A bad end to 2024, with five points won from the final 21 available in La Liga, as well as the non-registration of summer signings Dani Olmo and Pau Victor for the second half of the season, hovered like a fog over Barcelona on the day they returned from their Christmas break.
With this scenario, and still no explanation from club president Joan Laporta, the Catalans made the short trip north-west to Barbastro, in the neighbouring region of Aragon, to begin their 2024-25 Copa del Rey challenge in a stadium with a capacity of just over 5,000.
UD Barbastro are a team from the Segunda Federacion — the Spanish fourth division — who also faced Barcelona in this competition last January and fought until the end as they were beaten 3-2. After this season’s last-32 draw paired the two sides up again, they wanted to repeat the feat: to compete against one of European football’s giants.
However, Hansi Flick’s side came out focused on their task, knowing that a slip-up against more than manageable opposition would not add anything good to an already delicate situation for the club. Their 4-0 win, with goals from Eric Garcia, two from Robert Lewandowski and Pablo Torre, in a match they dominated from start to finish meant not adding fuel to the fire of the crisis that the club is going through.
Flick’s line-up was a hybrid between Barcelona’s usual first XI, to ensure there would be no surprises in this tie, and fresh, less usual starters in players, such as Gerard Martin and Torre. It was also a day of debuts for Wojciech Szczesny and Toni Fernandez, and a day of return for Ronald Araujo, who started and played the 90 minutes after 181 days out with a hamstring injury.
Licking wounds in an institutionally turbulent week
“Where is Dani Olmo? Dani Olmo, where is he?” chanted the Barbastro fans before kick-off. Hours before the match started, the final decision of the RFEF, Spain’s football association, had been announced in a statement: neither Olmo nor Victor would be granted a licence to actually play for the club they’d signed with back in the summer and subsequently made a combined 32 appearances for.
It has not been a quiet Christmas period in Barcelona. On New Year’s Eve, with 2025 just around the corner, there was also uncertainty as to what would happen to these two players. The deadline to gather the documentation and money needed to register them was approaching, but Barcelona showed no signs of having the situation under control.
La Liga said that without payment, it could not get the paperwork in order. Barcelona had pursued their options through legal channels, twice asking for an injunction to allow both to continue to play while the matter was being resolved, but the club’s proposals were denied.
The Dani Olmo registration saga has dominated the narrative surrounding Barcelona (Pedja Milosavljevic/AFP via Getty Images)
Then Barca explored selling VIP seats at their still-being-renovated Camp Nou home stadium to alleviate the cost issue and to be able to register them, but the money concerned did not arrive in time and Olmo and Victor were de-registered. While the club continued trying to resolve the situation five days later, still hoping to be able to register them through the RFEF, the body said no on Saturday. Barcelona are now planning to file a complaint to the Spanish government.
“We are a bit worried because they are two very important players for us. The club say they are going to be able to resolve it, and we hope so,” defender Araujo told reporters after the Barbastro match. “It’s a tough issue for our team-mates.”
The Olmo/Victor affair comes on top of that run of poor results in La Liga which contrasted with good performances in the Champions League, where Barcelona are second in the 36-team league phase table with two matchdays remaining.
Their last game of 2024 ended with a painful defeat against Atletico Madrid as the “s**t November” that Flick bemoaned in a press conference lasted until the end of the following month.
The day they returned to action from a two-week winter break with mental and physical batteries recharged, they had to face a last-32 match against a team who, even though they are in the fourth division, were hyper-motivated to face their idols — and that doesn’t always end well for the interests of the big team involved.
However, Barcelona showed a concentration and seriousness befitting of what was asked of them, but unbecoming of the turbulent moment this squad are going through.
Barca were dominant, gave no concessions to their lower-league hosts, were eager to attack, and pressed high after losing the ball. They played without pure wingers but still found depth down the flanks thanks to Martin while Torre was mentally agile and helped the ball circulation to be quicker.
Garcia scored the first in the 21st minute, Lewandowski followed with a brace and in the 57th minute, Torre took advantage of a blunder by the Barbastro defence to kill the game off and take away any interest the home side might have had in the last half hour.
Araujo’s return brings his future into the spotlight
It had been 181 days since Araujo, one of Barcelona’s captains, last played, due to a hamstring injury suffered during the Copa America with Uruguay. Coming amid many rumours that the club wanted to sell him in order to make money that would solve part of their well-publicised financial problems, news of his long-term loss stopped everything.
The 25-year-old has been indispensable for Barcelona in recent seasons; a tough centre-back who was even the antidote to Vinicius Junior when they played against Real Madrid, capable of completely nullifying him in several matches. However, Inigo Martinez and Pau Cubarsi’s good starts of the season made us wonder in which role Araujo would return and above all, which of the three would have to be left out of the starting line-up.
Cubarsi was rested on the bench initially against Barbastro and Flick tried out a couple of central defenders. Martinez started alongside Araujo and then Flick replaced the 33-year-old Basque and put teenager Cubarsi in for the last half-hour.
Araujo returned in style, playing the whole game.
Araujo in action against Barbastro (Pedro Salado/Getty Images)
“I didn’t think I was going to play all 90 minutes but the coach kept asking me how I was doing and I was feeling good,” said the Uruguayan. “I’m happy to be playing again after such a long time.
‘I have to show my football. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I’ve earned my place where I am: to be one of the four captains of FC Barcelona and that’s it. I’m not in a hurry. I want to feel good.”
Barcelona do not want any player on course to finish his contract in summer 2026 to start next season with them. Araujo is among those in that situation. When asked how the renewal negotiations were going, however, he did not make anything clear.
“We are talking to the club,” Araujo said. “We hope it can be resolved, but I’m focused on playing again and getting minutes. Let’s see how it goes.”
Debuts for two players at opposite ends of their careers
Szczesny played his first game after signing for Barcelona three months ago. They brought the 34-year-old out of the retirement he’d announced during the summer to give him one last chance in top-level football, reinforcing their goalkeeping department after Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s long-term injury — the total rupture of the patellar tendon in the right knee he sustained against Villarreal in September.
Although the club initially told him that Szczesny was coming to play, Inaki Pena started to put in some good performances and Flick ended up putting his faith in the 25-year-old. The result? Maybe not what the Pole expected, but he got his first chance last night.
His debut was quiet. Szczesny hardly had to get involved because Barbastro hardly attacked (one shot on target, 25 per cent possession), but it was the proper start of his Barca career nonetheless.
Wojciech Szczesny made his Barcelona debut (Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
Another debutant was Fernandez. In contrast to the hugely experienced Szczesny, he became the second-youngest debutant in the club’s history at 16 years, five months and 17 days old, behind only Lamine Yamal. He played just the last nine minutes but did enough to prove that he deserved the chance. He took set pieces, including a corner that nearly assisted Garcia for what would have been his second goal of the game.
Fernandez, who returned from a right-ankle sprain injury that had kept him off the pitch since mid-October, was in the squad for the pre-season tour of the United States last summer, and club sources say he impressed Flick.
“Toni Fernandez truly is a great talent and he showed no fear,” the German coach said after the match.
What next for Barcelona?
Wednesday, January 8: Athletic Club, Spanish Supercup semi-final (in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), 7pm GMT, 2pm ET
(Top photo: Pedro Salado/Getty Images)
