we really don’t need a whole team of well-groomed, wealthy young Spaniards to remind us every few weeks.

Which is why it really grinded my gears when Xavi, the architect, quarterback, conductor, pass-master, etc., of the Barcelona attack came out after their 3-1 defeat of Arsenal at the Camp Nou on Tuesday and accused Arsenal of not playing football. Yes, the Gunners didn’t have a shot on goal. Yes, Barca dominated the proceedings. But Xavi should keep in mind that at the time of the Robin Van Persie’s unbelievable, unwarranted red card, Arsenal were leading the tie on aggregate and were in a position to advance. Arsenal manager and all-around genius Arsene Wenger had said all week that his team was not going to pull a Mourinho and park the bus in front of their goal, after their 2-1 win in the first leg in London gave them a valuable advantage. But any possible effort to put up a defensive fight against the oncoming Barca siege was left futile after Arsenal were reduced to 10 men. They had no chance, as we saw with Barca’s dominance over the last half-hour.

I think the Van Persie’s red card was an injustice of the highest order in soccer (without saying anything implicitly, I think the referee’s motives should be questioned). Add that to the fact Arsenal had no Fabregas after he came off with a hamstring injury at half-time, and Arsenal was doomed to a second successive year of Champions League elimination at the hands of the sport’s favorite holier-than-thou narcissists. Someone should knock this team off their perch and remind them that, less than a decade ago, they were in the shit financially, had difficulty consistently qualifying for European competition, and couldn’t convince David Beckham to join them instead of Madrid (before ultimately lucking out with the greatest consolation prize in history, Ronaldinho).

Like Liverpool now, the Barcelona of the early 00s was a historically prestigious institution facing serious problems both on and off the pitch; they built themselves back up to the top by making some good hires, developing their youth academy, and reorganizing themselves financially. But also like Liverpool, not even mighty Barca was spared from the financial and footballing pitfalls facing other clubs. They would do well to remember this before opening their mouths again and misleadingly declaring some sort of divine superiority over the rest of Europe.