“Joan Laporta, a volcanic personality, capable of good and evil at the same time, electric, bold... He [Pep] needed to display calm and sobriety to compensate for Laporta’s histrionics... The years under Laporta’s leadership were not calm, despite the undeniable success. Team and club went their separate ways.”
Those are the words of Martí Perarnau, journalist, close friend of Pep Guardiola’s and writer of Herr Pep — the brilliant book about Guardiola’s first season at Bayern Munich. I felt it was appropriate to bring those words back to light, and use them as the basis for what I would argue is a statement that needs to be made at this moment: Joan Laporta is failing Barcelona.