Why Barcelona is entering era of the ordinary regardless of El Clasico result
The indomitable Barcelona of yesteryear is on its last legs. The Catalan club, purveyor of beautiful football, faces the impossible task of salvaging a lost season, and must do so under the lights of the place where adversity is felt at its very peak.
Real Madrid's style of play never received clever nicknames in the papers like Barcelona's "Tiki-taka," but Zinedine Zidane's side has been ruthlessly effective nonetheless. Victory would all but assure the white-clad outfit a second La Liga title in eight years - and you can bet that's what the home crowd expects when the latest iteration of arguably football's fiercest rivalry is played on Sunday at the Santiago Bernabeu.
It is Luis Enrique's final El Clasico as manager of Barcelona. Dumped out of the Champions League, it is also Barcelona's last chance of leaving Enrique with the familiar feeling of (meaningful) glory.
Barcelona faces a period of uncertainty, and though victory in the Copa del Rey final against Alaves would be a small consolation, this current campaign has not been kind to the Blaugrana faithful.
The Valencia raid wasn't as fruitful as envisioned, as Andre Gomes and Paco Alcacer have failed to live up to their billing. A crushing loss to Paris Saint-Germain was turned around in historic fashion, but a loss to Juventus highlighted Barcelona's most glaring flaws.
Teams like Malaga and Deportivo La Coruna felled the Catalan beast, and Barcelona's signature passing style has noticeably diminished; where once Barcelona peppered the list of individual passing rates, only substitutes Rafinha and Samuel Umtiti now sit in Europe's top 20.
All the while, Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta have yet to sign new contracts.
As Barcelona inches toward the inevitable post-Messi era, its fabled academy, La Masia, is producing less first-team talent. At least, first-team talent that remains at the Camp Nou; Gerard Deulofeu is enjoying his football at AC Milan; Thiago Alcantara, at Bayern Munich. What was once a rich pipeline of talent is slowly running dry, the last spurt producing Sergi Roberto, and little else.
If the "next Messi" is alive, Barcelona hasn't found him yet, and has resorted instead to the once-cardinal sin of dipping into its coin purse to mitigate its shortcomings; it took a combined €168 million to sign Neymar and Luis Suarez.
Real Madrid continues to spend lavishly as well, sure, but with homegrown talents like Lucas Vazquez, Marco Asensio, and Alvaro Morata enjoying varying degrees of success at the club this season, there is certainly the sense that, even if it's slight, there's a reversal of fortune at play here as it relates to the conventional philosophies of both clubs.
But this is the way of Spanish football - one day Real Madrid, the next, Barcelona, forever intertwined, cyclically shifting their footballing fate.
It's why each battle between the two formidable foes produces avid interest, but also tells the story of each team's place in this Spanish dance. On Sunday, a bruised Barcelona will present itself once more, in a desperate final bid to retain the La Liga crown that is slipping from its grasp.
It doesn't really matter, in the end, who wins or loses on Sunday - Real Madrid, up by three points and boasting a match in-hand, will likely still claim the title.
A win for the capital-based club, though, and Luis Enrique's final season on the Camp Nou bench will definitely end in futility. A new manager, whether Ernesto Valverde or another, may bring new ideas, but save for a drastic shift, Barcelona will continue to stray away from the path that made it so very special.
The Blaugrana will remain a title contender in La Liga, and a real threat in the Champions League, and will likely remain that way for a considerable while longer. Along with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, the Catalan side is one of three on the planet that has become too big, too financially powerful to ever truly fail.
But make no mistake, the extraordinary has become ordinary.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)