It couldn't be. Here are some hot takes.

It wasn't meant to be. Barça, eliminated from the Champions League after falling just short of a comeback (1-2). Despite finishing with ten players, the Catalans pushed until the end. Here are some immediate thoughts.

The Camp Nou hosted a derby that ended with a blaugrana thrashing and half a League in the bag. The celebration on the pitch was justified, even if Pol Lozano and other Espanyol players didn't seem to agree. The culé players sang and jumped near the cheering stand, which has once again livened up the matches in the stadium after many months of punishment.

The starting eleven of Barça in the derby against Espanyol contrasted, and a lot, with what Atlético de Madrid presented against Sevilla. While the Blaugranas made some small rotations but maintained the backbone of the starting team, the Mattress makers made many rotations. This is how the story ended on the scoreboard: Barça won and left La Liga almost sealed; on the other hand, Atlético de Madrid lost in Seville. While it is true that Cholo Simeone had some notable absences, he took the Champions League into much greater account, aware that in the league tournament he has nothing left to fight for and that he prefers a starting eleven with fresh legs in the second leg of the quarter-finals.

Barça has La Liga within their grasp. In a very tough match against Atlético de Madrid, the Barcelona players secured three golden points that extend their lead over Real Madrid to seven in the standings with eight matchdays remaining. Here are some immediate thoughts.

Real Madrid projects an image of financial solidity that aligns with its results-based sporting DNA. However, if a detailed reading is made of the latest audited economic snapshot – at the midpoint of the 2025-26 financial year –, cracks are observed that call this narrative into question. Without denying its power as a global brand, on par with other football giants like Barça itself, PSG, or the Premier League titans, the institution led by Florentino Pérez has made available to its members documentation of 112 pages that raises some alarms.According to this latest update, the club presents a total liability of 1,780 million euros if the debt associated with the renovation of the Santiago Bernabéu is included, a stadium that is not yet finished and has requested three credit extensions so far. This is a significant magnitude that conditions Madrid's financial structure, although in comparison to Barça, which exceeds 2,500 million euros if ordinary gross debt and the credit operation to renovate the Camp Nou are added together, the absolute figure is lower than that of the Blaugrana.

Lamine Yamal has broken his silence over the Islamophobic chants this Tuesday at Cornellà-El Prat, on the occasion of a friendly between Spain and Egypt, with a publication on Instagram. "I know [the chants] were for the opposing team [Egypt], but as a Muslim person it is still a lack of respect and something intolerable [...]. To those who sing these things: using religion as a mockery leaves you as ignorant and racist people," wrote the Barça star and the main star of Luis de la Fuente's team. The footballer left the Espanyol stadium with his head down and without greeting the local fans.

Josep Maria Bartomeu (Barcelona, 1963) arrived at the presidency of Barça with the resignation of Sandro Rosell in 2014. A year later, and thanks to a treble, he would win the elections by a landslide. But he could not exhaust his term, a victim of poor sporting results and the economic crisis derived from the coronavirus. He resigned in October 2020. Five and a half years later, he attends to ARA after declining to be interviewed on several occasions. He presents himself at the newsroom with documents to defend his economic management.

Barça is once again a victim of the FIFA virus. Raphinha suffers an injury to the right thigh's femoral biceps and will be out for around five weeks, as confirmed by Barça after the medical tests carried out by the Brazilian national team. The player was withdrawn injured from the friendly he played on Thursday with Brazil after feeling a twinge in the back of his right leg and will return to Barcelona in the coming hours to begin his recovery. ARA had already reported that the footballer's initial sensations were not good at all and everything pointed to a muscle tear. The club is unhappy with the calendar for scheduling friendly matches at this point in the season when teams are fighting for titles.

In a few weeks it will be five years since Hansi Flick's surprising resignation from the Bayern Munich bench. In April 2021, just eight months after winning a treble – including a 2-8 victory over Messi's Barça – with the Bavarians, and despite having a contract secured until 2023, the coach announced he would not continue in the role due to deep disagreements with the club's sporting director, Hasan Salihamidzic, who made a series of decisions he did not like, such as not renewing Thiago Alcántara or Ivan Perisic.

Barça's hard-fought victory against Rayo Vallecano (1-0). The Catalans have made the most of Ronald Araujo's goal. In the first half, Joan Garcia had an inspired performance, preventing four certain goals from Iñigo Pérez's team. Here are some immediate observations.

Barça reached the Champions League quarterfinals in style. After a hard-fought first half, the Catalans steamrolled a Newcastle side that crumbled like ice cubes in a sensational second half (7-2). Here are some immediate observations.

Joan Laporta has won the Barça elections with an undeniable margin against the opposition candidate, Víctor Font. The Barça fans have spoken decisively. The victory is crystal clear. It rewards and legitimizes at the ballot box the work of a leader capable of merging his own ideology with that of the majority of Barça supporters. Good luck and success to the champion.

One of the highlights of the election campaign was the book launch This is how we saved BarçaWith the support of Josep Maria Fonalleras and Jordi Finestres, Joan Laporta He has published with Ara Llibres his experience after five volcanic years in office The president now seeks to retain his position at the polls in a head-to-head contest against Víctor Font. The Barcelona lawyer took office in 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with ordinary income at a minimum, a closed and aging Camp Nou, and a football team with unsustainable salaries given the economic climate. Five years later, Lamine Yamal, Pedri González, and Hansi Flick have helped offset the sadness of seeing Leo Messi in tears, the stadium has reopened amidst ongoing renovations, and revenue has returned to pre-pandemic levels. The club, therefore, is not at risk of disappearing. However, its financial situation continues to raise concerns and pose challenges for the future.

Former FC Barcelona president Enric Reyna has died in Barcelona at the age of 85. He led the club in the months leading up to the 2003 elections, in which Joan Laporta won the presidency for the first time. A businessman in the construction and hotel sectors, he was part of Joan Gaspart's board and led the club from February 13 to May 5, 2003, during one of the most turbulent periods in the club's recent history. After his resignation, and following the formation of an interim committee chaired by Joan Trayter, elections were held, which Reyna won against Joan Laporta for the first time. Born in Barcelona on May 15, 1940, Reyna became a Barça member on September 15, 1965. In 2000, Josep Lluís Núñez stepped down as Barça president and called early elections, which Gaspart won. Reyna, who considered himself a "good friend" of Gaspart, whom he had known for years through their hotel business, joined the Barça board of directors, although it wasn't until 2002 that he became first vice-president. By then, Barça was already immersed in a major economic and sporting crisis. Gaspart, who was beginning to feel pressure to resign, needed someone he could trust to take the reins of the club. Finally, he announced his resignation on February 12, 2003, and the following day Reyna became the 40th president in Barça's history. According to the statutes, he could have served until 2004. This was, in fact, his initial intention.

With just four days to go before the Barça presidential elections, Leo Messi remains the talk of the town. The Argentine striker hasn't spoken publicly about it, nor is he expected to, but through his inner circle, he fully endorses the statements by Xavi Hernández to The Vanguard Regarding his thwarted return in the summer of 2023, the former Barcelona coach blamed Joan Laporta, a candidate for re-election this Sunday, for having vetoed the last dance From Barça's all-time leading scorer: "Leo isn't coming because the president doesn't want him. It's not because of La Liga or because Jorge Messi asked for more money, that's a lie. It's the president who ends up saying no because he has all the power and Messi would mismanage that power." Messi approves of that version today and is happy that it came to light thanks to Xavi.

A penalty in stoppage time, awarded for a foul on Dani Olmo, salvaged a point for a very erratic Barça in the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie (1-1). Lamine Yamal converted the spot kick with precision, preventing another comeback at the Camp Nou. When the defeat seemed insurmountable and deserved, Newcastle were left reeling when Thiaw brought down the Terrassa native in the final play of a match that, at times, stirred up ghosts of the past and should give Hansi Flick pause for thought ahead of next week's return leg.

Among the Barcelona contingent in Newcastle, where the first team plays the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 this Tuesday (9 pm, Movistar), is Alejandro Echevarría. The presence of Joan Laporta's former brother-in-law on official club trips is no longer news. Despite holding no management or executive position, he boards the planes and stays in the same hotels as Hansi Flick and his players. His considerable influence on decision-making is evident in the squad's daily life. He has unlimited access to every space frequented by the players, whom he treats like his own children. As for the club members, like the skilled fixer he is, he invited them to sign petitions supporting Laporta's pre-candidacy for re-election. The elections on March 15th will also be decided in the Barcelona dressing room.

Five years after the elections that put him on the map, Víctor Font still wants to be president of Barça. Running under the "Nosotros" (We) banner, the candidate claims to have created a broad-based list that brings together all the different factions within the Barça fanbase. After the signature count – in which Marc Ciria and Xavier Vilajoana were excluded – Font now has the head-to-head debate against Joan Laporta that he has so often requested.

Joan Laporta cemented the 2021 campaign for the presidency of Barça in nostalgia. Now, at almost 64 years old and after a term with its ups and downs, he's running for reelection. If he wins the March 15th elections, he'll begin a third term and approach Josep Lluís Núñez's two decades in the Camp Nou presidential box. Despite the generation gap in a context heavily influenced by technology and social media, Laporta manages to resonate with many young people. They aren't always Barça voters, but they fuel the narrative favorable to the Barcelona lawyer. At ARA, we interviewed Barça fans between 20 and 40 years old with a strong Laporta sympathy. In their opinion, personality and charisma prevail over a management style often marked by opacity.