FC Barcelona Announced Arthur With a Terrifying Animated Talking Ball

FC Barcelona’s social media team deserves a lot of praise. They consistently create interesting content and they are usually ranked among the top as far as football team go when it comes to views and other metrics.

But their new video announcing the signing of Arthur Melo is... extremely odd.

“Although it doesn’t look like it,” an animated, talking ball starts, “I’m a lucky ball.”

What... what does that mean? Why does it not look like the ball is lucky? After all, it must be the only ball on Earth who is sentient.

After proclaiming itself “the Barça ball,” the talking abomination tells us how the best managers and players have played with him (and Pep Guardiola sat on him.) And now... Enjoy Arthur!

Enjoy Arthur? Why does this sound like he’s a canned drink?

Anyway, does the signing and marketing of Arthur suggest a conscious strategy to focus the team towards a style that prioritizes possession even more? Does the fact that the talking ball draws a link between Johan Cruyff and Ernesto Valverde suggest Valverde is changing his tactics from last season? Am I going insane trying to draw conclusions from this talking ball?