Victory, a clean sheet, and rest for several players. Pere Romeu's game plan worked perfectly at Alavés' ground. Barça won convincingly at Mendizorrotza and continues with a full record of victories in Liga F (0-6). Carolina Ferrera, at just 16 years old, scored her first goal and joins the long list of young players that Pere Romeu has given a debut to—and who have scored—in the two-plus years he has been on the blaugrana bench. Graham Hansen, Sydney Schertenleib, and Claudia Pina—with a hat trick—also found the back of the net.

"You are at Barça and it doesn't matter what player you are, you have to behave." This is how Lamine Yamal explains an anecdote with Sergio Busquets during his first years in the Barça first-team dressing room. The Barça star has covered various topics – sporting and non-sporting – in an in-depth conversation with former footballer Jorge Valdano. Throughout the week, previews have been published in which, for example, the winger from Rocafonda considers himself deserving of the Ballon d'Or.

Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí, Marc Bernal and now… Xavi Espart. His name has already appeared in the newspapers and sports talk shows, but this Sunday he took another step in his meteoric rise to the first team. The Barcelona-born footballer –who has started in all five League matches this season– made his goalscoring debut with Barça in the victory at Llevant's ground (2-4). "He is a player who played on the inside until he was a cadet. He improved plays when the ball passed through his feet and had the footballing intelligence to organize. He ended up playing many minutes because he was very reliable. When he was older, they tried him out as a full-back because he has great vision for building up the play and could end up occupying more interior positions during the match," explains a former youth coach of his to ARA.

The first comeback of the season is complete. Barça had the necessary patience to turn around Allegra Poljak's opening goal and add three more points at the Johan Cruyff stadium (4-2) with a hard-fought victory that ended with goals from Vicky López, Esmee Brugts, and Graham Hansen. The blaugranes learned from their mistakes and, unlike other years, did not rush with the score against them.

Barça Women continues its upward trajectory on the pitch –where it is the team to beat–, but also off the field of play. The blaugrana entity has closed the 2025-26 financial year with a positive profit of 8.525 million euros. Exceptional figures that make women's and men's football the only two branches of the club with a positive result. The data also show a clear upward trend for Barça Women, which has gone from having losses of 2.8 million euros in 2021 to a profit of 8.5 million in 2026. Furthermore, in the last year the result of the financial year has quadrupled, going from 2 million euros to 8.5 million.

Barça thrashed Feyenoord 5-1in their Champions League debut and confirmed the good feelings of the last few weeks. The Blaugrana returned to showing their best version and have already scored 22 goals in five matches. With an average of 4.4 goals per game, they are the team from the main European leagues that has scored the most at the start of this competition, and only in one match—against Athletic Club—did they not reach five goals.

Two matches, two routs. Barça does not forgive on the Sevilla field and continues with a firm step in this start of the Liga F thanks to the goals from Esmee Brugts, Clàudia Pina, Marta Torrejón, and Vicky López (0-4). Graham Hansen was once again the protagonist with two assists in a special match for Pere Romeu. 727 days after sitting on the bench for the first time as head coach of Barça –with a 0-3 victory on the field of Deportivo de la Coruña–, the Catalan coach managed his 100th match at the helm of the blue and garnet team. Throughout these two years, Romeu has lived very sweet moments –such as the triumph in Oslo against his former coaching staff colleague, Jonatan Giráldez, to lift the fifth Champions League of the season– and more bitter moments –such as the defeat a year earlier in Lisbon in the Champions League final against Arsenal.

Barça now knows its first six opponents on its path to the Warsaw final, scheduled for the last weekend of May (28th, 29th, or 30th, with the specific day yet to be determined). After touching the sky in Oslo on Saturday, May 23rd, the 'blaugranes' are once again embarking on an exciting journey with the goal of lifting the fifth Champions League in the club's history.

It is always surprising when a footballer announces their retirement at 29. A player's professional life can extend to around 40 years, but Andrea Falcón's (Arucas, 1997) knee said enough at 28. “No matter how much I wanted to continue, you are not objective. The doctors told me that if I wanted to be able to walk, go up or down stairs, I had to make this decision. If I continued playing football, I would make my life impossible,” she confesses in a phone call with ARA.

Injuries are the main headache for all football coaches. Some are unpredictable: a bad move, a fall... situations difficult to control. Others, especially muscular ones, can be prevented if several variables are taken into account, such as accumulated distance covered or intensity. In this regard, the Barça club has been working for five years on the idea of designing a model that allows for anticipating injuries in women's football.

New step forward in women's football. The Spanish Federation (RFEF) is close to reaching an agreement with a fertility clinic to facilitate egg freezing for players of the Spanish national team, according to an advance by El País. Motherhood is one of the major points of focus in women's sports, as when a player becomes pregnant, she stops her physical activity for a few months. "Many players postpone the decision to become mothers and, when they make it, it may already be too late. We try to ensure they are not conditioned by their careers," assures Marta Perarnau, president of the players' association FUTPRO, to the cited media.

New season, new challenges, and new players, but the same ambition and the same result. Barça beat Costa Adeje Tenerife and already have the first three points of the season in Liga F (5-0). There are traditions that, even as the years pass and the squad changes, are never lost. Graham Hansen opened the scoring with a pass from Claudia Pina, who also joined the goal-scoring party. Ewa Pajor, Van Asten, and Irene Paredes completed the rout.

Even though she is only 25 years old, Claudia Pina (Montcada i Reixac, 2001) is already one of the veterans in a Barça squad that, despite losing very important players this season, continues to aspire to everything. The season premiere is this Sunday (7 PM, TV3) at the Johan Cruyff stadium.

The Vuelta a Espanya is left without its best cyclist and great favorite. When everything suggested that Tadej Pogacar would give his rivals no chance – as usual – and, after overwhelmingly winning the Tour de France, would add another competition to his palmarès, the Slovenian has fallen on the eighth stage of the Spanish race and will not be able to continue wearing the red jersey.

This Sunday, Badalona Women kicks off an exciting season at Athletic Club's ground (12 p.m., Esport3). Marc Ballester's team has not hidden its ambition at any time, and the transfer market –led by the Mercury13 investment fund– has served to bring in eight new faces: Vicky Losada, Sheila Guijarro, Mirari Uria, Izarne Sarasola, Lucía Martínez, Kalu Chianyere, Txell Font, and Lauri Requena, who in the hours before officially debuting with the turquoise and white colors spoke to ARA at the Municipal de Badalona. “The adaptation has been better than I expected. I fit in perfectly with the team on and off the field. I love the city and I live near the beach, which I have always wanted,” she assures.

There was a time when Barça women's team competed in the Second Division or fought to stay in the First. Years when the great women's football team in Catalonia wore white and blue – Espanyol – and when the stars were not from Barça. Maribel Domínguez, known as Marigol, was Barça's first major international signing. The footballer, born in Mexico City in 1978, arrived in mid-2004-05 season as one of the best players in the world.

There will be no tribute at Camp Nou to the world champions with Spain on the eve of this Thursday's match against Athletic Club (9 p.m., DAZN). "It is neither the context nor the most appropriate moment. Football should serve to unite and not to create confrontations that do not benefit anyone," declared Joan Laporta, before confirming that Barça will change the congratulations to the world champions for an "act of exaltation of the estelada, which represents the way of thinking of many Barça fans and Catalans." The blaugrana president, who since 2021 had maintained a low profile regarding pro-independence demonstrations and who showed explicit support for the Roja during the World Cup, reiterated that the estelada is a legal symbol within freedom of expression. "It does not generate violence or hatred. It must be respected because it represents our desires for freedom," he stated.

Nico González, Ilaix Moriba, Marc Cucurella, Pau Víctor, Dro Fernández…, and now Alejandro Balde, Marc Casadó and Héctor Fort, if the operations currently underway to have them leave before September 1st are finalized. Barça continues to cash in on academy players who do not have a place in the first team. In the last ten years, about thirty players trained at La Masia have been sold after debuting in the elite. On the other hand, others, such as Pau Cubarsí, Lamine Yamal or Marc Bernal, have recently earned their place among the best footballers in the world. Eric Garcia, Gavi, Fermín and Dani Olmo are other home-grown talents with a consolidated presence in the first Barcelona squad. La Masia represents almost half of Flick's Barça, but it is also sold.

The firm commitment to women's football in Spain is one of the great challenges in the coming years. The World Cup won by the Spanish team in 2023 seemed like it would boost women's sport, but over the years it has all remained a utopia. Attendance at stadiums was the first wake-up call, with a drop of almost 20% in the last season. Now, television rights —which could not be awarded in the first round due to a lack of offers— have once again highlighted the problems the competition is facing.

Barça did not fail. Pere Romeu's team presented themselves to their fans with another great match led by Patri Guijarro – on and off the field – and with goals from Esmee Brugts, Claudia Pina, and Graham Hansen that served to overcome Brighton and win a new Joan Gamper Trophy (3-1). The performance of the new Barça goalkeeper, Tyler McCamey, also stood out, as she received the crowd's ovation and could already hear her new chant.