At the start of the season, Barcelonism agreed that winning the League again would be a great achievement, because the team “of all Spaniards” could not repeat the surprising, almost ridiculous, blank year with a squad full of multi-million euro signings who were supposed to usher in some new era of world football under a new coach, Xabi Alonso, presented as a Guardiola for this new hegemony. Eight months and two coaches later, Alonso appears on the long list of victims of president Florentino Pérez; the multi-million euro signings have once again shown that, as Cruyff used to say, you've never seen a bag of money score goals; Madrid is once again left blank; Barça wins the League for the second consecutive year, and, in line with this good governance, Mourinho (!) is rumoured for next year.

The dream of Oslo is now a reality. On May 23, Barça will play in a Champions League final again – the sixth consecutive, the seventh in the last eight years – after beating Bayern Munich at Camp Nou. Pere Romeu's team has shown that they also know how to compete bravely against great rivals and overcome adverse scenarios, which they are not accustomed to throughout the season. Goals from Salma Paralluelo, Ewa Pajor, and Alexia Putellas – with a brace – allow Barça to dream of their fourth Champions League (4-2). In the Oslo final, they will face Olympique Lyon, featuring former blaugranas Jonatan Giráldez and Ingrid Engen.

After almost two years, it seemed that Barça would draw a goalless match, a forgotten result for Barcelona fans. But Lewandowski made the difference with a good header and the game broke open in the final minutes. If Espanyol helps, the title could fall in a few hours. Who knows if Arbeloa's team will have to give a guard of honor to a team that knows how to win even in complicated contexts.

Barça will seek this Sunday against Bayern at the Camp Nou (16:30 h) their seventh Champions League final in the last eight years. A Blaugrana hegemony that began in January 2019 with the arrival of Lluís Cortés (Balaguer, 1986) to the Catalan bench. “I was arriving in Balaguer after more than an hour's drive from Barcelona when Markel Zubizarreta [then sporting director] called me, saying he wanted to speak with me urgently. I turned around and there he proposed if I was ready to take on the challenge of taking over the team. The first thing I did was speak with Fran Sánchez [the coach at the time, Cortés was the assistant], who told me to take it. I am very grateful to him”, recalls the current coach of the Saudi Arabian women's national team from Riyadh.

Víctor Muñoz has become one of the standout names of this League. The Catalan, who will not be able to face Barça this Saturday (9 PM, DAZN) due to an injury sustained this week, is excelling with Osasuna. He arrived in Pamplona from Real Madrid's reserve team for 5 million euros, before bursting onto the scene in La Liga. He had debuted for the whites in El Clásico, at Montjuïc. On May 11, 2025, he played the final minutes of the whites' 4-3 defeat against Barça, also Muñoz's former team, as he had been through the blaugrana academy. A few seconds after coming on, and with the first ball he touched, he found himself in front of Szczesny, but sent the ball high. A year later, he is one of the wingers Deco has on his transfer list, and Madrid is willing to activate a buy-back clause to prevent him from signing for the blaugrana.

Champions. Barça put the finishing touch on the League in a match with a crazy ending at El Sadar (1-2) where everything that hadn't happened until then, happened. After 80 minutes in which the duel between the azulgranas and Osasuna had been quite soporific, everything accelerated thanks to the goals from Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres. The two azulgrana strikers, questioned throughout the season, scored the goals that, if Real Madrid doesn't win at the RCDE Stadium today, will seal the League for Barça. When the title was already being celebrated on the Catalan bench, Raúl García, narrowing the gap, added spice to the end of the match in which the azulgranas defended the score with tooth and nail to feel virtually like winners of the championship that rewards the best team.

"Yes, we'll do the whole interview in Catalan. Of course," says Kika Nazareth (Lisbon, 2002), boldly. The Portuguese footballer doesn't lose energy or her contagious smile despite having participated in numerous events and interviews before a key match for Barça. On Sunday (4:30 PM, TV3), the azulgranas will play the second leg of the Champions semifinals against Bayern. She will play at the Camp Nou for the second time in her career and in her second season in Barcelona, a city she has fallen in love with, as well as Catalan culture and its language: "I play and live in Catalonia. I wanted to learn Catalan out of respect."

The Barça sporting management and Hansi Flick are preparing changes on the left flank next summer, specifically in defense. Under the German coach's instructions, the left-back position was basically occupied by Alejandro Balde and Gerard Martin in the Bayern ex-coach's first season in Barcelona, and in this second campaign, the protagonists in this lane remained the same until João Cancelo's arrival in the winter market. Gerard Martín's reconversion as a center-back, where he has managed to establish himself alongside Pau Cubarsí, combined with the Portuguese player's rapid adaptation – he has taken advantage of Balde's injury absence – has led to the player on loan from Al-Hilal starting in the last stretch of the season, at the expense of the defender who grew up in the Sant Martí de Provençals neighborhood.Cancelo's future is, at this moment, uncertain. While Flick is happy with his performance, his continuation at Barça depends on the club that owns him. The player's desire is to stay in Barcelona and sign for the Catalan club. He has conveyed this to his agent Jorge Mendes: he does not want to return to Al-Hilal. The Saudi club paid 25 million to Manchester City for his transfer two seasons ago, and at the blaugrana club, it is believed that he could be released for a figure around 15 million. It should also be taken into account that the war conflict in the Persian Gulf may negatively condition the football market in this area of the planet.

Hansi Flick's manual not only aligns with Johan Cruyff's pragmatic ideology of 'I'd rather win 5-4 than 1-0', but it has also delivered titles to legitimize a philosophy that always clashes with the conservative tribuneism of our country, or with lovers of defensive calculation everywhere. In this endemic political clash, the side of the good, which includes those who prefer artistic enjoyment over tactics, has signed a cultural vindication with the spectacle between PSG and Bayern in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals. Seeing the admiration the match has caused, I imagine Flick must have let out an ironic smile remembering how experts Thierry Henry or Ruud Gullit had called his offensive gamble kamikaze with sentences like 'you can't win the Champions League playing like this'.

Hansi Flick's manual not only aligns with Johan Cruyff's pragmatic ideal of “I’d rather win 5-4 than 1-0”, but it has also delivered titles to legitimize a philosophy that always clashes with the conservative armchair punditry of our house, or with lovers of defensive calculation everywhere. In this endemic political clash, the camp of the good guys, which includes those who prefer artistic enjoyment to tactical grids, has ratified a cultural vindication with the spectacle put on by PSG and Bayern in the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals. Seeing the admiration the match has generated, I imagine Flick must have let out an ironic smile, recalling how experts like Thierry Henry or Ruud Gullit had branded his offensive approach as kamikaze with pronouncements like “you can’t win the Champions League playing like that”.

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.

With only 22 years, Òscar Grau (Barcelona, 2004) has already established himself in a squad that aims to win all titles. After nine years training in the Barça youth academy, last summer he obtained his first-team contract. “I have been a Barça fan since I was little and for me it is a dream and a pride to wear these colors and this crest. I prefer to be here than anywhere else in the world. I am playing with players who a few years ago were my idols and I used to ask them for photos and autographs”, explains the Catalan from the Joan Gamper Sports City after finishing training. This Thursday (8:45 PM) the Blaugranas visit Nantes' court in the first leg of the EHF Champions League quarter-finals, the last round before returning to the final four in Cologne.

After a capital victory on the always charged field of Getafe (0-2), Hansi Flick gave his disciples three days off. The Barça coach has taken advantage of the break to spend a few days in Germany with his family. Dani Olmo, Joan Garcia and Eric Garcia have needed less warm clothing, deciding to rent a small boat and get wet in some corner of the Costa Brava. While his teammates enjoyed a well-deserved decompression time, Lamine Yamal began to focus on recovering from the first muscular injury he has suffered as a footballer. He suffered it shortly before halftime during Celta's visit to Camp Nou a week ago. He needed to be substituted just after converting the penalty that meant the goal of a tight victory (1-0). When he shot from eleven meters, he was already injured. The biceps femoris of his left leg had said enough at the moment he dribbled past Yoel Lago in the play that Munuera Montero punished with a penalty.

What was Joan Garcia doing holding a Brock string with one hand that went from his nose, to the center of his gaze, to one of the members of the Barça technical staff while he threw tennis balls at him? The exercise, recorded on video by the club's media and which went viral in the build-up to the Champions League quarter-final second leg at the Metropolitano, may be surprising to fans, but it is an increasingly common practice in the preparation of high-performance goalkeepers. These types of exercises are part of neurovisual training and have become – at Barça they have been practiced for several seasons now – an essential part of the goalkeepers' routine.

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.

"There is no intent. Salma has very long hair, there might be a desire to stretch the shirt on Kett's part, but when the hair is long, you can stretch it a bit unintentionally. The red card is too much," said José Barcala, coach of Bayern Munich, after the match. Barça drew one all at the Allianz Arena and will play for the Champions League final next Sunday (4:30 p.m.) at Camp Nou.

1. Barça will win La Liga. It is only a matter of weeks. Perhaps, days. In fact, they could already be champions next Sunday. All they need is for Flick's team to win on Saturday in Pamplona and for Real Madrid not to win on Sunday at Espanyol's ground, and the twenty-ninth league title will be official. It would be ironic if, without playing, Barça won it because an Espanyol team desperate for points ended up gifting them the title. Everyone looks out for themselves, but in football – as in life – there are amusing paradoxes. Whatever the moment Barça is proclaimed champion, fans must refrain from going to Canaletes. Forbidden. The upper part of La Rambla is under construction, the emblematic fountain is covered, and, around it, temporary fences would be a dangerous trap for the thousands of Barça fans who would want to gather there. Barça and the City Council —“of the city that bears our club’s name”— should inform Barça fans this very Monday that La Rambla is waterlogged and should explain where the title will be massively celebrated when the moment arrives. 

Barça draws at Bayern Munich (1-1) and will have to win next Sunday (4:30 PM) at Camp Nou to be in the Champions League final in Oslo. The blaugranes took an early lead with a goal from Ewa Pajor in an imposing setting like the Allianz Arena —which acted as the 12th player—, but saw Kett —who was sent off after pulling Salma's hair— equalize the match in the second half.

Hard-fought victory for Barça that could be worth a League (0-2). Fermín and Rashford resolve the paperwork in a well-contested clash in Getafe. Below, some immediate thoughts.

Barcelonism is excited about the possibility of winning the League title against Real Madrid. The fans look at each other, with knowing glances, imagining that in a few days Hansi Flick's team can lift the title for the second consecutive year, achieving the definitive result against an Arbeloa's Real Madrid that walks through the championship like a lost soul. In fact, perhaps they will win it sooner. In that case, the whites should give them a guard of honor. That would also be funny.