The images of Ewa Pajor celebrating the second goal, lifted by her teammates, with a fist in the air, will remain in the memory of Barça's women's team's fourth Champions League title. Or that of the players embracing after Salma, with two more goals, sealed the thrashing of Olympique de Lyon in the Oslo final (4-0). But the title would not be a reality without the performance of the player who was a hundred meters away, being the team's last bastion, keeping a clean sheet and holding the team together when it was going through its toughest moments.

The real estate bubble had catastrophic consequences for Spanish football. Many clubs depended on construction companies or businesses linked to the property sector that went bankrupt, leading to global non-payments to players and social security. In 2012, the Spanish government said enough was enough and threatened to intervene in the football business. To protect themselves, the clubs decided to create a mandatory regulation that not only required accounts to balance, but also demanded that entities demonstrate at the start of the season that they would have sufficiently good budgets to pay all debts for the season. At that moment, financial fair play was born.

The Barça-Betis match on Sunday was supposed to be a fantastic farewell party at Camp Nou. The team, already champions, were playing their last game at the stadium, where they were set to achieve their 19th victory, thus completing a perfect home season, a feat never before accomplished in the league tournament. Beyond the three points, which would eventually come with a 3-1 win, several players were receiving awards accrediting them as members of the competition's ideal eleven. And the main event was Robert Lewandowski's farewell, who was saying goodbye with full honors after four years wearing the blaugrana. Nothing suggested that anything could go wrong, until yesterday morning Fermín López went through the blaugrana medical center.

It was an open secret that yesterday at noon it was confirmed. Robert Lewandowski announced with a message on Instagram that he is leaving Barça after four years. The Polish forward will say goodbye to the fans in tonight's match at Camp Nou against Betis (9:15 PM, Movistar LaLiga), the last one the Blaugranas play at home this season.

After the confirmation of a blank season, with the defeat in the classic against Barça at the Camp Nou, the players, the coach, and the president of Real Madrid had to answer to the fans. And the Bernabéu delivered its verdict. Well, partially, because Madrid's stadium had the lowest attendance of the season in the inconsequential duel against an Oviedo that is already relegated to the Second Division. It didn't help that it was San Isidro's festivities and the poor results of Álvaro Arbeloa's team. But the spectators responded with whistles, especially towards Kylian Mbappé, and also with banners directed at Florentino Pérez, who lately doesn't have a moment's peace.

Florentino Pérez's press conference on Tuesday was surprising, chaotic and, at times, grotesque. But the fact that the Real Madrid president, visibly nervous, had a sometimes disorganized speech and made off-topic, derogatory or sexist comments, does not mean he did not have some things clear. It was a campaign event, in which he launched the electoral machinery without prior planning and took the opportunity to disqualify the one who, for some time now, he knows is the only rival who can overshadow him.

Barely 24 hours had passed since winning the League title when Barcelona took to the streets again to celebrate the championship. The first team players of Barça treated themselves to a massive crowd shower in a multitudinous parade, with 750,000 attendees according to City Council figures, which started and ended at Camp Nou and passed through some of the most central points of the Catalan capital. Celebration, chants, humor, pyrotechnics, and demands, such as Lewandowski waving an estelada or Lamine Yamal with the flag of Palestine. Two iconic images, especially the second, which quickly began to go around the world.

League champions on the field. And for the first time in history, in a classic against Real Madrid. The script dreamed of by the Barça fan has been fulfilled. It is the club's 29th League title, Hansi Flick's second in a row, just the day his father died. The coach decided to stay on the bench in a key match. An example for the locker room and further evidence of Joan Laporta's success in giving him command of the first team. The team had three matchdays to spare.

Alvaro Arbeloa, Real Madrid's coach, stated in a press conference that he will not "burn his players in a public bonfire" and believes that neither Aurélien Tchouaméni nor Fede Valverde deserve the treatment they are receiving after the two fights between them that ended with the Uruguayan in the hospital and a fine of 500,000 euros each.

Taking advantage of a match against Manchester United, the Barça ticketing team became interested in the English club's business model at the Old Trafford stadium. At that time, Josep Maria Bartomeu was still in charge and the Camp Nou renovation project was being polished. The Blaugrana executives were surprised when they were explained the star product: it consisted of picking up the fan from the hotel, taking them by helicopter to the stadium, giving them a private tour, enjoying a luxury catering service at all times, and returning this spectator to the hotel, also by air, after the match. The price: 10,000 pounds. However, it only cost the club 2,000. The profit margin was extraordinary.

After the fight between Tchouaméni and Valverde that ended with the Uruguayan footballer in the hospital, some players approached Álvaro Arbeloa to recommend that he cancel Friday's training session at Valdebebas. But the Real Madrid coach, still surprised by what had just happened in the dressing room, decided to stick to the planned schedule.

The Real Madrid dressing room is on fire just days before visiting Barça's ground in a match where Hansi Flick's team can be crowned Liga champions. For the second consecutive day, Federico Valverde and Aurélien Tchouaméni allegedly fought, to the point that their teammates had to separate them, and the Uruguayan ended up at the Valdebebas Hospital with a craniocerebral trauma that will keep him out of action for two weeks. It all allegedly started when Valverde refused to shake Tchouaméni's hand to make peace, as both had fought during Wednesday's training session, an incident that ended with punches and insults. But Valverde wanted nothing to do with the Frenchman, whom he accused of having explained the first fight to the press. The result was a very tense training session. Back in the dressing room, the two footballers allegedly exchanged more reproaches and fought again. As their teammates were separating them, the Uruguayan allegedly fell, hitting his head. Arbeloa allegedly accompanied him to the hospital, where he received a few stitches on his head.

Meeting the construction deadlines for the Camp Nou is no longer a matter of pride or a propaganda tool for Joan Laporta. Having convincingly won the elections, the president-elect does not need grand gestures towards the fanbase or populist measures to win their favor. The president's main concern is to ensure that the new stadium generates the promised revenue, and therefore, it is essential to finish it as soon as possible. However, all large-scale construction projects experience delays, and the blaugrana coliseum is no exception.

Barça started the season with the feeling that they had an excess of midfielders. So much so that the club, conditioned by the famous fair play financial, listened to several offers. One of the most succulent, the one Chelsea made for Fermín López, but which Barça rejected because they considered that the 50 million offered by the English were totally insufficient given the player's potential. More proposals arrived, also for Pablo Párez Gavira, Gavi. But in his case, Deco and company did not dedicate a single moment to valuing them. In short: he was not for sale.

Barça's financial fair play went up in smoke in 2020. With the pandemic and closed stadiums, revenues fell and the club was left with no capacity to pay player salaries. In 2021, with Joan Laporta in the box, the decision to tweak the numbers and load up to 555 million in losses onto the fiscal year that had started with Bartomeu as president, only aggravated the problem to the extreme. Five years later, and despite having activated levers, having fine-tuned the wage bill, and having closed low cost, the club is heading towards another summer with problems to face the transfer market normally.

Suffering, suffering much more than expected, but Bayern achieved the objective: to eliminate Real Madrid and qualify for the Champions League semi-finals (4-3, 6-4 on aggregate). Despite having a 1-2 from the first leg at the Bernabéu, the Bavarians needed a goal in the last minute from Luis Díaz, when the whites were playing with 10 men, and a goal from Olise in stoppage time to secure passage to the penultimate round of the competition. Madrid fell with honor, but fell, and is condemned to a second season without a trophy.

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.

Real Madrid dropped three golden points in Mallorca (2-1) in another poor game from Álvaro Arbeloa's team. A goal from Muriqi in stoppage time canceled out the equalizer the whites had achieved a few minutes earlier and left Barça with a clear path, who currently have a four-point lead and can extend it tonight if they beat Atlético de Madrid at the Metropolitano.

Beyond the embarrassment, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) faces a sanction from FIFA after the Islamophobic chants at the friendly match against Egypt in Cornellà-El Prat. The punishment ranges from a match for the senior team "with a limited number of spectators" and "a fine of at least 20,000 Swiss francs (21,600 euros)," according to regulations in cases of discriminatory chants in the stands. And it could even mean prohibiting "la roja" from playing at Espanyol's stadium again.

It is not expected that any director, executive or technician of Barça will openly admit to having made a mistake in the renovation of the Camp Nou. However, internally the club knows perfectly well that they made a mistake with the first tier and that a solution must be found imminently to fix the visibility problems. The provisional measure involves blocking the sale of the first rows of seats. But this is just a band-aid. That's why there is some urgency to correct the visibility problems that have become evident since the reopening.