Live to fight another day. It was likely that Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman was thinking around the hour mark on Tuesday when, down 2-0 at home and en route to a defeat against Bayern Munich, he bowed down to legends Sergio Busquets and Sergi Roberto and played football. Basketball coach emptying his bench.
Gavi and Yusuf Demir Aye, two men who are 35 combined, have played a total of 47 first-team minutes and would probably not be recognized by many Barca fans if they showed up at the front door to deliver pizza.
Koman went ahead less than 15 minutes later, when he replaced Jordi Alba with Alejandro Balde, the 18-year-old making his debut for the club.
It is not uncommon for managers to blood youth at the end of a blowout win (bass in glory) or a blowout defeat (fans don't boo kids). But things were strange here. Sure, Barca were being outplayed - they didn't manage a shot on goal - but the deficit was just two goals, one of them being a Craven deflection when Thomas Muller's shot hit Eric Garcia's back.
The return was unlikely, but not unimaginable, and then there was the weight of history. Barcelona have never lost a Champions League home opener... and neither team that lost on Matchday 1 of the group stage has ever won the competition in the same season. but never mind; Koeman is apparently not superstitious.
Or, if he is, he knows the power of fiction. It's no coincidence that the three players who came out are all Catalans and club stalwarts - with about 1300 senior games between them - who spent time at Barcelona's haunted academy. And the three people to replace them are all children born in the third millennium, tasked with keeping the club's glorious history alive.
corny? A little But not false. Bringing in players through La Masia has, historically, been Barcelona's strength and will need to do that again. It didn't matter this night. The substitution had little effect and Robert Lewandowski later added his second goal to seal Bayern's emphatic victory.
Surely, if you were more cynical, you could have concluded that it was all Koeman's way of saying: "What should I do? A group of players are unavailable and I can't find anything on the bench? "
And that would have been a point there. Among the established pros on his bench was a man returning from injury (Sergino Dest), a man who hadn't played since last season (Ricky Puig), a man who absolutely hasn't since 2020 (Philippe Coutinho) and a had not played. The man Barcelona tried to take off in the summer, but could not, because he earns so much (Samuel Umtiti).
This is the reality of Barcelona. Sure, this might change a bit if Anu Fati returns to full fitness and lives up to the hype (but, remember, she hasn't played in 10 months and is still just 18; the load of unrealistic expectations on a baby To do his age is both unfair and stupid) and if Ousmane Dembele comes back and avoids injury (he has never started more than 22 league games in his career).
But, other than that, you're grabbing straws if you think the cavalry is going to come out of the hospital and turn Blagrana into contenders.
what are we talking about? Sergio Aguero, who is 33 and was signed as Lionel Messi's sidekick when it looked like Barca might be able to keep their legend forward, has not played since June, having not played for the last two seasons. Missed the best part and struggled when it came to that time pitch? Martin Braithwaite? Great attitude, blue-collar hero, but if that's the answer, you're asking the wrong question.
Koman understood this and commented on the "quality difference" after the game. He receives the trauma of the past six weeks, the tearful farewell to Messi, the flirting with bankruptcy, the realization that the club is the third, if not the fourth, force in LaLiga. On a night like this, against a Bayern side that, despite not being irresistible, was on the roads ahead - it was no contest.
It's best to recognize it, figure out how to finish ahead of the other two teams in the group - Benfica and Dynamo Kiev - and shoot for a place in the top four in LaLiga. This would ensure a return to the Champions League next season and, just as important, some of that prize money would flow to the Camp Nou coffers.
Barca fans understand the gravity of the situation and know this is the only way to stop the rot. In fact, maybe they'd prefer to see kids like Gavi, Demir, and Bald try to make the grade, rather than watch the heroes of bygone days end up beating the house.