Pain felt in Spain falls mainly on Barcelona fans

The feeling in Catalonia is that the Barcelona team who have been the world’s best for much of the past decade are in decline. Two defeats in their past three league games only amplify such thoughts.

Midfielder Xavi Hernandez, second from the left, says a youthful core of players such as Argentinian forward Lionel Messi, left, will keep Barcelona a top club. Cesar Manso / AFP

Spanish football's obsession with cycles continues. Every great team, critics argue, has a beginning, a peak and an end. Every empire must fall. Even the dominance of the Madrid team of the 1950s, the greatest ever in world football, came to an end.

The Barcelona of the past decade have been good enough to be talked about alongside that Madrid side, the triple European Cup-winning side of Ajax and Bayern Munich of the 1970s, and Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan.

The feeling in Catalonia is that the Barcelona team who have been the world’s best for much of the past decade are in decline, the high watermark being the six trophies they won under Pep Guardiola in 2009. Two defeats in their past three league games only amplify such thoughts.

Critics point to the outgoing goalkeeper Victor Valdes and defender Carlos Puyol. Xavi Hernandez is 34. He was Barca's captain against Manchester City on Wednesday and is going in search of his 26th major honour as a player. There is no trophy he has not won, from the World Cup to the Champions League, and he refutes claims that Barca are at the end of a cycle.

“No, absolutely not,” he told the former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher. “Since Cruyff changed the history and philosophy of Barcelona, over the last five years, that philosophy has gone ‘boom’! It’s really exploded and we have made history.

“But Barcelona can carry on winning trophies. This is a spectacular crop of players. Look at the ages of the players: Fabregas, Messi, Iniesta, Alves, now Neymar, Jordi Alba and Pique — they are all around 26, 27, 28, 29 years old. That’s a great generation of footballers.”

“The period with Guardiola was unique. Under him we were ‘ding, ding, ding!’ Ringing the bell all the time. The football was so good.

“The key point is if you try to compare what we are doing now to that fantastic time under Guardiola, you are going to lose comparisons.”

It is hard to disagree with a man as knowledgeable and passionate as Xavi. He gives the finest interviews in world football, the antithesis of the bland comments of Lionel Messi. The best and worst talkers play in the same team, but Xavi’s word is not gospel. He is duty bound to speak well of the club that pays his wages and in which he believes in.

Yet the nagging feeling remains that all is not well at Barca. They are likely to beat Osasuna at home on Sunday. They have won every home league game this season except the 3-2 defeat to Valencia on February 1. That led to Gerardo Martino’s side losing pole position for the first time.

They recovered it with a 4-1 win at Sevilla followed by a 6-0 win against Rayo Vallecano but were then beaten again at Real Sociedad on February 22 and again last week at Valladolid.

Barca are third, a point behind an Atletico Madrid side many thought had blown up. They are four points behind Real Madrid, who have not lost a league game since their October defeat at Camp Nou. The derby at the Bernabeu looms large next Sunday, with Madrid threatening to open up a seven-point lead with nine games left.

Guardiola set the bar so high that not winning the league or Uefa Champions League constitutes crisis. As Xavi reminded reporters, after Wednesday’s defeat of City, Barca could still win both, and the Copa del Rey next month against Real Madrid, yet the mood in the stadium at games does not tally with Xavi’s optimism.

The forced resignation of president Sandro Rosell and the Neymar transfer scandal rocked the club. New president Josep Maria Bartomeu is amiable, with fewer enemies than his predecessor. The players liked him from the minute he stood in the dressing room and outlined his policy to be open.

Nor does he share the same strong opinions about football as Rosell. But Bartomeu will also be judged on the team’s success.

After the defeat at Valladolid he tweeted: “This group have demonstrated that they know how to overcome difficult moments, inside and outside sport. We had confidence in them until the end.”

The fans are not so sure. Even support for Catalan players at their peak, such as Gerard Pique and Cesc Fabregas, is muted. Fans are usually harder on their own and in Barcelona they have been so spoiled by success that they have become ultra critical. More of the same poor form of the last month will cause dissent which not even Xavi’s words can quell.

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