Translated material
Minus one
Barcelona lost the first cup out of seven planned
The super plan of the Spanish Barcelona - to win seven trophies in a season - has failed. Frank Rijkaard's team lost the UEFA Super Cup match to Sevilla, and the score 0:3 shows that all is not well in the Catalan football kingdom.Before the game, it seemed that Barcelona would add another cup to the already rich collection of the club museum. The football club museum, opened near Barca's home stadium Nou Camp in 1984, generally managed to become the second most visited attraction in the capital of Catalonia (the Nou Camp itself holds the first place). And its first floor is given over to the display of the awards won by the team. But, apparently, the club’s management decided to significantly update the exhibition and planned to win no less than seven trophies this season. The first of them, the Spanish Super Cup, was won a week ago in a two-round confrontation with Espanyol. A few days later, in the match for the Joan Gamper Cup (a trophy dedicated to the legendary founder of Barcelona, played before the start of each season), the German Bayern were defeated 4:0. And after the UEFA Super Cup, Barça planned to again win the Catalan Cup, gold medals in the Spanish championship and the National Cup, as well as win the Champions League.
In any case, these are the tasks voiced by Joan Laporta, recently re-elected president of Barcelona. By the way, presidential elections in the Catalan club are held according to a rather complicated scheme. To begin with, applicants nominate themselves and receive the status of precandidates. At the next stage, they must collect at least 1804 votes from club members. Voting is carried out in special booths installed at the Nou Camp. And if in the place where they voted for Laporta, there were long queues before the match for the Spanish Super Cup, then only the curious crowded the other pre-candidates. As a result, Laporta received 8,994 votes, his main rival Jordi Medina - 1,319 votes. Other candidates generally acted only for show: 13 people voted for Ferran Estrada, and one for Francesco Lignana. As a result, Laporta became the only candidate for the presidency and won the election without a fight, after promising to increase the revenue side of the club's budget to 400 million euros by 2010.
But here's to celebrating your victory with a sip of Laporte's UEFA Super Cup champagne. failed. This trophy has not been given to the Catalans for eight years. Now, according to pre-match forecasts, everything was in favor of Barca, whose head coach Frank Rijkaard and his assistant Johan Neeskens won the Super Cup twice as players. However, already in the 7th minute, Sevilla, which started the match powerfully, opened the scoring. And then at the end of the half they increased their advantage. To no avail, Barça tried to change the course of the match and at the very end of the game they only conceded another goal - Maresca scored from the penalty spot, making the score 3:0.
Sevilla leader Daniel Alves scored none of these goals. But it was he who was recognized as the best player in both the UEFA Cup and the Super Cup match. “Beating Barca with a score of 3:0 or 1:0 makes no difference, because in the final only the victory itself matters,” said the hero of the day, Daniel Alves, after the game. “Our aspirations have no limits, only the sky.” But we have to win. We have to try our best for this and help each other to continue to play at the highest European level.”
And the Barcelona players can only forget about this inglorious match for them. “We have to turn the page and get off to a good start in the league,” said Catalan goalkeeper Victor Valdes, who helped Barca avoid a bigger scoreline and embarrassment. “We need to draw conclusions from what happened and correct what we did wrong.” Sevilla played with amazing dedication and we basically had no chance. They controlled themselves. They succeeded in all aspects of the game, but this is not an accident that can happen in any final. They always defended well against us and got to the point where they learned how to play against us.”
However, the more trophies Barcelona has, the more there will be those who want to take them away from the Catalans. So Barça faces a very difficult season and now there are not seven, but six possible trophies.