What To Expect From Barcelona In LaLiga And Champions League
Haoyu Zhang
Under Hansi Flick, FC Barcelona have solidified themselves as the team to beat in LaLiga. They won back-to-back domestic league titles, including a league-best 95 goals last year, and have started this season blazing hot, winning seven of their first seven games.
Much of Barcelona’s success rested on their stellar attack, which consisted of Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, and Robert Lewandowski. Notably, Raphinha tied Cristiano Ronaldo’s Champions League record for goals and assists in a single campaign in the 24/25 season, and Yamal was named LaLiga player of the season last year. Following Lewandowski’s departure over the summer to the Chicago Fire, this dynamic duo between Raphinha and Yamal will be Barcelona’s primary firepower for the 26/27 season.
Arguably more interesting is that Barcelona’s perfect start this season is the astonishing 31 goals they have scored. Vacancy in the striker position thanks to the departure of Ferran Torres to Paris Saint-Germain led Flick to move Raphinha more centrally, a position he had previously struggled in under Xavi. However, with Yamal and Anthony Gordon supplying width, pace, and constant attacking pressure on the wings, Raphinha has had plenty of space to play his game centrally, resulting in 12 goals to start the season. Furthermore, depth off the bench in Karim Adeyemi and Dani Olmo provides a much-needed rotational aspect to the roster to ensure all players remain in peak condition.
Currently, players are with their national teams for the international break. Barcelona will return to LaLiga action on October 10 against a mid-table Getafe team. The bigger matchup is against Galatasaray on October 13 to kick off their Champions League campaign, and against PSG on October 20 — Barcelona’s biggest challenge of the season so far.
PSG are the reigning back-to-back European champions, so needless to say, this will be a difficult matchup. But considering PSG’s tendency to rest their star players until later in the season, Barcelona should be expected to win, if not tie, in this initial matchup.
So far this year, Barcelona has dominated their league domestically. Now, it is no longer a question of whether Barcelona has the quality, but rather whether they can sustain that quality throughout the entire season, especially on the big stage against other European giants.
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