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Luckless Barcelona in throes of another crisis
Madrid, Oct 20: This season was going to be completely different for long-suffering FC Barcelona.
Madrid, Oct 20: This season was going to be completely different for long-suffering FC Barcelona.
The charisma of Ronaldinho was going to pack the Camp Nou, the offensive strategy of Frank Rijkaard was going to guarantee a flood of goals and points. The long years of frustration and disappointment seemed to have finally come to an end.
There is a proverb in Spanish that to dream is free of charge. This could be painfully applied right now to Barca, where the dreams of summer have, once again, collided with the harsh realities of autumn.
Yesterday, Rijkaard's ill-balanced team crashed to their second successive home defeat, 0-2 against a Deportivo Coruna side which rarely need to switch up from second gear.
Barca sloped off the field to the jeers of the 85,000 crowd, many of whom were waving white handkerchiefs to demand the sacking of the hapless Rijkaard.
The latest defeat leaves Barca mired in midtable mediocrity, seven points behind hated rivals Real Madrid and no less than nine behind Deportivo. And it dissolves the positive feeling created by Wednesday's 8-0 Uefa Cup thrashing of sad Slovaks Skm Puchov.
According to the Sunday edition of Mundo Deportivo, the defeat demonstrates that ''this Barcelona team has little to offer beyond a few flashes from Ronaldinho ... And is still clearly inferior to the top-level outfits''.
Bureau Report
The charisma of Ronaldinho was going to pack the Camp Nou, the offensive strategy of Frank Rijkaard was going to guarantee a flood of goals and points. The long years of frustration and disappointment seemed to have finally come to an end.
There is a proverb in Spanish that to dream is free of charge. This could be painfully applied right now to Barca, where the dreams of summer have, once again, collided with the harsh realities of autumn.
Yesterday, Rijkaard's ill-balanced team crashed to their second successive home defeat, 0-2 against a Deportivo Coruna side which rarely need to switch up from second gear.
Barca sloped off the field to the jeers of the 85,000 crowd, many of whom were waving white handkerchiefs to demand the sacking of the hapless Rijkaard.
The latest defeat leaves Barca mired in midtable mediocrity, seven points behind hated rivals Real Madrid and no less than nine behind Deportivo. And it dissolves the positive feeling created by Wednesday's 8-0 Uefa Cup thrashing of sad Slovaks Skm Puchov.
According to the Sunday edition of Mundo Deportivo, the defeat demonstrates that ''this Barcelona team has little to offer beyond a few flashes from Ronaldinho ... And is still clearly inferior to the top-level outfits''.
Bureau Report