This Monday, 45,000 tickets had already been sold for the second leg of the Women's Champions League quarter-finals to be played at the Camp Nou. The figure is spectacular considering that Barça thrashed Real Madrid 2-6 in the first leg and that the match is played in the middle of Easter week, but it is clear that the culé fans have taken the match as a celebration at the expense, of course, of Madrid.

Leo Messi has become one of the main figures around which Barça's election campaign has revolved. Xavi Hernández's revelation that Mateu Alemany The following day, he confirmed that he had pitted the two presidential candidates vying for his favor against each other. Joan Laporta proposed erecting a statue in his honor, while Víctor Font suggested naming him honorary president, even suggesting he might return to play for Barcelona. Meanwhile, Messi remains silent. And he does so precisely when his image applauding Donald Trump has gone viral.

Barça is following the comeback playbook to the letter, which dictates that the first step is believing it's possible—since the final whistle at the Metropolitano, they haven't considered the tie lost—and the second is arriving with their star player, Lamine Yamal, in top form and with his spirits soaring after scoring his first hat trick and admitting he's put his melancholy behind him and is enjoying playing football again. If, on top of that, they add the recovery of Pedri, a key player for the team, as a third step, reaching the Copa del Rey final is difficult, but not impossible. After all, as Flick stated, it's a matter of scoring two goals in the first half and another two in the second. Quick, easy.

THE RAPHINHA INVENTION

Anyone clinging to the argument that Real Madrid isn't doing so badly because there's only a one-point difference between them and Barça in the La Liga standings needs to be reminded not just of what's happened in the last month: they only need to look at the last matchday. And Barça's advantage is much more than a single point.

It's revealing that in most journalistic analyses of Real Madrid's crisis, one name is conspicuously absent: Florentino Pérez. After the debacle in Albacete in Álvaro Arbeloa's debut—Arbeloa, a proud Mourinho loyalist whose main merit is being liked by the president—and coinciding with errors in match planning (not including Bellingham and Tchouameni in the squad) and in the substitutions he made during the game, the general opinion is that the blame cannot be placed on a newly arrived coach who has enough on his plate just saying yes to Florentino and not upsetting the team's stars.

In the last four years, the Super Cup has defined the season: whoever has won it has at least won La Liga – Real Madrid in 21/22 and 23/24 also added the Champions League title – so a tournament that has fallen into disrepute, tarnished since Rubiales and Piqué decided to sell it to Saudi Arabia – for the good of women, as the former RFEF president shamelessly claimed – has ended up being the barometer of what will happen next. Barça are the favorites after dispatching Espanyol in the derby with a stratospheric performance from Joan García, who dismantled them and are on a winning streak in La Liga, having won nine consecutive matches. The most coveted final is once again against Real Madrid, who must first overcome an Atlético side that already humiliated them in September with a 5-2 defeat that still stings. Furthermore, Mbappé's participation is up in the air. He injured himself trying to break a ridiculous record in Talavera de la Reina, a record no one will remember, and is practically ruled out for the match against Simeone's team. We'll see if he recovers in time for a hypothetical final. This is terrible news for Real Madrid fans, considering the season the Frenchman was having, even though they've suddenly regained their enthusiasm after the thrashing of Betis, thanks above all to the emergence of academy player Gonzalo, who debuted with a hat trick.

The headline quote was delivered to me by a Real Madrid supporter with a sigh, a mixture of annoyance and resignation: "And now, on top of everything, Barça has Joan García." The Catalan goalkeeper had an outstanding performance against Villarreal and kept his team in the game during difficult moments against an opponent who, despite being down to 10 men, never gave up, aided by errors in the Barça defense and some incredibly silly turnovers in midfield. Barça has a goalkeeper, and one for the long haul, something crucial for being a successful team, as Real Madrid has demonstrated, for example.

Xabi Alonso could think of nothing better to say after his team's dismal performance against Celta Vigo than: "Thank goodness we play again on Wednesday. The best thing is that the Champions League is coming up." Only he could think it was a brilliant idea to face a Manchester City side without any major injuries, on a good run, needing a win because they lost to Leverkusen with a starting eleven full of substitutes and managed by a certain Pep Guardiola, the bogeyman in the recurring nightmares of most Real Madrid fans. It sounds like a fantastic plan, indeed. Especially considering how Real Madrid is playing: horrendous.

Florentino Pérez's speech at the Real Madrid assembly is yet another favor to Joan Laporta. The truce, the collaboration, between the two presidents, with the Super League project as a pretext and a strange convenience, has ended, and the Real Madrid president has placed Laporta exactly where Barcelona members like him to be: as a rival and an enemy.

Leo Messi caught everyone off guard, including the club, when he posted on his Instagram account Monday morning about his nighttime visit to Camp Nou with a message proclaiming his love for Barça, but which also carried a deeper meaning. No matter how much the club now tries to portray Messi's stroll through the stadium under construction as normal, it doesn't hold water, because the first sign that it was anything but normal is that the club was unaware of the player's intentions. And this isn't just any player; he's the best in history, who left in tears after being sacked by Laporta, and who continues to make it clear that the wound is still fresh.

The main stars of the Real Madrid and Barça finished the match like neighborhood braggarts, who gave a lamentable image, with the police cordoning off the Real Madrid bench. Now we'll get a glimpse of images of who started it and who said what to whom, but no one can spare us the shame. A collective reflection is urgently needed that focuses on the testosterone-fueled behavior of footballers and those around them, including the media. The "Let's see who has the most balls" trend must be denounced as an example of toxic masculinity at its finest.

There are still two weeks to go until Barça visits the Santiago Bernabéu, but everything is already revolving around El Clásico: the international matches, the analysis, and even the bar chats. Hardly anyone seems interested in the fact that both teams will play Girona and Getafe beforehand, unless it serves as a test to check the fitness of some players who are doubtful, recovering from injuries, or are injured. The obsession with El Clásico is here to stay.

The accounts before they are will play the derby at the MetropolitanIt wasn't that, no matter what happened, everything was going well for Barça. The theory was as follows:

Something has happened to Hansi Flick at the start of this season because things don't seem the same as they did last season. He began by complaining about not having all his players registered, continued by highlighting his team's performance in the debut against Mallorca, took his leave before the break by warning of an ego problem in the locker room, and has returned with a direct attack on Luis de la Fuente. According to the German coach, the Spanish national team manager hasn't taken care of Lamine Yamal, who will not be able to play this Sunday against Valencia and is a serious doubt for the Champions League match in Newcastle. Flick's measured, sensible, and discreet tone has disappeared, and in his place is an annoying, grumpy coach who uses press conferences to send messages left, right, and center.

Hansi Flick expressed his discontent in the press conference prior to the La Liga debut against Mallorca for not having all his players registered. A week ago, when asked about Casadó and Fermín, he made it clear that he was counting on both and was especially emphatic about the Andalusian: "It will be a tough season and we need players of Fermín's quality. He did very well last season and at the start of this one. I'm happy with him."

For geniuses, the chosen ones who are also fully aware of being touched by the magic wand, what drives them is the challenge of proving their superiority. It happens to Lamine Yamal, at just 18 years old. We saw it again in the league debut against Mallorca when the game was languishing at a comfortable 2-0, the opponent having nine players since the first half, intense heat, and in the final minutes of the match, they were undone. It was then that Jan Salas confronted him, a little shove, an exchange of words, and in the very next play Lamine took his footballing revenge with a trademark goal. The one you know he's going to score, the one he's scored before, and the one he inevitably ends up scoring because there's no one to stop him. It's a warning and also a declaration of intent: pissing him off is a terrible idea because I'm the king.

As soon as Marc-André ter Stegen posted on social media that he needed another back operation, adding that he would be out for three months, the club wasted no time in leaking the news that they were so angry with him that his captaincy was in jeopardy. In recent days, several first-team players have spoken out from Seoul, and the message has been unanimous: they all support the goalkeeper. Some, like Raphinha, went even further: "Ter Stegen should be the captain, but in the end, it's not something that depends on us. Since I arrived, he's someone who's always helped me. There are hierarchies in football, and we have to respect them," he stated in a statement to Catalunya Ràdio.

FC Barcelona's new communications director, Gabriel Martínez, has his work cut out for him. He wasn't even in the role 24 days ago when the club aired a commercial in which Joan Laporta, surrounded by giant speakers, solemnly announced the return to Spotify's Camp Nou for the Gamper Stadium on August 10. This Friday, the vice president of institutional affairs, Elena Fort, was the one who came forward to confirm what was already suspected: no. "It's a living project," she blurted out. The less important question in this matter is what the hell that means—sorry, I have another one: Are there dead projects?—because the relevant one is how it's possible that not even a month has passed since the big-budget announcement and they're already considering even starting the season at Montjuïc, with all that entails.

The announcement of Nico Williams's contract extension with Athletic Bilbao until 2035 has taken Barça by surprise and sparked the classic, masculine debate about whether or not the Blaugrana club has made a fool of itself. According to the version already being floated by the Blaugrana club—which is, oh, very upset—it's that the agent is to blame. They say Félix Tainta didn't push hard enough to ensure his client ended up playing with his buddy Lamine at the new Camp Nou, for God's sake. It turns out that after traveling to Barcelona and meeting with Deco, he decided to ask for guarantees that Barça would be able to register him. But hey, who would think of that? After all, he had already confirmed that with Dani Olmo everything has gone smoothly, no problems, not even a single rumbling.