17.06.2007 23:44
Laporta: “We have to renew the hope”
Sergi Nogueras
Speaking just after the final whistle of the match against Nàstic, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta told reporters it was time to, “renew the hope, the professionalism and the commitment” of the football senior squad.
It’s time to admit our mistakes and look to the future. Speaking after Sunday’s
championship deciders, Joan Laporta underlined: “We have to renew the hope, the
professionalism and the commitment. The reading [of the situation] is done and so is the analysis.
When I refer to renewing the hope, the professionalism and the commitment I’m referring to
the squad. The Club can cope with the necessary overhaul and I don’t believe that we can go
downhill just because of one result. The Club is a worldwide reference point”.
Changes ahead
He also stated that the overhaul would be done in an atmosphere of total optimism for the
future: “What has happened and what I have in my thoughts is a determination to keep going
forward with high hopes. We have the good fortune that Barça is a reference point around the world
and that the best players want to come here. We have to be very accurate about choosing new
incorporations and always very careful. We’ll be announcing the changes and I’m very
excited about starting again. There’ll be reasons for Barça members to maintain their hopes
in a project that has given us many moments of glory and has to keep on giving them. The project
has life left in it but the motor needs adjusting”.
Disappointment
Letting the league title slip through our fingers has been a huge disappointment to all Barça
fans, starting with Joan Laporta himself: “We all have a feeling of disappointment. There are
degrees of responsibility here and we all know where the main responsibility lies”.
Congratulations to the champions
Apart from admitting mistakes, the Barça president is determined to find the positives from
the campaign: “We’ve learned a lot from this season and that makes us stronger. First
of all I’d like to congratulate the champions who have won fair and square. We have to know
how to accept defeat”. Laporta also insisted that he feels up to the task of ringing the
changes: “I’m not despondent. I’m really excited about renewing the
professionalism. We have to renew the commitment. We have to renew the hope. We have the authority
to do it”.
Analysis and mistakes
With the season now over, the time has arrived to take decisions, or rather put the decisions
that have already been taken into practice: “This has been decided for some time because we
could see it coming, independently of what happened at the end. The same decisions have to be taken
as were taken a month ago. At a given moment we noticed a certain lack of commitment. Maybe because
of a saturation of really good years at Barça, maybe for human reasons or because of the dynamic we
were in. This year we haven’t won anything and obviously we have to take action. I recognise
our own mistakes”.
The first objective
At the beginning of the season, Barça had the chance to win seven trophies and in the end
that has been limited to two, neither of them in the main competitions. For Joan Laporta, the main
objective was La Liga: “It’s a big disappointment because we were involved in seven
competitions and the aim was to win them all. Looking at the squad, the hope was that we could win
1 or 2 of the main ones but hasn’t happened. That was the priority within our reach given the
playing quality and talent of the squad. You could see it coming. We played with fire and got
burnt”.
Self-criticism
However, the Barça president made it clear that mistakes had been made all round: “In a
team game you can’t accuse individuals. We’ve all failed: the directors, the technical
staff, coaches and players. But there are different degrees of responsibility. However, the hope
and commitment to continue must be present and that’s what we’re doing”. He also
singled out one mistake for special attention: “Not having taken action earlier and not
having realised what was happening in certain situations in which we should have acted
sooner”.