Life without
Messi
at Barcelona is no different than life without
Cristiano
who led Madrid to fulfill what has been their worst season in 20 years, in the course after the loss of the Portuguese, after lifting their third consecutive Champions League. There is a capital difference, the money that gave Madrid the possibility of reacting in the market, as it did the following season with the hiring of
Hazard
, although without the desired result. For Barcelona, ruined, it is today a utopia.
On the pitch, however, the loss of Cristiano and Messi leaves clear parallels in the following seasons, with disparate starting points but leading to catastrophic solutions: Madrid after the outbreak due to the escape of
Zinedine Zidane
and Barça after a sports and institutional deterioration.
It is proven by similar scores, bets on very young players in search of reaction and the experience of questioned coaches,
Julen Lopetegui
and
Ronald Koeman
, with a disastrous classic for the former.
We will see for the second.
SAME NUMBERS
Despite having played the eighth day, Barcelona have played only seven games, due to a postponement for the team day, so the comparison must be established with the seventh day of the 2018/19 season.
Then, Madrid added 14 points for the 12 of the Catalans currently.
The whites had scored 12 goals to 11 for the Barça fans, while the goals against are also even (6-7).
The score allowed Madrid, however, to be second in the classification in that League, while in the current season it would be fourth.
Barça is sixth.
The irregularity led the Madridistas to finish the League third, but with the worst score (68) in the last 20 years.
Benches questioned
The way in which Lopetegui arrived at Madrid, designated coach and club for the entanglement that accompanied his departure from the national team in the middle of the World Cup, added enormous pressure to his work.
Koeman's position was also critical from the beginning of this second season, as he was the coach hired by a plagued former president,
Josep Maria Bartomeu
.
In both cases, they felt very early in a situation of weakness, little supported by the leadership of the clubs, although they maintained support in the dressing room.
The classic as an ultimatum
The first classic, at the Camp Nou, arrived on the same dates in the 2018/19 season as it will in the current one: the last weekend of October. Lopetegui did not get over it. The 5-1 was his sentence after adding four defeats and a draw in the League in a row. The Basque knew that the result and the image that his team gave were key to his future. Which worse. Koeman, despite the ratification of
Joan Laporta
a few weeks ago, has the same feeling, although before he will face another tough stage against Valencia. Handcuffed by the salary limit and an alternative that convinces him, since he does not believe that it is still the time for
Xavi Hernández
, Laporta wants to resist with the Dutchman until June, but the coach and president know that a fall in his stadium against Carlo Ancelotti's team would make his continuity untenable.
Lopetegui, who was dismissed the day after the classic, played on October 28, was replaced by
Santiago Solari
, the subsidiary's coach.
If Koeman needed an emergency relief, it would be
Sergi Barjuan
, in the same position that the Argentine was in Madrid.
The classic of his buried ultimatum is next week, on October 24.
Desperate youth
Koeman's most visible measure as soon as he arrived at Barcelona last season was his commitment to young people, with the addition of
Pedri
,
Araujo
or
Mingueza
to the first team
. In the second, he has accentuated the trend, with
Gavi and Nico
. In the same way, Solari entered Madrid, when
Reguilón, Marcos Llorente, Valverde and Vinicius were promoted
, whom Lopetegui preferred to keep in the subsidiary. Vinicius, in which Madrid had made a strategic investment, more than 40 million euros, was then 17 years old, the same as the Barcelona player Gavi.
Crises are always an opportunity for young people, especially in situations like Barça, without money for aggressive operations in the market and after losing
Luis Suárez, Messi and Griezmann
in two seasons
.
The incorporation of
Luuk de Jong
is not that of a footballer from the same segment.
Neither was the scorer who signed Madrid that year:
Mariano
.
Marcos Llorente, Reguilón Valverde and Vinicius were consolidated in the elite, in Madrid or other clubs, and are international with their national teams, the same as Pedri, Araujo, Mingueza or Gavi have already achieved.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
sports
Real Madrid
FC Barcelona
Cristiano Ronaldo
Leo Messi
First division
LaLiga Salary limits: 71% cut for Barça and 56% increase for Real Madrid
LaLiga Santander 2021 - 2022 Details of the salary limit in the League: What have Madrid and Barça done to have 739 and 97 million?
FútbolAncelotti rocks Madrid's cradle: "He's very clear about it"
See links of interest
La Palma volcano
Last News
Translator
What
2021 business calendar
Home THE WORLD TODAY
Master investigative journalism
Real Madrid - AS Monaco
Barça - Olympiacos Piraeus