Simon Kuper - The Barcelona Complex: Lionel Messi and the Making - and Unmaking - of the Worlds Greatest Soccer Club

Soccernomics

Spies, Lies, and Exile

Why England Lose & Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained

Ajax

Football Against the Enemy

Eric Abidal (1979): Club legend since he lifted the 2011 Champions League months after surviving cancer. Served Barcelona successfully as left-back of Pep Guardiolas great team, and then unsuccessfully as sporting director buying the wrong players from 2018 to 2020.

Jordi Alba (1989): A Masia boy, who left Barcelona to launch his career and returned in 2012. Left-back. Good friend and holiday companion of Messis.

Thiago Alcntara (1991): Midfielder. Son of the Brazilian world champion Mazinho. Came through the Masia but couldnt break into the first team, left for Bayern, and became the hero of their 82 thrashing of Bara in 2020. Now at Liverpool.

Josep Maria Bartomeu (1963): As Baras president from 2014 until his resignation in 2020, he bought the wrong players for too much money. Runs a family business. Nice chap.

Tonny Bruins Slot (19472020): Johan Cruyffs trusted assistant, a working-class Amsterdammer born the same year as Cruyff, and one of the few people he never fell out with. Did the tactical analyses of opponents that Cruyff didnt have the patience for.

Sergio Busquets (1988): A brilliant pivote, as long as he doesnt have to run. A Masia boy, he went from the bench of Barcelonas B team in 2008 to winning all the biggest prizes in football by 2011. Son of Cruyffs not-so-brilliant reserve goalkeeper Carles Busquets.

Albert Capellas (1967): Former coordinator of the Masia, now coach of Denmarks under-21s. Disseminates Cruyffian ideas at Possessionfootball .com. Example of Barcelonas brain drain, and an essential adviser to the author of this book.

Manus Cruijff (19131959): Johans father. An Ajax fan, and a grocer in the neighborhood opposite the clubs old stadium. His early death from a heart attack was the most formative moment of Johans life. Manus never put a y in his name.

Danny Cruyff (1949): Johans widow. Treated Cruyff as just a regular guy from Amsterdam. Doesnt like publicity or football.

Johan Cruyff (19472016): Father of the modern club. Born Cruijff, but realized that the y worked better internationally. Most interesting man in modern football history. A brilliant player from 1964 to 1984, then an entirely original coach. As manager of Barcelona from 1988 to 1996, he created the Dream Team, then let it decay. Invented much of contemporary football, including the Barcelona style (though other clubs now play it better). Quite batty.

Jordi Cruyff (1974): Johans son, which cant have been easy. Played (and sat on the bench) for Barcelona, Manchester United, and Holland. At the time of writing, head coach of Shenzhen FC in China. Feels more Catalan than Dutch.

Ousmane Dembl (1997) : Nippy French winger, but did not have a spartan lifestyle in his first seasons with Barcelona and was often injured. He improved from 2020, but Bara surely regrets paying Borussia Dortmund 140-million-plus for him.

Robert Enke (19772009): German goalkeeper. During his disastrous spell at Barcelona from 2002 to 2004, he was scapegoated for a Cup defeat to a third-division side. After this, he fell into a depression, which may have been a step on the path to his suicide in 2009.

Samuel Etoo (1981): A difficult man and a brilliant striker. Guardiola will have been relieved that he decided not to sell him after all in 2008. Cameroonian.

Cesc Fbregas (1987): A Masia boy who played with Messi and Piqu on the adolescent Baby Dream Team. Joined Arsenal at sixteen, then returned home at twenty-four, just in time for Barcelonas last glory years.

Francisco Franco (18921975): A Galician who became an army general, Nationalist leader in Spains civil war (19361939), and then dictator of Spain from 1939 until 1975. His White Terror during and after the war killed an estimated two hundred thousand Spaniards, and drove many others into exile. Brutally suppressed Catalan nationalism.

Louis van Gaal (1951): A Cruyffian who was hated by Cruyff. Coached Barcelona from 1997 to 2000 and again in 20022003. Won two Spanish league titles but is remembered in town more for his very un-Catalan rude directness, and for his Amsterdam-accented Spanish.

Joan Gaspart (1944): Hotelier, former waiter at the Connaught in London, and from 2000 to 2003, unsuccessful president of Barcelona. Played a hotel receptionist in Antonionis 1975 Barcelona-based movie The Passenger.

Antoni Gaud (18521926): Catalan architect. Started the still-unfinished Sagrada Famlia cathedral. The author draws possibly overambitious parallels between him and another mad genius, Johan Cruyff.