What are my doing?
I am listing the players on the bench for Barcelona tonight as they hammered Sevilla 3 unreplied goals.
Here's the bench in full–
Jordi Alba, Andreas Christensen, Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay, Ansu Fati, Franck Kessie, Inaki Pena, Gerard Pique, Miralem Pjanic, Sergi Roberto, Arnau Tenas Urena, Ferran Torres
Now this is quite obscene. It is not a surety that the Barca starting eleven today, will beat this bench above. This is what folks can refer to as "crazy". There is still Bellerin and Alonso who are understandably not on the bench as they are deadline day signings.
What an embarrassment of choices! I dare say, no squad like in all of Europe has a squad like this. AC Milan and PSG can come closest in terms of an overflow of choices from the bench.
This I think is why a lot of naysayers were very busy condemning Barca’s business and predicting that Barca won't have the needed resources to be passed to register their new signings.
What an intimidating squad they boast now. Let's add some more context– by the by 74th minute of today's encounter,they had substituted Pedri,Dembele,Balde and Lewandowski. Before then Garcia was forced off due to injury. It's like Xavi making us drool over the wealth he has on the bench.
Here was their starting eleven–
Marc-Andre ter Stegen; Ronald Araujo, Jules Kounde, Eric Garcia, Alejandro Balde; Gavi, Sergio Busquets, Pedri; Ousmane Dembele, Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha.
Now their opponent today isn't a soft opponent,infact they dominated Barca for the first 15 minutes of the match, Sevilla is also playing in the Champions league this season, so it's not that Barca was playing against an easy opponent really.
Kudos to Xavi and the club's management. Xavi has boldly chosen the shortest route back to the top, he absolutely has no time to be "patient" and build gradually. For example it hurt him that Aubameyang left for Chelsea, yet he has a Lewandowski. He wants both and he doesn't mind their age, he wants quality. You see how he freely let young,21-year-old right back,Sergiño Dest, go on loan to AC Milan and he brings in a seasoned campaigner in Hector Bellerin from Arsenal. That's a snapshot of Xavi's methodology.
So Barca’s serious debt status hasn't scared them at all. Basically their formula is, don't hold back if we must spend big to get big players; but get big players and get instant success. Success should bring in money and we use those monies to upset our debts and plan for the future. They have also recognised that their reputation or past glories, is still an attraction to players and they have used it well in brokering deals money alone couldn't have done.
What a bold model and I would say it is working and I see no reason why it will fail later. This team is indeed to be feared!
Cheers.