Barca, the inside story

I am watching this feature on BBC4 at the mo, which tells the inside story of Barca in the 2003-04 season... lots of stuff of what goes on in the boardroom, what the board thinks of the fans/players/press reactions after every game... its awesome!!

Anyone seen this stuff?? Would recommend it to any football fan!

Yeah, watched it twice. Brilliant, really gives a good insight into how football clubs work, and esp. good for Barça fans (and others) to see just how much Laporta changed at the club, and how Rijkaard's request for Davids turned things around.

For those who haven't seen it, here's the link to download it (not sure if it still works):

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A8FZZB58

Thought it was dire to be honest...Barca propaganda at best.

Have seen it twice too.

I loved the part where all the reporters and newspapers were saying : he's crazy for bringing in has-been Davids.

....to calling it a masterstroke 3-4 weeks later

Watched the last hour after Bluenine posted this, fairly insightful into the character of Laporta and the other board members, shame that a more updated version has not been made.

Downloaded before I went to India, came back as soon as I got home I watched it

Really interesting to see how much laporta has transformed the club.

It really is a good documentary, gives you amazing insight. It was also nice to see that Laporta weren't just a nutcase

Still a nutcase, but a more hardworking nutcase than what I had imagined... I was more impressed however with some other board members... a decent bunch.

Very insightful, and exciting stuff about life as a board member of a top club.

Riviera wrote:It really is a good documentary, gives you amazing insight. It was also nice to see that Laporta weren't just a nutcase

I liked the bit where we denied Barcelona the title.

Missed the end. What was the falling out in the board about? What has happened subsequently? What happened to the Ancien Regime at Barcelona? The French Revolution offers a model for the treatment of discgraced former leaders of Ancien Regimes. Was it true that Boixos Nois demanded preferential treatment from the board as alleged and basically tried to terrorise Laporta to get it? Are Mad Boys the same as Boixos Nois or an even more extreme version?

Did anyone see The Gods of Brasil afterwards on Garrincha and Pele?

Loved the Laporta 'Communist' bit.

In a previous post I denigrated Laporta’s character on the basis of this documentary. My judgement was entirely unfair and completely erroneous.

Laporta and the tall guy – Ferran Soriano, who got married during its filming – really impressed me. They were really sharp-witted, fair, convivial, and even handled the criticism and pressure inherent with their roles with equanimity and good manners.

The Deportivo president seemed like a jolly old guy too.

How to keep the guys who run Barca happy: nibbles, good wine, and a win for Barcelona…for Catalonia, as they would say!

Great stuff!

More of the same please.

The Bulk wrote:In a previous post I denigrated Laporta’s character on the basis of this documentary. My judgement was entirely unfair and completely erroneous.

Laporta and the tall guy – Ferran Soriano, who got married during its filming – really impressed me. They were really sharp-witted, fair, convivial, and even handled the criticism and pressure inherent with their roles with equanimity and good manners.

The Deportivo president seemed like a jolly old guy too.

How to keep the guys who run Barca happy: nibbles, good wine, and a win for Barcelona…for Catalonia, as they would say!

Great stuff!

More of the same please.

Laporta loves a buffet too. Every fooking club event has a massive buffet.

EMP wrote:Missed the end. What was the falling out in the board about? What has happened subsequently? What happened to the Ancien Regime at Barcelona? The French Revolution offers a model for the treatment of discgraced former leaders of Ancien Regimes. Was it true that Boixos Nois demanded preferential treatment from the board as alleged and basically tried to terrorise Laporta to get it? Are Mad Boys the same as Boixos Nois or an even more extreme version?

Did anyone see The Gods of Brasil afterwards on Garrincha and Pele?

Not sure what the Ancien Regime is.

The falling out was basically a number of issues, obviously we'll never know for sure, but they spanned many different things about the club, hence the explanation of "we differed on the overall direction the club should take". The two most specific examples that have been leaked are Rosell's insistence on sacking Rijkaard in December 2003 and replacing him with Scolari, and Rosell wanting to sign Luis Fabiano when Madrid were a bit reluctant on Etoo. In both cases, Laporta pushed for what he wanted, and the rest is history.

After that Rosell has basically faded into the background, because it's clear the club is working fine without him. Last summer a few fans (myself included) wondered whether we had lost someone valuable, because of his fantastic contacts with scouts that helped a lot when signing players. But I think after the relative success of this summer's signings, everyone has forgotten that. But Rosell is expected to be the main rival to Soriano (the big chubby bloke, VP of finance) in the next elections in 2010. Earlier this summer he did an interview and his points were typical of a political party not in power. ie. they try to disagree and point out the negative aspects of the current leadership's decisions, even though deep down they know some things are right.

As for the Boixos Nois, they wanted their usual allocation of tickets, guaranteed seat locations, etc. to continue, but one of Laporta's missions was to enforce the "Mes que un club" theme, and that includes bringing a family atmosphere to the club and returning it to being part of the social fabric in Catalunya. So he decided to ban them and the favours they were getting, to which they responded by singing abusive songs (I believe the documentary has a clip of one that goes "Joan Laporta, hijo de puta...") at matches. And then they also vandalised his house. But he stood firm, and eventually things blew over and Barça is now one of the few clubs without ultras in the stadium. Bad for atmosphere maybe, but positive for the club as a whole.

Ancien Regime in this context was the previous board before Laporta et al took over. The documentary suggeted that they were crooks running up huge debts.

Oh, I didn't know it was an actual historical term...just thought you were referring to some aspect of Barça that I didn't know about

But yeah, the previous regime was a disaster. Gaspart's Wikipedia article sums it up quite well - he was a good vice president, but a terrible president. His idea of solving problems was to keep throwing money at players, hoping they'd be the saviour. There was no planning, no overall direction to the club, nothing. In fact, Laporta's group looks even better because all they have had to do is identify and implement some of the basics of a huge organisation, such as a relatively higher amount of transparency, a set of strategic objectives, strict financial planning, and so on.

http://www.marca.com/edicion/marca/futbol/1a_division/espanyol/es/desarrollo/1052200.html

This is what I dislike about Barcelona. Brainwashing kids into thinking FC Barcelona is Catalunya.

El Generalísimo's fault.

I don't know why, I just couldn't get into it. I only survived the 1st 15 mins.

But it only gets really interesting towards the middle when Barça is in crisis! The start is just background, explaining how they won the elections.

I think it was the timing. I was watching it when I had a lot of stuff going on as well so it was hard to keep focussed on it.