After an eight-day span, optimism in the future of Barça has gone from cautiously optimistic to talks of a fin de ciclo, an end of an era. SPORT, the Catalan pro-Barça paper came with a headline, THIS CYCLE HAS ENDED, LET A NEW ONE BEGIN! Another Catalan newspaper, EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA simply had a headline that said LOST. Talks from the Catalan pundints and the average culé are begining to wonder if the days of a Barça steered by the likes of Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Carlos Puyol, and even Lionel Messi are over. Is it the end of tiki-taka for Barça?SURELY, this is the end for Gerardo "Tata" Martino. He changed the philosphy of the club from their 4-3-3 to a more conventional 4-4-2 and it yielded poor results. He has been out-coached by Simeone and Ancelotti. After the signing of Neymar from Santos over the summer, there was much optimism in Barcelona that offensive muscle was being brought on to take the load off the diminutive 10. What has happened is that the trio of Cesc Fàbgregas, Neymar, and Messi have been unable to provide spark when needed. Also, players like Pedro and Alexis Sánchez have been left on the bench, playing bit parts, only to watch their club crash and burn in all three major competitions.
The 2013-2014 campaign has not been kind to Barcelona. They lose their manager, Tito Vilanova because of health concerns. The president, Sandro Rosell steps down after it was found that there were accounting irregularities in the transfer of Neymar. Sporting Director Andoni Zubizarreta reportedly resigned and the board did not accept his resignation. To top it all, the club has been slapped with a two year ban of transfers by FIFA due to the breaching of rules on the transfer of players aged under 18.
With the World Cup just around the corner, Barça find themselves in a position that they may lose their best players to rest or injury for most of the summer, since virtually all their starters play for Spain, Argentina, Chile, or Brazil. This means that they will not be well-rested and the club will have to rely on La Masia graduates since they will not be allowed to sign new players. All this with the prospect of losing their long-time captain, Carles Puyol.
I can only speculate that this may be the begining of the end of Pep's six-cup champions. The manager left for greener pastures in Bavaria and it looks like that core that brought cules around the world so much joy is ageing and have been unable to replicate the magic they created only a few years ago. It's possible that the footballing world has figured out how to neutralise tiki-taka or perhaps the players themselves don't have what it takes to win the big games. Whatever happens, it will be an interesting summer at Camp Nou.
