Joan Laporta is once again president of Barça. As the Blaugrana statutes dictate, the Barcelona lawyer took office this July 1st after winning the elections held in March, and he did so with an inaugural speech in which he called for the "unity of Barça followers" and promised an "exciting" future with the consolidation of the project his board began in 2021. His term ends on June 30, 2031.

Barça has presented the new jersey for the upcoming season with an event at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA), where dance and music were the protagonists under the slogan "Blaugrana heartbeat. The passion that moves us". A daring proposal, where the jersey maintains the iconic vertical blue and garnet stripes, reinterpreted through a chromatic gradation. In addition, it debuts a new typography for names and numbers.

Ansu Fati was baptized as the heir because he was considered the natural successor to Leo Messi. Fast, skillful, cunning, a goalscorer... he had all the qualities to be Barça's new star. So much so that, with the departure of the Rosario forward, Ansu went on to wear the number 10 on his shirt. He seemed like a natural successor. But this fairy tale began to go wrong on November 7, 2020, when he tore his meniscus in a league match against Betis. A ordeal began that would lead him to undergo surgery up to four times and a slow and unsatisfactory recovery. Ansu would never be the same again. This June 30, he has ceased to be a Barça player for all intents and purposes.

That summer of 2010 when Sandro Rosell said that the Camp Nou needed "paint and plaster" seems very far away. During the electoral campaign, he rejected the Foster project and considered it an excessive investment. But a few days after winning the elections, a small group of stadium workers took him aside, him and vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu, to show them the deficiencies of a coliseum that was already more than half a century old. They were convinced that an integral reform was necessary. That visit was the embryo of Espai Barça, which four years later resulted in a project approved by the members in a referendum. But in 2014 it had a budget of 600 million euros. Today, with the works underway, the credit of 1.5 billion has already been exhausted and another one of between 350 and 450 million will be needed to finish the stadium completely.

Before renewing his contract with Barça until 2028, Hansi Flick made two things very clear. First, he demanded a paradigm shift in physical preparation, something that has been materialized with the departure of Julio Tous and two of his trusted professionals. And, secondly, he made it clear that to raise his team's performance in the Champions League, it was imperative to sign two forwards at their peak. "We need two," he stressed in a pool informal with journalists a few weeks ago. The coach expects that with the departure of veteran Robert Lewandowski, the attacking front needs to be reinforced with a top-level footballer, but he also observes an excessive dependence on Lamine Yamal, especially when essential players like Raphinha Dias are out for almost three months due to injury.

One more season, Barça's season ticket holders will have to live with the provisional situation. The Camp Nou is not yet finished and, with 60,000 seats available, only a part of the season ticket holders can fit in the stadium. Therefore, provisional passes are maintained and season tickets remain on hold. However, the prices do change, being between 30% and 35% more expensive than last season. The club announced this to its members this Thursday, precisely on the day the process to renew these passes for the 2026/27 season began.

Luis de la Fuente's Spanish team faces its first major challenge of the 2026 World Cup next Saturday: they will face the Uruguay team. And although the sky blue has not gone beyond the draw against Saudi Arabia (1-1) nor against the irreductible selection of Cape Verde (2-2), continues to be one of the footballing powers of the Southern Cone. Thus, it is an opportunity for the red one continue improving and take first place in a group H where anything can happen. Facing this third group stage match, Luis de la Fuente must choose between continuing to distribute minutes or maintaining the block that worked so well for him on Sunday against Saudi Arabia.

Despite Miguel Ángel Gil Marín breaking the silence to assure that Julián Álvarez is not for sale, the reality is that both the CEO of Atlético de Madrid and a good part of the employees in the offices of the mattress club are convinced that it is highly probable that the forward will leave the club this summer. Could he stay? Yes, if no agreement is finally reached with the interested clubs, but El Aranya wants to leave and Apollo, the investment fund that recently controls the entity, is already willing to do business with the Argentine footballer. The problem is the destination. Because Julián wants to play for Barça, a club he has dreamed of since he was little. However, the mattress executives do not want to strengthen a direct rival in the fight for the League, Cup, and Super Cup titles. They prefer PSG. Or Arsenal, which would be willing to make an exchange offering money and with the Swede Viktor Gyökeres as a bargaining chip. However it ends, everyone is clear that the saga will be long and will have plot twists.

Hansi Flick's renewal until 2028 has brought a downside related to his staff of work. His Barça has finished the season with two more titles in the bag, the Spanish Super Cup and the League, and also the feeling of having gained defensive solidity, as demonstrated by the fact that Joan Garcia has won the Zamora Trophy. But these great news have coexisted with the repeated complaints in the locker room about the accumulation of injuries, which some heavyweights of the team have associated with deficient physical preparation. As a result of this unease, the German coach asked those responsible at Barça for a change in this department. The request has become a reality: Julio Tous, hired two summers ago, will stop working with the first team. "Between Hansi and Julio, Jan [Laporta] has chosen Hansi. He had no other option," they explain in this newspaper from Sant Joan Despí.

If there isn't a radical plot twist, Salma Paralluelo will stop being a Barça player in a few days. The Aragonese footballer has decided not to accept the renewal proposal she had on the table because she considers it insufficient. Between budgetary limitations and the fact that raising the offer would have caused an upheaval in the wage scale of the women's team, the sporting direction has decided to stand firm. Thus, Salma will go abroad to collect the million euros she demanded and that up to four clubs are willing to offer her. The Blaugrana team could only pay her 700,000.

The market hasn't officially kicked off yet, but we've already seen the first summer trend: footballers who one day dreamed of playing for Barça and the next day sign for Real Madrid. Yes, José Mourinho, the antichrist of the pointed finger and insatiable provocations, is capable of convincing children forged in the Barça academy or Portuguese players perfected under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola without any resistance. With his rhetoric and, above all, with a good bag of money from the wounded Florentino Pérez, he works magic with a single call. Between the persistent little song of Bernardo Silva or the return of Marc Cucurella, however, what will hurt Barça the most will be seeing the full-back from Alella dressed in white. It's easy to ask yourself: “How did we let this happen?” The answer is simple: neither now nor ever has he felt that Barça truly wanted him.

Raphael Dias Belloli, Raphinha, is injured again. In the midst of debate about his immediate future at Barça, the Culer attacker fell in the second match the Brazilian national team played in the World Cup. Same problem, same muscle. In the 40th minute of the duel against Haiti (3-0), he felt a twinge in his right thigh and had to ask to be substituted. There is a tear in the hamstring fibers and he will hardly play again in this championship, although the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) will keep him called up in case they can recover him for the playoffs. It is terrible news for the canarinha and also for a footballer exposed to the benefits of petrodollars.

"My goodness, Hamza, the Egyptian from Barça, at the World Cup," he wrote in the WhatsApp group of Huesca's U19 A team when he found out the news. "Bullshit," replied a teammate. "He's a physical prodigy," assures Jordan Lawson Farrona (Mérida, 2007) now. Hamza Abdelkarim (2008) arrived at Barça's U19 team on loan in the winter market, and the club has already exercised the purchase option for one and a half million. On March 8, he debuted with a goal against Huesca, and last Monday he made his World Cup debut at just 18 years old. He is one of the five youngest players in the competition and one of the main prospects. In nine months, he has gone from the U17 World Cup to the senior World Cup, and Barça and Hansi Flick are already rubbing their hands together for the present and future of the newtalent from the city of Cairo.

Marc Cucurella is the new player for Real Madrid. The Catalan full-back, trained at La Masia, will wear white for the next six seasons after a lightning operation worked on in silence by the white club, which will pay 60 million between fixed and variables for a starting player for the Spanish national team who was on the market.

Florentino Pérez is not wasting time since he was re-elected president of Real Madrid. In just one week, the leader has made his mark on the transfer market. Besides signing José Mourinho as the new coach, he has also secured the arrival of defenders Ibrahima Konaté and Denzel Dumfries. But, above all, he has stuck his nose into Barça's plan to boycott him or, directly, take away the reinforcements he had in his sights. In just seven days, he has set out to increase the price of Julián Álvarez, has convinced Bernardo Silva with a hefty sum, and has finally managed to sign Marc Cucurella, a product of La Masia.

The arrival of José Mourinho at Real Madrid generates a change in the paradigm of the wide range of signings managed and controlled by super-agent Jorge Mendes. The Portuguese representative and problem-solver has operated quite a bit in recent years with Barça, as he maintains a good understanding with president Joan Laporta. This is how, for example, operations such as the landing of footballers like João Félix three seasons ago at the blaugrana discipline can be read. Although it was not a request from Xavi Hernández, who was then still the blaugrana coach, Mendes brought him to Barça with Laporta's approval because the super-agent, in the same way that he unblocks operations for club directors – he has been in charge of solving hot potatoes like Ansu Fati's – also uses his influence to satisfy the wishes of his players.

Important movements in the offices of Barça. Joan Laporta will begin his term with a new financial director. According to reports from El Confidencial and confirmed by ARA, Sergio Serrano has been performing these duties since June 1st. With a background in management and finance from Esade, he has over 25 years of experience in the capital markets sector. He comes from Banc Sabadell, where he held various positions since joining in 2002. He started with portfolio management and soon moved to more strategic areas, such as corporate operations management and internal reorganization processes, and during the most critical years of the financial crisis. In this context, he played a crucial role in the restructuring of CAM (Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo), which in 2011 was acquired by Sabadell after an awarding process.

The interview that Xavi Hernández gave to La Vanguardia during the last electoral campaign bothered Joan Laporta, who was running for re-election, and Alejandro Echevarría, his right-hand man without a position at Barça. The former blaugrana coach had remained silent since his turbulent departure from the club, after having been ratified in his position in a press conference where Laporta even shed tears the day after the sushi night to end up firing him. Xavi ended up parting ways with the president-elect and with Echevarría, who, although in 2021 he was the main supporter of his return, the coach also considers him one of the architects of his dismissal. Basically, he felt betrayed by him.

After the express signing of Anthony Gordon in the early days of the summer transfer window, Barça made an initial offensive for Julián Álvarez. But while Newcastle gladly accepted the 70 million fixed plus 10 in variables offered by the Blaugranas, the mattress makers considered the initial offer of 100 million for the Argentine striker to be insufficient. The entry of Real Madrid into the scene and the public offer of 150 million for Julián are part of the football theatre, halfway between a gesture for show by the newly re-elected president Florentino Pérez and the meringue intention of increasing the transfer fee so that if the Spider ends up in Barcelona, it is at the highest possible price.are part of the football theatre, halfway between a gesture for show by the newly re-elected president Florentino Pérez and the meringue intention of increasing the transfer fee so that if the Spider ends up in Barcelona, it is at the highest possible price.

Barça is preparing for the first transfer market without restrictions imposed since before the covid pandemic. Joan Laporta has had to win two elections for the presidency of the Blaugrana to be able to go shopping with a normalized salary cap. Incorporating talent for the same value as is freed up – a quick definition of what is known as the 1:1 rule – will allow the president, for example, to fill part of the important space left by Robert Lewandowski with an expensive signing like Anthony Gordon's. He has reasons, therefore, to be happy after so many years of complications.