Barcelona News1
Four years after winning their last league title, Barcelona are once again on top in Spain. Barcelona were the best in the tournament from start to finish, and the most regular, unimpressed team to play the World Cup in the middle of the season.
The bet on economic levers has been going well for the Catalans. Last summer the club did the impossible to be able to get the money to supply Xavi with a squad in good conditions.
They have not yet seen the consequences in the medium and long term of having to sell the club’s assets in order to make the deals. What is clear is that it gave results in the short term. Barcelona returned to add another league title to its record, which is the twenty-seventh in the history of the Catalan entity.
And he won it thanks to the regularity that was built up in the defensive line. Players like Conde and Christensen ended up becoming undisputed regulars in a team that already had insurance like Ronald Araujo and Alejandro Balde.
That the team did not suffer Gerard Pique’s erosion midway through the season shows that Xavi this year had the resources in defense to compete with.
The Catalans have signed record numbers. They have never been as solid on defense in their entire history as this season. Although the importance of having a world class striker in their ranks cannot be ignored either.
Since the departure of Lionel Messi, the Catalans have not had a player who, with his mere presence in the starting line-up, rivals would shudder. And that was Robert Lewandowski. The club, which seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy, took the jacks out of its hat and managed to snatch the Golden Boot holder from Bayern Munich.
The return on this investment was guaranteed. He may not have finished the season at his best, but the first half of the season the Polish was a major reason for winning this title. Unwinnable matches in other years have been decided by Lewandowski.
Xavi won the league title and the king of the ‘1-0’. Those 1-0 victories made the difference, for example, with Real Madrid unable to get ahead in their games for much of the season. Especially after the World Cup.
Very few teams have managed to beat Barcelona in the league this year. One of them, Real Madrid, was the first to defeat Xavi’s team this season. It was in the ninth round, thus ending a streak of seven consecutive victories for the Blaugrana.
Rayo Vallecano deserves special mention, as they are the only opponent Barcelona have failed to beat in any of their matches this season.
And how can we not talk about Xavi, the main architect of all this. The improvement in the team is noticeable. The team did not reach the levels of finesse in other times, but they saw things from the time of Barcelona’s beautiful football. Power without the ball, advanced lines and not losing the ball are again the hallmarks of the team.
Source: Marca
