Barcelona have four fit senior defenders, and the people who signed off on that number spent the summer shopping for forwards. Xavi Espart's ankle, which will keep the 19-year-old out for around two months after a collision with Aurélien Tchouaméni, is the latest blow. The real cause is a transfer plan that treated the back line as an afterthought and is only now, after the fact, being reconsidered.
Look at what Barcelona actually have available. Balde, Pau Cubarsí, Gerard Martín and João Cancelo are the only first-team defenders fit for selection as of this week, with Andreas Christensen, Jules Koundé and Eric García all sidelined by injury before Espart joined them. That's a back four with no spare parts. One more knock, one more awkward landing, and Hansi Flick is picking from midfielders and kids.
Compare that with what the club did over the summer. They loaned Ronald Araújo to Liverpool for the season, with a buy option attached. They brought in attackers and midfielders. On defense, the only fresh business was turning Cancelo's loan into a permanent deal, keeping a player who was already there instead of adding a new one. The club reportedly shelved plans to sign a defender. Now, with the squad shredded, the board is floating a January move to fix a hole it chose to leave open.
So spare me the bad luck. Injuries are bad luck. Espart catching a stray from Tchouaméni, Christensen, Koundé and García all going down: that's the random cruelty of football, and no sporting director can insure against it. What good clubs do as a matter of routine is build enough depth that bad luck costs you a rotation option instead of your whole back line. Depth exists because injuries are guaranteed to arrive. Barcelona went into a title-chasing season betting theirs wouldn't. That bet is a decision, and it has a name attached to it.
The names are Deco and Laporta, who ran the strategy. Flick is just managing with what he's been handed, picking from whoever's fit. Cubarsí and Gerard Martín didn't ask to be the last men standing, and now they're at risk of being played into the ground. The people who sold a center-back and declined to replace him own this.
The timing is brutal. It lands with Barcelona suddenly vulnerable at the top. The Sunday result at Camp Nou ended a nine-game winning start to their league campaign and cut their lead to three points after ten rounds. Kylian Mbappé's late winner, set up by Eduardo Camavinga, was the moment it all turned, and Barcelona dominated the ball and the shot count for nothing. A squad built with a proper defensive reserve shrugs off a bad night and an injury or two. This one can't, because the margin was spent in August on positions that were already full.
January is coming, and the board can buy its way out. But it'll be buying out of a problem it manufactured. Barcelona arranged this crisis themselves.
