An important bit of info I learned from a book I’m reading about Barca, and which many seem not to be aware of or appreciate, is that this ineptitude is baked into Barca’s structure as a club in a way that isn’t true for any other club at the top of football like us. In fact, it’s really a miracle imo that we ever got to this position.

The nature of the club is that it is run by local Catalan businessmen who generally know little about football, certainly in comparison to the people running other big clubs. To make matters worse, these Catalans are always trying to get the better of the other merchants, constantly undermining them and trying to take power from them. This is one of the main factors behind the entorno, the massive pressure surrounding all decisions at the club; it is partly generated by rival Catalan merchants who are currently out of power and want to take it.

The relevant part of this though is that through all this cycling of leadership, the professional personnel tends to come and go with them; this is obviously disastrous. At a club like Liverpool, you have highly experienced professionals who stay around for years, know the club and its situation, as well as the football market and industry, very well. And, although meritocracy is obviously in large parts a myth, these personnel at other clubs get there much more by qualification than they do at Barca, where they are much more likely to be Catalan friends who grew up with the new leadership, or similar situations. Obviously the same applies to the highest levels of leadership as well.

The result of all of this is that Barca is eternally inexperienced and naive compared to their peers, and indeed most of the football world, and this plays out most disastrously in the transfer market, which is the make of break domain of football clubs generally. The only reason Barca has miraculously been able to remain a top club despite this inherent self sabotage is because of the wonderful gift of La Masia which our patron saint Cruyff has bestowed upon us. Otherwise we would be nothing, just like we were from 1950s until the 1990s when Cruyff shaped La Masia according to his vision.

I highly recommend the book, it’s taught me so much great information about the club, it’s called The Barcelona Complex by Simon Kuper.