** Barcelona in conquering mode: the victory of the collective or the revenge of the past? **
FC Barcelona set up more than resolved in the semi-finals of the Champions League this Wednesday, April 9, with an overwhelming victory against Dortmund (4-0). It is easy to get carried away by the flamboyance of this evening, to rave about the trident composed of Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski. But behind this score which seems unreal, a question is looming: is this Catalan team, as impressive as it is, is it not both victim of its glorious past and trapped the struggles of Ego having marked its last years?
Let us remember the Gala evenings at Camp Nou, when the stars like Messi shone with an unequaled shine. The team of the time, playing with disconcerting authority, often took over its opponents thanks to a rare alchemy. Today, even if Lewandowski and others seem to have found cruising speed to make the past, the ghosts of the past still haunt this huge football machine. In 2019, another similar match against Liverpool ended in disillusionment. Three goals ahead of the outward journey, and an annihilated return to the lawn of this same Anfield. A trauma which, like a shadow, could reappear with each whistle.
How much is this team freed from the heaviness of the past? Hansi Flick, the German coach of Barça, was able to compose a group which, at least in appearance, ignores emotional issues. With players like Yamal, barely entered adulthood, the sincere enthusiasm of a young talent is palpable and specific to football. But the edge of collective feeling can sometimes pass the individual concerns to the background. Can this famous team spirit become a catalyst to atomize this past which remains deafening by its echo?
It is particularly intriguing to see how Raphinha, Lewandowski and Yamal, each in their own way, weave links on this football land. The goals scored during this epic evening are not simply numbers on a table; They are a reflection of the resilience of a team that in turn strives to exorcise its demons and embody the future. Raphinha, with her sensitivity marked in the face of the goal and his contagious enthusiasm, contrasts with the sometimes heavy rigidity of Lewandowski, a huge scorer used to heavy expectations. Yamal, on the other hand, appears to be a breath of fresh air, a liberating gallop on this flank of the ground, prefiguring what the Barça of tomorrow could be.
However, all of this raises the question of the sustainability of this success. Tomorrow, it’s outside, at the legendary Westfalenstadion, facing the fervor of the “yellow wall” of Dortmund. How will this Barcelona team, who already knows what it means to lose an acquired advance, will be able to manage the weight of such a story? Through the lines of this return meeting, one can easily see if the Barça of 2025 is capable of transforming bitter memories into enlightening lessons, or if it risks, as so many times before, to collide with inextricable traps.
Beyond figures and statistics, this meeting promises to be the revealing of human weaknesses rooted at the heart of this grandiloquent Catalan machine. What seems interesting to me and that deserves lighting is this duality between the wonder of being back at a high level and the fear of reliving a debacle. So, in Barcelona, are we reliving an era glorified or simply navigating on the surface of an ocean of doubts? The answer may come from performance on the ground, but especially mentalities that animate these young people and these old briscards.
As we know, football never lies. Sometimes his greatest enemy is time and promise, always sketched but rarely honored. An expected victory is often less soft than it seems, an unexpected terribly bitter defeat. Barcelona’s challenge is now to prove that he is not only a mirage of a bygone past, but a living force, capable of drawing a bright future. Provided you do not get lost along the way.