It's official ! After his victory against Levante on Saturday (1-0), the Catalan club is Spain's champion for the twenty-sixth time in its history. This is the second Liga title in two years for Ernesto Valverde.
It is done. Without any real suspense, since the title seemed to have been playing for many months already, FC Barcelona won the 2018/2019 edition of La Liga. The Catalans are officially champions after their short victory against Levante (1-0), with a goal from the inevitable Lionel Messi. This is the second consecutive championship for the formation of Ernesto Valverde, who had already taken the trophy last season. A season once again marked by the performance of Lionel Messi, who has still exploded the counters while dropping many historical records of the club. In March, for example, he became the player who won the most matches under the blaugrana tunic, ahead of Xavi Hernandez (466 wins).
A season that has also seen Gerard Piqué regain his best level, realizing excellent performances on the Spanish lawns weekend after weekend. Complicated not to mention Marc-André ter Stegen, still brilliant in the cages, or Sergio Busquets, still as effective in the midfield. On the other hand, other executives like Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic or Jordi Alba will have alternated between good and bad, receiving in passing some criticism from the supporters. Ousmane Dembélé has, at times, shown why Barça had been forced to recruit him, but his season is still average. As for Philippe Coutinho, it's even worse, and the Brazilian did not take advantage of the many opportunities granted by Ernesto Valverde.
A season marked by the explosion of several players
This exercise was also marked by the explosion of new players in Catalonia. Nelson Semedo, who arrived two summers ago, seems finally to have seized this position of titular right holder and displays a level more and more interesting. Arthur did not need much adaptation time and quickly found a place in the midfield of Barcelona, alongside Rakitic, displaying good qualities of ballooning and distribution. But the surprise of the season is none other than Clement Lenglet. Defender substitute at the beginning of the season, the one who arrived from Seville during the summer transfer window took advantage of the injury of Samuel Umtiti to find a place in the titular holder. And since then, even with the return of the Lyonnais, he never left!
Solid in the duels, reassuring in the aerial game and good to the recovery, it displays a very good complementarity with Gerard Piqué. Disappointments and nice surprises for this Barça team led by Ernesto Valverde, who is also often contested, but who sits a little more dominance on the national scene, having won four of the last five editions of La Liga. And this is not a complete finish, since the Blaugranas can claim a hat-trick, those who are qualified for the final of the King's Cup and still in the race in Europe, with semi-finals against Liverpool which is announced exciting. To them to write a new glorious page in the history of FC Barcelona ...
