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Xavi managed to silence most of his critics and doubters during the 2022/23 season as Barca wrestled back La Liga from Real Madrid.
Though La Blaugrana are famed for their scintillating attacking brand of football, Xavi flipped the playbook this year, turning Barcelona into defensive machines that were tough to score against and beat. Domestic success proved an ample distraction from Barcelona's continued European woes, a factor which must be addressed next season. Here's 90min's comprehensive review of Barcelona's 2022/23 campaign.
Having inherited a mess from Ronald Koeman midway through the 2021/22 season, Xavi managed to emphatically alleviate fears that Barcelona would miss out on a place in the top four and there was reason to be optimistic again heading into the summer. But then Barcelona started being Barcelona. The club agreed to effectively mortgage their future in order to bring in a host of new signings. At the time, a lot of those transfers didn't even look spectacular and certainly not enough to challenge a double-winning Real Madrid side. Very few would have predicted that Barca would go on to topple their bitter rivals and win a first title of the post-Messi era.
It's strange that in a season where Barcelona won La Liga, their best player was the goalkeeper. Marc-Andre ter Stegen came to Barca's rescue repeatedly during a year in which they managed to win 13 La Liga games by just one goal. His save percentage of 84.7 was a career-high for seasons in which he played more than 10 games, while he equalled La Liga's record for most clean sheets in a single campaign (26), which was enough to take home the coveted Zamora Trophy. The only thing which stopped Ter Stegen smashing that record was Barcelona understandably taking their foot off the gas once they secured the title with several weeks of the season still remaining.
There were quite a few neat team moves to pick from for this category, though very few impressive individual efforts. Those two requirements combine to give us our winner - Raphinha's late settler at Osasuna. In Barcelona's final game before the World Cup break, they found themselves a goals and a man down at high-flying Osasuna. Pedri managed to find a leveller for Barca just after the break, and late in the day they found a winner. Frenkie de Jong's delectable ball over the top was met by Raphinha, whose first-time header looped up over the hapless Aitor Fernandez and in.
This could have easily been Barcelona's triumph in the final of the Supercopa de Espana, but a Clasico victory in La Liga means more. Real Madrid took the lead at Camp Nou when Ronald Araujo put the ball through his own net, with Sergi Roberto equalising just before the interval. Los Blancos thought they had scored a late winner when Marco Asensio - at that point heavily linked with a summer move to Barcelona - found the net, only for his strike to be chalked off by VAR for offside. With two minutes of stoppage time gone, up stepped Franck Kessie to settle the scores and hand Barcelona a huge win that effectively secured the title.
There were many sceptics of Barcelona's decision to spend their limited summer budget on a striker who was turning 34 heading into the 2022/23 season. In fairness to Robert Lewandowski though, he has held up his end of the bargain, scoring the goals which ultimately clinched a first La Liga title in four years. He managed to stave off competition from Karim Benzema to take home the Pichichi Trophy, netting 33 goals in 46 games during his debut season at Camp Nou.
Jordi Alba's departure at the end of the 2022/23 campaign won't hit Barcelona as hard as they had previously anticipated thanks to the emergence of Alejandro Balde. Spanish media briefings back in August played up the left-back's potential to a ludicrous degree, but he has proven a lot of people wrong throughout the season, consolidating his place in Xavi's best XI. He has at times been entrusted to play as an orthodox winger too and is already proving another roaring success from the club's famed La Masia academy.
For a second year running, Barcelona failed to progress beyond the group stages of the Champions League and were plonked into the Europa League. Xavi's men were unable to pip either Bayern Munich or Inter to top-two spot and had to settle for third once more. They were drawn to face Manchester United in the knockout round play-off and were beaten 4-3 across two high-quality legs.
Source: 90min.com
