This was a disappointing campaign for Barcelona, who finished second and five points behind Real Madrid in the league and who only reached the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey.
They started poorly as Lionel Messi missed the first weeks of the season with injury, but his return saw Barcelona recover and they eventually reached top spot in the table.
Their style of play wasn’t great, but they were getting results. However, semi-final failure in the January Super Cup and a Catalan derby draw saw Ernesto Valverde sacked. Quique Setien came in promising to play attractive football and completely shook up the tactics at first, before basically re-adopting Valverde’s tactics after a few bad results.
Going into the coronavirus pause, Barcelona led the league table. But, they quickly fell behind Real Madrid after the restart as they just didn’t show the same consistency and their inferior squad depth also shone through with the matches coming thick and fast.
Messi was his usual brilliant self this season. Even if he didn’t score as many goals as he usually does, he assisted more than he ever has done before. The problem for Barcelona was that no other player played as well as Messi, perhaps apart from goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
They were consistently leaky at the back and have a lot to work on as they move on to their Champions League last 16 second leg vs Napoli in August and as they move on to next season.
