Has Louis Van Gaal succeeded at Barcelona where even General Franco failed ? Has the Dutch soccer coach struck a blow against Catalan pride that the late dictator could only have dreamed about ?
The questions ask themselves when you look through the current Barcelona team sheet. The side which beat Real Zaragoza 3-1 on Sunday to go joint top of the table with Celta Vigo regularly features as many as nine foreigners, including one Portuguese player, one Brazilian and, above all, seven Dutchmen.
Barcelona has always been a symbol of Catalan pride, a footballing expression of a region's belief in its separate cultural and linguistic identity. This was a belief that even Franco's centralised state could do little to undermine, yet, these days a fierce blow has been struck at the citadel of Catalan pride by Van Gaal's policy of Dutch importation.
The reality of the current Barcelona team was illustrated last week by defender Sergi Barijuan, a Catalan, who said: "If I start speaking Catalan in the dressing-room, there are maybe four or five people who understand. The others just look at me as if I were a foreigner."
Today's Futbol Club Barcelona is as much an expression of "postBosman" football realities as of Catalan separatisim. Jordi Pujol, president of the Generalitat, the regional government authority, recently complained that he feels "cheated" by a side that on occasions fields only one Catalan player (midfielder Josep Guardiola). Yet that complaint fails to acknowledge two obvious interlinked realities of modern European soccer. First, this is a brave new post-Bosman world where European Union nationals are free to move as they like within the EU. Second, in a hell-for-leather pursuit of instant success, powerful club presidents such as Josep Luis Nunez of Barcelona are ever more tempted to avail of that freedom of player movement to buy their way to a trophy.
Last month, I suggested that Van Gaal was on the verge of being sacked. By mid-December, Barcelona were struggling in midtable in the Liga and had just been eliminated from the Champions League by Bayern Munich, a failure that was all the harder to accept given that this season's Champions League final will be played in the club's mighty Nou Camp stadium in their centenary year.
After a 3-1 home defeat last month by lowly Villarreal (winning their first match at the Nou Camp), Van Gaal even handed in his resignation. But Nunez rejected it.
To some extent, Nunez has staked his reputation on Van Gaal and his policy of Dutch importation (or "colonisation", depending on your viewpoint). Nunez wanted the Dutchman 18 months ago and Van Gaal has enthusiastically launched a plan to import not just the ideas and model which worked so well for him at Ajax Amsterdam (winning the 1995 Champions League) but also the same personnel with the De Boer twins, Frank and Ronald, being the most recent arrivals.
Five of the current Barcelona side (striker Patrick Kluivert, the De Boer twins and defenders Winston Bogarde and Michael Reiziger) played in the Van Gaalcoached Ajax side that lost the 1996 Champions League final to Juventus. Furthermore, three other squad members are Dutch with two of them, goalkeeper Ruud Hesp and defender Philippe Cocu, regular first-team members.
Add the names of Brazilian Rivaldo and Portuguese striker Figo and you leave space for just two non-foreigners, usually Guardiola and Luis Enrique. Little wonder that the Barcelona faithful have their doubts about their New Age club.
The former Spanish national coach, Basque Javier Clemente, sees the Barcelona situation as emblematic of the modern soccer scene.
"Foreign coaches act as if the future does not exist, the future of the club, that is. They're under pressure to win and to win immediately. They do that and then they leave without having done anything for the roots of a club . . .
The problem is that, either you have patience and try to build up a winning team from your own youths or . . . you take the solution of importing Ajax to Barcelona."
For the time being, however, Barcelona are back on the winning trail, playing attractive football and silencing their critics. Sunday's win was their fifth in a row and on a day when arch rivals Real Madrid were beaten 4-0 by Deportivo Coruna, the fans could hardly complain.
The De Boer twins, too, made impressive starts though Ronald said somewhat ingenuously afterwards: "This feels just like Ajax in 1995 . . . that was a great team and if we keep up our confidence and motivation, we can be even better."
One suspects that Barcelona '99 fans have mixed feelings about being told their side feels like Ajax '95. However, that cultural confusion may contain itself until after the title contest is won or lost.
