BARCELONA: As the dust settles on Barcelona´s title celebrations, the cava bottles are sent for recycling and the open-top bus heads back to the garage, work for next season will already be underway.
Hansi Flick´s back-to-back La Liga triumphs have helped bring welcome calm to the club after just one league trophy in the previous, tumultuous five years, but the ultimate objective remains unfulfilled.
Domestic dominance is not enough. Winning the Champions League for the first time since 2015 is Barcelona´s chief ambition, and the proof that they are at the head of Europe´s top table for the first time since all-time great Lionel Messi departed.
Although impressive, this season´s La Liga conquest is a slight downgrade on what Flick´s team achieved last season, claiming a domestic treble and reaching the Champions League semi-finals.
With Lamine Yamal and Pedri Gonzalez shining, Barca believed this would be the year they won their sixth European Cup. However, the Catalans came up short against domestic rivals Atletico Madrid, eliminated 3-2 in aggregate in the quarter-finals. Flick confirmed last week that winning the Champions League is his main objective.
“There are two things I want in life. Firstly, that we win the Champions League,” said the German coach. “We have a good team for the next years, but we must make the right decisions in the transfer periods -- they have to be perfect.”
“The second thing is I want to be coach (at Camp Nou) when it´s fully finished.” Improving Barcelona´s squad is the first, but not the only, step to matching the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.
The problem for the Catalans, as Flick hinted, is that their financial position does not allow them to make mistakes. Every euro counts, there is little margin for error. This season, Barca´s lack of depth hurt them, missing high-calibre players in key areas, as well as stretching the squad to its limit, resulting in frequent injury problems.
Barca did not replace Inigo Martinez, who went to Saudi Arabia. Left back Gerard Martin filled in as a converted central defender. Although both he and Eric Garcia performed beyond anyone´s expectations, it is an area where they trail the continent´s elite.
Up front, where 37-year-old Robert Lewandowski and the erratic Ferran Torres managed to bag enough goals between them to help the team win La Liga, but fall short of Bayern´s Harry Kane or former winger Ousmane Dembele, reinvented as a Ballon d´Or-winning striker with PSG.
With a left winger and at least one full-back also on the wish list, the Catalans must lean on their superb La Masia youth academy and trust the talent coming through. Flick´s predecessor Xavi Hernandez brought through Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi among others, but the German has been more cautious.
