Debt-ridden and off the pace, Barça seek Davids Effect to revive season

First they tried to bring back Lionel Messi, then they did bring back Dani Alves, briefly. Rafa Márquez returned to take over the B team, Xavi Hernández came home, this time as coach, and Deco arrived again, the former midfielder turned sporting director. They attempted to get Carles Puyol to join them. And now Joan Laporta, the president who also came back, re-elected to the post 17 years after he first ran for it and a decade after he had departed, wants Edgar Davids to return to FC Barcelona.

Well, an Edgar Davids, anyway. And, yes, that was exactly how the president put it. At 50, it might be a bit late to stick the actual Davids in the middle of midfield, but on the eve of their last competitive game before Christmas, 24 hours before they then flew to Dallas for a friendly in return for €5m (£4.3m) they desperately need, Laporta announced that the signing Barcelona wanted was someone just like the Dutchman. The reference was understood immediately by everyone even after almost 20 years, his name a byword for a winter transfer that works, a catalyst for change.

When Davids arrived in January 2004, Barcelona were seventh, 15 points behind Real Madrid. In Laporta’s first season as president, things were crumbling, no way out of the crisis. Davids’s first game ended in a 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao, the next nine in victory. His arrival freed Xavi and liberated Ronaldinho and by the end Barcelona had overhauled Madrid, defeating them 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu. It was not enough to win the league – Valencia took the title – but it was the resurrection, the start of their era. The virtuous cycle Laporta talked about had begun.

That era has become a weight upon this one yet it is also, Laporta believes, a lesson, a