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After a turbulent summer, Barcelona face several serious doubts as they return to La Liga action on Sunday at home to Villarreal, and visiting coach Unai Emery will look to make a big impact with his new team.
With Barca seemingly in disarray, BBC Sport raises five key questions facing the Catalan giants as they attempt to dispel the theory that they are a rapidly fading force.
Can Koeman convince Messi?
It is impossible to begin an analysis of Barça’s difficult situation with anything other than Lionel Messi, after the captain’s failed exit attempt and his subsequent outbursts against the unpopular president Josep Maria Bartomeu.
Messi made it clear on Friday that he is still very unhappy with the club, making a scathing point in his farewell message to teammate Luis Suárez, who has left Atlético de Madrid.
“You deserved a goodbye worthy of who you are: one of the most important players in the history of the club. Not to be fired like you. But the truth is that at this point, nothing surprises me.” Messi wrote on Instagram.
For better or for worse, incoming manager Ronald Koeman still has no choice but to center the team’s rebuilding process around the Argentine, whose behavior and attitude will continue to be analyzed incessantly over the next few weeks.
Messi will be able to sign a pre-contract with another club in January, so Koeman has limited time to convince the captain that he can build a team worth staying for.
If the coach can’t quickly improve the captain’s bad mood, he could get very ugly very soon.
Who will play up front?
Allowing Suarez to leave was partly symbolic, as Bartomeu deliberately dismantled the aging team that suffered the Champions League humiliation against Bayern Munich.
But it’s also pragmatic: The club is bankrupt, hence the acceptance of the Wolves’ offer for Nelson Semedo despite Bartomeu previously describing him as non-transferable, and Suarez’s departure takes significant strain off a crippling salary bill. .
| Lionel Messi – 25 | Antoine Griezmann – 9 |
| Luis Suarez – 16 | Arturo Vidal – 8 |
It also leaves the question of who will lead the line. There’s no lack of attacking quality, with Messi joined by expensive misfits Antoine Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele, in addition to talented youngsters Ansu Fati and Trincao.
But other than the injured Martin Braithwaite, there is no one who can be classified as a center forward.
Koeman is expected to present Messi as a false nine, but the Argentine will always fall into the same deeper areas as Griezmann and Coutinho also like to occupy, one of the main reasons they have both struggled to shine.
Thus, the coach is tasked tactically with devising a system that encourages his talented forwards to operate collectively rather than individually, including the challenge of maintaining a presence in the penalty area of a team lacking forwards.
If Koeman solves those puzzles, the results could be spectacular. But can it be done?
Where are the defenders?
The 8-2 embarrassment against Bayern made it pretty clear that Barca have defensive problems, but Koeman has a surprising lack of options to solve them.
Semedo’s departure means that the team’s only right-back is Sergi Roberto, who is truly a converted midfielder.
On the other flank, Jordi Alba, 31, remains the first choice despite an alarming drop in performances over the past two years, while the club’s desire to sell injured Samuel Umtiti would also leave few options. central.
The club is trying to recruit, with Ajax’s Sergino Dest, Norwich winger Max Aarons and Manchester City’s Eric Garcia on the wish list. But the serious financial situation described above leaves Barça in a weak position, with no guarantees of proven new faces.
And to round things off, goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen, so often the team’s savior, will be absent due to injury until November.
Can Koeman find a collective way?
As much as the identity or the quality of the individual players, the demise of the team has been based on the lack of compactness in its general form.
The wide open spaces between attack and defense have often left the midfield overrun and unable to repel quick counterattacks. That weakness was most brutally exploited by Bayern, but it was also evident in La Liga, where Barça conceded 13 more goals than Real Madrid last season.
Koeman will try to instill more solidity using a 4-2-3-1 formation, with fellow Dutchman Frenkie de Jong accompanied by Sergio Busquets or new signing Miralem Pjanic in midfield.
But unless the four at the back push higher up the field and the front line of Messi, Coutinho and company are coaxed into playing their part defensively, it remains doubtful that a more effective collective structure can emerge.
Will Bartomeu be expelled?
Eclipsing everything behind the scenes is the fate of embattled President Bartomeu, who faces a vote of no confidence after more than 20,000 club members signed a formal motion against him.
Bartomeu’s term expires in March regardless of that process, but his opponents are desperate to make him leave as soon as possible, partly in hopes of persuading Messi to stay beyond this season.
A great strength of Barça’s ownership model, the club belonging to its 140,000 members, is that ordinary fans can exert a genuine influence on the functioning of the club (imagine, for example, if Manchester United fans could expel their owners , the Glazer family in the same way that Bartomeu is being expelled from the Camp Nou).
But that also inevitably leads to endless rounds of political infighting, and those bitter squabbles could form an unpleasant backdrop for a challenging season that threatens to unravel even before it has begun.
