FC Barcelona Season Preview
Photo by David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images
BARCELONA – Football club founded in 1899, this city in Spain has always held themselves to a high standard when it comes to football for over a hundred years. Does FC Barcelona have what it takes to be the best in Europe again?
For years they were above their rivales on the standings, Real Madrid. Now, they are unfortunately falling behind like never before. This season, which is still active at this moment, has eleven matches left to play with twenty three matches already played, up to this point. Their record for the 2022-23 season was (28W - 6L - 4D), making them the 1st place team with 88 total points. Currently in the 2023-24 season, FC Barcelona holds a record of (15W - 3L - 5D), keeping them in 3rd place with 50 points. Although they are not too far away from reaching the top of the standings in La Liga, FC Barcelona are 6pts behind the 2nd place team and 8pts behind the 1st place team.
If we take a look at the profit earnings from the club during the 2022-2023 season, FC Barcelona has made most of its net profit from the sale of TV Rights. It was calculated to be around 353 million dollars, which is extremely impressive, considering it is a new record high that had not been reached before in the past.
Fans of the club fear that their team may not be able to catch up in La Liga standings since they have had two losses in the last ten games. That may not sound too awful on paper, but during those two losses, FC Barcelona conceded 8 goals (4 goals scored on them each match).
Defender and Head Captain, Sergi Roberto stated, "I'll play in whatever position the coach asks me to."
Roberto has made it clear that he is willing to move up to a midfielder position if he has to or even change up the formation of the defensive line. However, all these suggestions seem to be going nowhere. The Head Coach has been receiving a lot of criticism from the community and due to that, he released a statement.
Head Coach Xaxi announced about a week ago or so, "I would like to announce that I will not remain Barça manager beyond the end of this season," Xavi confirmed in a news conference. "I had decided to leave a few days ago, but I think now is the right time to announce it to help reduce the tension that exists around the club. A change of dynamic is needed.”
Some key points to help improve in the next season may be, hiring a coach that is open to change. The formation on the offensive end has been working and beautiful goals have been produced, but the defensive formation has not been so effective. The Club needs to focus on buying new defenders as well. This is part of the problem. FC Barcelona has only been buying attacking players recently.