Barça Reaches Olympus

FC Barcelona has done the impossible; what no team in Spain, and only four teams in history, has ever done winning the “triple crown” or the treble which consists on La Liga, Kings Cup, and Champions’ League in the same season. Barça did such thing by beating the very bests and never renounce to their style and principles. Throughout the season the feeling that this team could do such a thing was always there and the players knew it but a clever Guardiola was there to remind us that the team had to go one game at the time and that expecting a triple crown was too much since it hadn’t been done in 109 years of the club’s existence.


La Liga: my personal favourite; La Liga rewards consistency throughout the year. Every team that wins this title deserves to be the champions as it has to be proven for 38 games. Ironically, it wasn’t until the third game when Barça could taste victory for the first time. With a coach debuting at such a young age all the looks were in Guardiola’s inexperience. Nonetheless once he did some adjustments this machine started to operate and game after game people would talk about the supremacy of the Catalans. Doubters always mentioned how they had to see Barça against the top teams to see if they were really that great. Fortunately enough this season’s schedule could not be any better to prove that this team was ready to beat anybody. Barça had to play against the first 4 teams one after the others; and soon doubters were silenced. Barça won the 4 games and ended up the first round with 12 points of difference. From that moment on the league was decided. Real tried to reach the first place and they were as close as 4 points but soon enough Barça showed their champion skin and won 2-6 at the Bernabeu to sentence the league title. Looking back it is easy to say that there was no rival this year for the champions.


King’s Cup: Barça, the all time winner of this cup, had the assignment of reclaiming this forgotten title which they hadn’t raised since 1998 oddly enough at the same stadium where they raised it this year. What’s a shame is that this prestigious cup has lost its magic due to poor management. Here is where the Spanish football federation has to look and learn from their English homologues if they don’t want this tournament to perish. There is no real price for whoever wins the title apart from greeting the king and becoming champions. The winner should be allowed entrance in the champions’ league pre-qualifying games. One way to do this could be to have a two game series with whomever finishes 4th in La Liga. Otherwise it will happen what’s happening now which is teams playing their second teams to win this cup. Barcelona did this and it worked; however, the likes of Leo Messi were present in a lot of games. What makes this title so meaningful this year is the rivals they faced to conquered it. Atletico, Espanyol, Athletic are all teams that a 1) are strong in the Kings’ Cup and 2) have some historic rivalry with Barça. Athletic and Barça is a dream final in this cup and Barcelona dominated it to show that they were the absolutely best.


Champions’ League: looking back in September when Barça was facing Wisla for a place in the tournament it was impossible to imagine that they would dominate this cup so clearly. At no point where they in danger of being out –expect at Stanford Bridge – every team that visited Nou Camp was terrified with the possible outcome; Lyon left with a 5-2; Bayern Munich with a 4-0 and Chelsea had no remedy but to play defence the whole game to dream about eliminating the Catalans. At Stanford Bridge they had the game in their hands but Drogba was not good enough to beat Victor and there’s the turning point in which Barça capitalized to score in the very last minute. It may have been luck or divine intervention but in this cup you cannot be champion without luck. In the final, Barcelona’s domination was insulting. Nobody had treated the former champions like that in Europe. Pep Guardiola showed that experience means nothing when you really know the game. He accomplished in his first years what no man had done which is to win it all. Is this the best Barça ever? History will judge. It’s too early and they need more years of winning titles. But as far as the best team of the moment goes it would be foolish to even argue.