Barcelona ready for domestic success

When Luis Enrique was appointed as coach of Barcelona last may, he had to deal with a group of players that had a huge disappointment during last season and not fulfilling the expectations that a team like Barcelona has, une of the roles of this disaster was “Tata” Martino, last years coach, in both the domestic and international decline. 

The tactics that he imposed and the management upset all the squad and both big tournaments where won by league rivals.

This season however, Luis Enrique, returned to the well known philosophy of play with an attractive and effective football that fans have been accustomed to see over the years; with a dominant possession all over the field and a big attacking play has been seen in the first matches of this season.

One of the surprises was the inability of the other teams to score a goal through all the matches, with Barcelona having scored 18 goals, an historical problem in defense that seemed to be solved under Luis Enrique. 

But everything ended last Tuesday when Barcelona fell against Paris Saint-Germain with a 3-2 score in their Group F Champions League encounter.

Two seasons ago, Bayern Munich won Barcelona in the semi-finals for a total score in two matches of 7-0, but the Bundesliga team won this same year the national title, the champions Leage and the DFB-Pokal.

This summer the retirement of Carles Puyol forced the club to find a replacement for the central defense line and a goal keeper to substitute Victor Valdes. 

Barcelona was able to sign with two centre backs, Thomas Vermaelen and Jeremy Mathieu, and added two new goal keepers, Marc Andre ted Stegen and Clauio Bravo.

And this probably made a good defensive line for the La Liga title, but wasn’t clearly enough for the run on the Champions League. 

Also the ban for Barcelona will make them unable to sign with new players during the January transfer window; a ban that will last until the January 2016 transfer window. Barcelona options are between the first team, the B team and La Masia youth academy.