On Sunday (10), Barcelona experienced one of the most memorable days of their century-old rivalry with Real Madrid. The Catalan team achieved its 29th Spanish Championship title, the first of which was obtained with a victory over its arch-rivals: 2-0, goals from Rashford and Ferrán Torres.
It was a delightful triumph for the fans of the blue-gray base, who saw dominance quickly established at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. The shouts of “olé” exploded in the first half, in a party that grew until the final whistle.
It was a not inconsiderable ingredient of fun to watch the enemy sink into crisis, in a season – especially a week – of chaos. It was the second consecutive year without a title for a club accustomed to lining up cups.
Real Madrid started the 2025/26 season with Xabi Alonso as coach, replacing the victorious Carlo Ancelotti. He was unable to remain in the position much beyond the turn of the year and gave way to Álvaro Arbeloa, who was the coach of the B team.
The problems were not resolved. Right after Arbeloa’s debut, the white team was eliminated from the Copa del Rey by Albacete, from the Spanish second division. In the Champions League, the campaign was interrupted in the quarter-finals, with two defeats to Bayern.
As the bad results accumulated on the field, the group’s relationship problems became evident, a cauldron that boiled in the final part of the season – with questions being raised about Brazilian Vinicius Junior’s status as captain.
When there was no longer a trophy to fight for, the players started fighting among themselves.
One of the fights had defenders Carreras and Rüdiger as opponents. And another, with more serious consequences, which occurred in the training center locker room, involved Tchouaméni and Valverde, who had to be taken to a hospital in Madrid, last Wednesday (7).
Embarrassed, the club was forced to publish a medical report that indicated “traumatic brain injury”. And he fined each of the two players 500 thousand euros (around R$2.9 million).
Valverde tried to minimize the situation, saying that he accidentally hit his head on the table during an argument and that the hospitalization was just protocol. Nobody believed it. That day, striker Mbappé left the training center laughing, which outraged fans.
The fans were already irritated with the Frenchman, who, recovering from a muscle injury in his left thigh, was seen on a yacht with his girlfriend, in Italy, last weekend. The expectation was to return against Barcelona, but he said the pain got worse and he left the final preparation training.
An online petition for Mbappé’s departure has already gathered millions of signatures. Most of them are disgruntled Real Madrid fans, who watched Sunday’s classic expecting the worst, which happened.
The title, in practice, already belonged to Barcelona, which had an 11 point advantage with four rounds to go before the end of Espanyol. The question was whether the triumph would be mathematically assured in “El Clássico”, something that had only been seen once in history, in Real’s glory in the distant 1931/32 season.
Before the game, a minute’s silence was observed in honor of the Barcelona coach’s father, Hansi Flick. Excited, he was embraced by the players during the goal celebrations, which didn’t take long to come.
After just nine minutes, Rashford hit a free kick suffered by Ferrán Torres in the corner. At 18, in a move of beautiful collective construction, Dani Olmo received the ball in the area from Fermín López and played with his heel for Ferrán to finish.
The Catalan team thus became the first to win the second consecutive Spanish championship since 2019. In the current season, the blue-maroon team had already won the Spanish Super Cup – they reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey.
The current squad includes Brazilian Raphinha, who comes from physical problems and started the decisive game on the bench. He came on in the second half, replacing Rashford, in time to be part of the party.
