Football Season Guide

Barcelona won the league title last season, their second in a row. They did finish the campaign on a downer, though, as they lost the Copa del Rey final to Valencia and were eliminated in painful fashion against Liverpool in the Champions League semi-finals. Although there was some speculation over the future of coach Ernesto Valverde, he has stayed on at the Camp Nou. In the transfer market, Barcelona have added some really exciting players by acquiring Frenkie de Jong and Antoine Griezmann, both of whom should be considered starters. Junior Firpo has also come in to provide a backup to Jordi Alba at left-back, solving one of last season’s main issues. The outlook at Barcelona for the new campaign is positive. Their squad is even better than it was last season, when they basically strolled to the league title. Their strength will be in attack, as it so often is. Lionel Messi may now be 32, but is still performing like the superstar that he is. To have added Griezmann to the attacking ranks makes Barcelona even more dangerous. Although Luis Suarez is getting on a bit and Ousmane Dembele is still inexperienced, these two players can also cause damage to most defences. The weakness for Barcelona last season was the fact that Sergio Busquets wasn’t playing like he had been over the previous decade. The holding midfielder suffered a lot and this could be a weakness again, although the arrival of De Jong maybe makes it less so.