Last night, Barça presented the new series ‘FC Barcelona, a new era’. This is a documentary series of five chapters. It narrates the events of the last two and a half years of the club. Especially of last year, since the arrival of Xavi Hernandez to the bench of the Camp Nou.
Joan Laporta, Xavi Hernandez and the first team players attended the ‘première’ of the series at the Auditori 1899. They witnessed one of the episodes together. It was the fourth episode. The series, directed by Marc Ponsis is a production of Barca Studios and Telefonica Broadcast Services (TBS). It will be available on Amazon Prime Video starting Wednesday the 28th.
The new series on Barça opens worldwide on December 28. However the protagonists were able to see a preview on Monday. Chapter four starts with Frenkie de Jong as the first protagonist, recovering unpublished images of his trip to Barcelona when he signed for the Barça. In that private plane he chats with his partner and his agent. The Dutch remembers that he followed Barça since he was a child. His father was a fan of cruyff. He told him that “it was a successful team that played the most beautiful football I’ve ever played in my life.”
The Dutchman admits that he should look to take more long shots. “The coaches told me for some time, as well as my family and friends, that I have to shoot more.”
Xavi’s view on Frenkie
Xavi in one of the exclusive interviews conducted for the series, explains shooting from distance is one of the things that hedemands from De jong. Moreover, he assures that “he is a differential player, he has much better conditions than I had as a footballer”. The coach details the tactical and video work they do with the Dutchman to improve his game.
De jong also talks about his personal situation. And also about everything that has been said about his possible departure from Barça. “I see myself playing here for a long time. I don’t care about the rumors about whether I go to another team or stay here. We haven’t talked about that and no one from the team has told me anything. I don’t think it will happen, honestly. But if it does happen I would be disappointed.”
El clasico
Another of the strong points of the chapter that they saw Xavi and the players in the preview of El Clasico where Barça beat Real Madrid 0-4 Last season. A good part of the talk that the coach gave to the team at the hotel before the game is shown. “Curiously, today is Madrid day, it’s the day I’m calmer and as a coach I thought I was going to be more tense, more nervous. But I’m very calm, do you know why”?
“Because we are going to win,” replies Jordi Alba before the general silence. Then Xavi continues: “This one. And then because you have shown that you give everything on the field.” Already at the most tactical level, Xavi tells them that it is “a day of patience and personality. Patience with the ball, they are going to despair, they are going to start whistling at them… (…) This is the game we want, if you give everything on the field and you are a team, we are a better team than Madrid. If we play lurching, now I attack you, now you attack me, I attack, you attack… then they are better”.
Different views
The coach reiterates the importance of not losing balls, of playing concentrated for 90 minutes and assures that he “would pay to play, really, pay to play this game.” He also explains to Araujo that he will play on the wing and that his mission is to stop Vinicius: “You are not to going on the attack, you are there to control Vinicius”.
The series shows in detail the images of the celebration in the Bernabéu locker room and months later Xavi reviews the match and assures that “if we were talking about a win with more goals we would be being honest. We were far superior to Madrid at all times and the result is even short”.
Laporta’s harangue in the locker room, after losing to Madrid in the Super Copa
El Clásico in the Super Cup also appears in this chapter and the talk of Xavi is the protagonist again: “Did you see Kroos yesterday? Barça doesn’t see it, that it’s a miracle that Barça wins… Self-love can do it to me, guys, we have to reach the final and win the Cup” . after the match, Xavi admits that despite losing to the whites “we somehow got rid of our complexes, we had them, my feeling is that we lost, not that Madrid beat us. But it helped to recover a bit of the self-esteem and pride that we had lost in the last years in El Clasicos”.
The emergence of Pedri
Chapter four also focuses on the figure of Pedri. He recovers images of the day he was introduced as a Barça player and the chat he had from the hotel with his parents and his grandmother via videoconference, since they were unable to travel due to the pandemic. “You’ve already fulfilled a dream, now pick and shovel,” his father tells him
Meanwhile Pedri proudly shows them the Barça shirt that they have given him for the family to keep for the supporters club. “I was a Barça fan before I was born, because my grandfather founded the local Barça supporters club and then my father followed,” recalls Pedri. He is seen walking around Barcelona with his brother, he jokes that “in two years I’ll be like AdamaI have to get stronger” and shortly after arriving at Barça he is surprised when the fans stop him on the street: “I still haven’t done anything to be recognized”.
The episode ends with the advance of what will be the fifth and final chapter of the series.
he series starts with the arrival of Xavi to Barça and the words of the coach and Laporta to the locker room after the change of coach. But it also travels to the past and allows to discover the first talk of setien, the dinner of Koeman and Bartomeu in which they talk about the goodbye of Luis Suarez and the continuity of Messi in the summer of the burofax.
Also, the recovery of Ansu from his long injury, the departure of Messi or the dismissal of koeman. The arrival of Xavi from the meetings in Doha, his talks, the challenges he poses to the dressing room or how he explains the case to the players Dembele when the Frenchman was ‘separated’ are some of the unprecedented moments that the series will show the public, as well as the meeting of Laporta, Xavi, Alemany and company to plan the signings of this season.
Gavi recorded on his 18th birthday, is one of the protagonists who appears in the series. All the protagonists also speak exclusively, from Xavi to Lewandowski, passing by Busquets, Pedro, Ansu, Aubameyang and others. Shown as a Lewandowski, which appears in the fifth and last chapter, had to be welcomed by the technician by videoconference due to his problem with the visa to fly to the USA. And you see the Pole challenge himself with Ansu Fati and Araujo to a push-up contest. Who will win? The answer, in the fifth chapter
