Joan Laporta laments Barça's "loss of genuine style" in recent seasons
The ex-president feels the Catalans have lost their way a little bit
Former Barcelona president Joan Laporta has lamented that the Catalan club have lost their "genuine style of football" in recent years.
Laporta feels that's the reason for Barça's struggled in Europe in recent seasons -- the latest being the 4-0 loss to Liverpool in the Champions League earlier this month.
"Mes que un Club is not a slogan, it's a declaration of principles," Laporta said. "We have a reference which was the genuine style of football which Johan Cruyff taught us (...) we bet on the academy and now the club's moved away from that."
Laporta, who was Barça president between 2003 and 2010, looked back on the moment in his career when he gave Pep Guardiola the first team job after a good season with Barça. He said it was "an easy" choice to pick him ahead of Jose Mourinho.
He added: "We did it because it was a way of being consistent with what we are, for the genuine style of playing football. Time has proved us right, they (the players and the coaches) were the real architects of that success."
