Just think back to a little more than two years ago. Barcelona had all but proven that the center of world soccer still sat in Catalonia. 

As Liverpool and Manchester City traded punches back and forth in a record-setting Premier League title race, it sure seemed like the best soccer in the world was being played somewhere in the U.K. Liverpool had easily dispatched the German giants Bayern Munich in the Round of 16 of the Champions League, while City, still leading in England, got cut down at the knees in the quarterfinals, but their conqueror, Tottenham Hotspur, gave further purchase to the idea Spain no longer controlled the tides. Only England could stop itself.

Well, it seemed that way, but the Champions League draw would provide the proof. Liverpool vs. Barcelona: Lionel Messi and Phillipe Coutinho vs. the team that sold Philippe Coutinho to the team with Lionel Messi. Finally, we’d get a true test of just how good Liverpool had become and a clearer conception of just how great Barcelona still were. And well, as of May 1, 2019, it certainly seemed like the respective answers were “not enough” and “still really”.

From there, it all fell apart, spectacularly. Barca, of course, lost 4-0 in the second leg at Anfield, as the team they beat 3-0 just a few weeks prior went on to win the Champions League. That summer, they sent Coutinho, the club’s record signing, out on loan to Bayern Munich. In January of 2020, they fired their manager, Ernesto Valverde, despite sitting atop La Liga and running through the Champions League group stages undefeated. They very publicly tried to hire former player, Xavi Hernandez, as Valverde’s replacement and failed. Sporting director Eric Abidal alleged that Messi and some other players were the ones who tried to get Valverde fired. Then, allegations arose that then-club president Josip-Maria Bartomeu had hired a marketing firm to post messages on social media that made him look good and attacked certain players and his potential opponents in the club’s upcoming election. To that, Messi said, “To me, it all seems weird.”

It got worse, if not weirder. They let the league title slip away -- something that never happened under Valverde -- and into the hands of Real Madrid. Somehow, after consecutive years of embarrassing Champions League exits, they managed to top themselves once again, this time losing by the baseball scoreline of 8-2 to eventual champions Bayern Munich. Coutinho, technically still under contract at Barcelona, scored twice and assisted another ... for Bayern Munich. Weirded out by everything, Messi told the club he wanted to leave and taught the world what a burofax was in the process. A couple weeks later, he reversed course, but over 20,000 club members soon signed a petition to force a no-confidence vote against Bartomeu. A day before the vote, Bartomeu resigned.

This season, Barca have fallen behind Atletico Madrid, whose leading scorer is Luis Suarez, whose contract was terminated by Barcelona last summer. For the fourth year in a row, Barca got punked in Europe, this time losing 4-1 at home to the club they sold Neymar to -- except, Neymar didn’t even play in the match. Right before the loss to PSG, Barca published their records for the prior fiscal year: they’re a billion Euros in debt, and with no fans in the stands at the Camp Nou and no one visiting the club’s popular museum, the club has said it could face up to 600 million Euros worth of losses.

Then, on Monday, six days before the club’s next presidential election, the one to decide on Bartomeu’s successor, police raided the club’s headquarters to obtain evidence and arrested four people, including Bartomeu himself. Reports in Spain suggest the raid and the arrests are in connection with the weird stuff: Bartomeu paying for a social-media smear campaign.

Oh, and don’t forget: Messi still hasn’t signed a new contract. He can sign with whatever he club he wants in May, and Barcelona, potentially crippled by debt, will get nothing in return for losing the greatest soccer player of all time.

Now, it’s all relative. Per the latest Deloitte Money League accounts, Barcelona still made more money than any other club the world over the 2019-20 season: 715.1 million Euros. A large, beloved cultural institution like Barcelona won’t be allowed to go bust. Too mes de un club to fail. They’re in crisis ... and yet they’re only five points back of first place in La Liga. Per FiveThirtyEight’s model, which accounts for a combo of results, talent, and underlying performance, they’re ... the second-best team in the world. Per the Elo ratings, which only account for results and opponent-strength, they’re just the ... fourth-best team in the world.

Except, fourth-best with Messi, with the most revenue of any club? That’s not success now, is it? The club last won the Champions League in 2015, right before Messi turned 28, right about where the peak of most attacking players ends. But while Messi clearly isn’t still the player who scored 167 La Liga goals over four consecutive seasons at one point, he’s managed to pull off a post-peak stretch that was still better than just about anything we’ve ever seen. Since that last European Cup triumph, Messi has never dipped below 1.27 non-penalty goals+assists in a season -- a mark that’s better than the career average of any player from the last decade.

However, while Messi came pretty close to fighting off father time, the club decided to pick up the decline for him. All the boardroom dysfunction has manifested itself in a talented, ill-fitting, and inefficiently assembled squad that can still win long-range league titles but continues to get totally exploited in one-off matchups against the best teams in the world. The current roster really does have some promising young talent in the likes of Pedri, Ansu Fati, Riqui Puig, Trincao, and even potentially Sergino Dest, Frenkie De Jong, and Ousmane Dembele. But rather than getting the most out of the incredible tail end of Messi’s incredible career, they’re halfway between competing and rebuilding -- unsure of where to go, both on and off the field.

Despite Messi hanging on for so long, the club has decayed all around him. Take a look at Barca’s Elo rating over the last four years:

The last time Barcelona were atop the Elo rankings: May 7, the morning before they lost to Liverpool.