At FC Barcelona, perhaps more than any other major football club in the world, it’s not merely a question of what you win, but how you win.
If there was any doubt about that still being the case, you only need to look at the scenes over the past few days, with a reported 670,000 fans lining the streets on Friday as the squad paraded through Barcelona with all three domestic trophies on the top deck of their bus.
While it’s anyone’s guess quite how they count these things, by any measure, that number was vastly superior to the figure that gathered to celebrate the 2022/23 title – a reported 76,000 for what it’s worth.
Barca will need to win their final game of the 2024/25 campaign just to match the 88 points secured by Xavi’s side two years ago, but it’s fair to say the high-risk, attacking football of this current team has captured the imagination of the Catalan public, in a way that simply wasn’t the case in 2023.
A bumpy beginning, but Barca dig deep to win
While August seems a lifetime ago in terms of the evolution of this Barca side under Hansi Flick, it’s easy to forget that there were genuine fears back then about what direction this campaign may take.
Following the chaotic conclusion to the 2023/24 season, and the ever-changing narrative surrounding Xavi’s potential continuation, Flick took over a club with some deep issues, ones that again manifested themselves with the usual player registration uncertainty heading into the start of the new LaLiga season.
Those problems prevented the club’s only major summer signing Dani Olmo from making his debut until matchday three in Vallecas. Less than ideal given the major injury problems that Barca were dealing with back in August, when the Flick era commenced with a 3-0 defeat to Monaco in the Gamper Trophy, a performance labelled as “tame and lifeless” in one report, one so bad that it provoked jeers from the home crowd, before a ball had even been kicked in competitive action.
Given everything we’ve seen from Flick’s Barca since, it’s almost incredible to think that this team could ever have been described in such terms, but there was nothing remotely convincing about Barcelona heading into their opening league fixture at Mestalla.
Partly out of necessity, Flick showed an immediate willingness to place his faith in youth by handing Marc Bernal and Marc Casado their first LaLiga starts on matchday one in an inexperienced central midfield, but it was an old-timer that dug Barca out of a hole, with Robert Lewandowski’s brace sealing a 2-1 comeback win against a Valencia side that had started brightly, and taken the lead through Hugo Duro.
Matchdays two and three produced identical scorelines, with Olmo making a big impact on his debut off the bench against Rayo, as Barca again came from behind to win. While they’d nowhere near found their best level at that point, the importance of those three early-season wins cannot be understated, as those matches could easily have produced different outcomes that would have drastically altered the picture at the top of the table in the opening weeks.
Potential unleashed – Flick’s Barca hit top gear
Having had to grind out those first few wins, the potential that existed in Flick’s Barca really started to become clear over the next three matches, with 16 goals scored against Real Valladolid, Girona and Villarreal.
The Valladolid game was the first in which we really got a glimpse of how important Raphinha was going to be, with the Brazilian scoring a hat-trick in a 7-0 win against the hapless new boys.
While Frenkie de Jong would later edge out Casado, that match was also the first in which Flick was able to name what would effectively become his best XI, with Pedri operating in the other deeper midfield role, and the foundations for a brilliant domestic campaign were largely laid that day.
The same side started a fortnight later against Girona, with two cool finishes from Lamine Yamal demonstrating an early glimpse of the teenager’s increasing composure in front of goal in a 4-1 win.
With the exception of a 4-2 defeat at Osasuna, when Flick rested his two star wingers, Barca were almost unplayable throughout September and October, racking up numerous big victories as their forward-line continued to fire.
A 4-0 win in El Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu, followed by a derby win over Espanyol a week later, cemented Barca’s status as the team to beat, with their record standing at an impressive 11 wins from 12 league matches at that point.
A major wobble
Barcelona’s football this season has been fearless, but never flawless, and for a spell towards the end of 2024, their bid for a 28th league title was in danger of completely imploding.
Perhaps understandably, Flick seemingly drew the conclusion following the Osasuna defeat that he could not afford to rest certain players, and as the calendar year reached its conclusion, it felt as though fatigue was starting to set in, and that this might be a squad that lacked the required depth to maintain a strong challenge on both domestic and European fronts.
There were also growing tactical doubts about Barca’s capabilities in matches against more defensively-minded opponents who would come to Estadi Olimpic, sit deep, and try to strike on the break. Three straight home defeats against Las Palmas, Leganes and Atletico Madrid suggested that there may be a real problem on that front, although even in the midst of a miserable run of just one win from eight league games, there were still a number of strong performances that merited better outcomes.
That would have helped ease the fears of many Barca fans, but their team’s inability to beat Getafe in their first league match of 2025, only one weekend on from a five-star Clasico victory in the Supercopa, meant that it was still Real Madrid who went into the second half of the LaLiga season with an advantage at the top, and as the favourites to defend their crown.
In a class of their own in 2025 – 15 wins from 16 to clinch the title
The response to that draw against Getafe, was a thumping 7-1 victory at home to Valencia, with key contributions from two players who have been really important in the second half of the season, in terms of giving Flick more options in attacking areas.
Fermin Lopez bagged two goals and two assists in that game, while Ferran Torres netted the second of the 14 goals he has scored so far in 2025. Ferran’s fine form has meant that even when Lewandowski suffered a hamstring injury in April, Barca continued to thrive in the final third of the pitch.
With the improved form of Wojciech Szczesny in goal also contributing to a bit more defensive stability, Barca embarked on a stunning run in LaLiga, winning 15 out of 16 fixtures between matchdays 21 and 36.
Neither of the Madrid clubs were able to keep pace with that, and Flick has delivered the league title in his debut season in Spain, with the trophy sealed in the Catalan derby at the RCDE Stadium, mirroring the achievements of Xavi’s side who also won at Espanyol to win the league in 2023.
Speaking after Sunday’s final home fixture against Villarreal, Flick said “The team has deserved it, because what they did for the last five months is unbelievable.”
“This is our mentality, this is our attitude, this is how we want to play football.” he continued. “And of course, I know that we have to improve a little bit, but we also have really good potential.”
With an average age of 24.1, Barcelona have been the youngest team in LaLiga this season which only bodes well for the future, and that’s an ominous sign for their rivals given how dominant the Catalans have been at times.
While there is still no quick fix for the financial issues which will continue to limit their capabilities in the transfer market over the next couple of years as renovation work at Camp Nou is completed, and while the Negreira case remains a dark cloud hanging over the club, this still feels like the season that the feelgood factor finally returned to FC Barcelona.
The 2024/25 LaLiga win may go down as a turning point in their modern history, as the campaign when Barca started to be Barca again, with Flick masterfully overseeing the development of a new generation of homegrown talent, without compromising on any of his or the club’s attacking principles.
