I think we should go back to the basics.. thinking about real madrid while planning means we are being reactive. Reactive decisions is poor management. When we assembled the best squad the world have ever seen there was nothing reactive about it, but rather active progressive planning. We betrayed this and football turned its back on us. We are doing things the real madrid way, we are trying to out-real them it's disgraceful to this team's traditions. Both the board and the overrated manager contributed to this.
We made the best team in the world because we were blessed with alien Messi plus 2 out of this world midfielders Xavi and Iniesta.
It is not as if we actually worked "hard".
We just won on a lottery.
Outside of that, during our 120 year history, over the other 110 years, we were usually the same as the current Barca.
So, 2009-2011 Barca was not a rule but an exception.
A current Barca is a classic Barca.
There is a reason why Real won 12 CL titles and Barca 5 titles.
Also, why we managed to win only 2, or even 1 title ever WITHOUT Messi in a team.
Barca's CL titles without a player named Messi in their team: 1
Real's CL titles without a player named Messi in their team: 12
We can love our club and everything, but in Barca's essence and history, we were always more of a sentimental club, driven by emotions and passion, than a cold-minded objective club who is making awesome cold and objective transfer and long term planning decisions.
We will never have calm long term planning like Germans (or even current Real).
Over 90% of our (at least recent history, like 20-30 years) we were always a chaotic club with 5-10 crazy transfers each season, buying 2-3-5 players for the same position, often overpaying for players, buying new players not out of neccessity but because we are driven by emotions (RM winning a title) etc.
That's our mentality and DNA, I guess.
Lots of emotions and passion, beautiful attacking and attractive football.
And more or less zero IQ, objectivity and longterm planning except during a short 5 year spell with Pep and Messi when we were winning more because of a pure out of this world quality than because of a smart long term planning.