This was as difficult a season for Barcelona as was expected, although they did still manage to win the 2020/21 Copa del Rey.
Ronald Koeman came in and it took him some time to get the team playing well, eventually settling on a 3-5-2 system that had Barcelona playing good football for several months and that helped protect a defence that was often without Gerard Pique due to injury.
The dropped a lot of points early in LaLiga and made the cup competitions the priority, losing in the final of the Super Cup to Athletic and then defeating the same opponent in the Copa del Rey final. In the Champions League, PSG proved too strong in the round of 16.
That Copa del Rey momentum carried over into their league form for a while as Barcelona won 13 and drew one of their first 14 league games of 2021, but they dropped a lot of points late in the year.
As always, Lionel Messi was excellent and finished the season as the league’s top scorer. There were also some good performances from youngsters like Pedri, Frenkie de Jong, Oscar Mingueza, Ronald Araujo, Sergino Dest and, before he suffered a long-term injury, Ansu Fati.
In the end, Barcelona just don’t have enough top-class players in their squad right now to complement Messi. But, the youngsters coming through give hope for the future, as does the fact that club has a new president Joan Laporta, who’ll get to work this transfer window.
