Primera Liga title eases Barcelona’s mid-season worries and fans are partying again

The Catalans had their share of troubles but winning has proved to be the perfect tonic, writes Andy Mitten.

Barcelona players will get to celebrate their fifth title in seven seasons in front of the home fans at Camp Nou on Saturday after the final league game against Deportivo La Coruna. Denis Doyle / GettShow more

Barcelona’s beautiful La Rambla thoroughfare is normally the preserve of tourists.

Locals reluctantly venture to the tree-lined street, where restaurants have pictures of overpriced meals on laminated menu boards and you are more likely to meet someone from Cardiff, Chicago or Cologne than Catalonia.

Exceptions are made when Barca win a trophy and fans rush to the fountain of the Canaletas on La Rambla.

It is not a grand monument like the Cibeles in the Spanish capital, where Real Madrid celebrate, but it is a tradition dating back to 1930.

Real Madrid were in Barcelona, at Espanyol on Sunday, and Barcelona were in Madrid, at Atletico. Barca and Real both won, but with one league game remaining, Barca were crowned Spanish champions for the 23rd time. It is still some way behind Madrid's 32, but Barca have now won five of the last seven titles in Spain and Cristiano Ronaldo has been a champion just once in six seasons.

As Barca’s jubilant players, including Thomas Vermaelen, who has been plagued by injuries since joining from Arsenal last season, made their way back home, fans poured out into the streets on Spain’s second-biggest city.

An estimated 12,000 crowded around the Canaletas, setting off flares, singing about being champions and relishing Madrid’s failure to win the league or reach the Uefa Champions League final.

Alvaro Morata, whom Real let go to Juventus only for him to score the goal which prevented them reaching the European Cup final, has become an unlikely hero among cules, the name Barca fans have long given themselves.

Following their celebrations on the pitch at the Vicente Calderon, none of the players went to Canaletas.

They will celebrate their title after Saturday’s final league game in front of 98,000 fans at home to a Deportivo La Coruna side needing a point to guarantee their safety.

Several Barca presidential candidates did go to the Canaletas, hitting the campaign trail ahead of June’s elections in which a new club president chosen.

Change is constant at Barca.

Cules have had plenty of reasons to celebrate at the Canaletas during the last decade. In the 10 years up to 2005, Barca won seven trophies but no European Cups. In the past decade, they have won 18, including three European Cups.

The signing of Ronaldinho was a turning point, the appointment of Pep Guardiola, too, but Lionel Messi has been the mainstay in a magnificent decade for Barcelona. No team in world football has won as much as the Catalans since 2005.

They are hoping for two more trophies this season to match the treble of 2008/09. They have the Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao, at Camp Nou, on May 30 and the Champions League final against Juventus, in Berlin, on June 6.

Tickets for both are already being distributed to fans, but they cannot come close to meeting the demand. The mood is markedly different from the first week in January, when Barca lost at Real Sociedad, Messi was not getting on with coach Luis Enrique, a club election was called and sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta was dismissed.

Winning has changed everything, and while the puritans of the Johan Cruyff/Guardiola school do not yet consider this team to be as good as the 2009 version, Enrique’s side have blossomed.

They were outrageously good against Paris Saint-Germain in December, in the first half against Manchester City in March and against Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-final first leg.

Their timing has been impeccable. Real Madrid peaked at Christmas, but Barcelona have hit their peak in the most important part of the season.

The front three of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have scored 115 goals so far, 18 more than Madrid’s vaunted trio of Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale. With three games still to play, they are only three behind the record set by Ronaldo, Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain three years ago.

While Barca’s attack are rightly lauded, a major difference has been in their defence, which has conceded just 19 league goals in front of Claudio Bravo, who has had an excellent debut season. No rival defence comes close to that. Just as at present, no team comes close to Enrique’s side.

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