Barcelona continue league dominance with yet another title

Barcelona continue to be the most consistent team in Spain as they beat Levante to claim another La Liga championship.

Lionel Messi scored the winning goal as Barcelona went on to defeat Levante to win their 26th league title in club history. With his tenth La Liga title, Messi overtakes Andres Iniesta as the Barcelona player with the most league titles.

This is Barcelona’s eighth championship in the last eleven years demonstrating how dominant this team has been over the past decade-plus. It’s also not a coincidence that this dominance started once Messi really broke into the scene.

To put it into context, Barcelona only had sixteen titles to their name; well behind of their rivals, Real Madrid. Since Pep Guardiola took over and helped Messi transform into what he is today, Barcelona now have the aforementioned 26 titles, only seven behind Madrid. It shows how consistent they’ve been in the league despite hiccups in the Champions League.

To add even more perspective, during Madrid’s Champions League run under Zidane, they only managed to win the league once. Cristiano Ronaldo, and Jose Mourinho, were brought in to put a stop to Barcelona’s run in the league. But Ronaldo only managed to help Madrid win it twice. As they prove, this type of dominance is not easy.

Thus, it’s important to put this Barcelona run in proper context. In some ways, the Catalan side is a victim of their own success. Having one a treble under Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, something no other team has done, that’s become the standard for how other past and present Barcelona sides are judged. If they don’t win a treble, then the season is considered a failure which is an impossible standard that no team can live up to. It’s near impossible to expect any team to win a treble year-in-year-out.

For followers of Barcelona, they need to value the importance of winning the league. Lessening this achievement because of failures in European competitions or because Madrid won that tournament three years running is unfair.

Alongside Lionel Messi, it’s worth mentioning the work that Ernesto Valverde has done. The often-criticized manager has won two titles in two seasons and has handled a lot of difficult situations rather well. He’s endured the loss of Neymar in his first season as manager, dealt with Arturo Vidal’s Instagram points, and managed to effectively shuffle playing time between Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembélé.

Similar to not judging past Barcelona teams to the current one, one should not judge Ernesto Valverde to what Pep Guardiola did. They are different managers and each shaped their sides to an image of themselves. Valverde’s side may not be the most aesthetically pleasing but he doesn’t have Xavi or Iniesta at the peak of their powers.

What he has done is made Barcelona a better defensive side. Gerard Pique has had a resurgence and is back to being one of the best defenders in the world. Clement Lenglet has stepped up enormously in Samuel Umtiti’s absence and formed an extraordinary partnership with Pique. Valverde has even managed to quell the aging-Busquets issue by having Ivan Rakitic clean up when Busquets cannot.

This era of Barcelona is one that will be looked back when all is said and done as likely the best era in club history. This type of success does not usually happen and this group of players have done an amazing job in making Barcelona the best team in Spain. It is an accomplishment that should celebrated because once this core of players retire, we may never see this type of dominance again.