Joan Laporta stood in front of the Rafael Casanova monument on Catalonia’s National Day, but his thoughts were already racing toward Wembley, Berlin, Istanbul – any city where the Champions League trophy might be lifted next spring.
Barcelona’s president is not hiding. Not this season.
“We must keep our feet on the ground, as the season has only just begun,” he told Sport, sounding measured. The message, though, was anything but modest. This is a club openly talking about winning everything.
Quiet ceremony, loud ambitions
The wreath-laying in front of the Casanova monument is a ritual, a moment of institutional duty that Barcelona observe every year. It usually brings formal words, careful tones, a nod to tradition.
This time, it also brought a declaration of intent.
Laporta spoke of a side that, under Hansi Flick, has started the campaign with the kind of intensity the board has been demanding for years. He likes what he sees: the running, the pressing, the collective work. He likes it so much he has pinned the season’s targets to the highest possible wall.
“We hope to continue at this level, with great commitment. And to win this year, you have to run,” he said. For Laporta, that is not a slogan. It is the minimum entry fee to the season he wants.
The president sees signs everywhere. In the dugout. In the training ground. In the way the squad has been built.
“The commitment of the team and the club is a great sign,” he added, convinced that Barcelona now have the tools to compete on every front.
Lamine Yamal, the standard-bearer
When Laporta wants to explain what this Barcelona should look like, he does not reach for a veteran. He points straight at Lamine Yamal.
The teenager – still only 19 – has been vocal about the importance of running and pressing, about the non-negotiables of the modern game. Those comments have travelled quickly through the club, and they have landed squarely on the president’s desk.
“What Lamine says at the age of 19 deserves a lot of appreciation, as his maturity is astonishing,” Laporta said. In a squad filled with established names, it is the youngest voice that is being held up as the reference point.
“He is a clear example of the need for the team to keep its focus and not feel relaxed, in order to fight for everything.”
That is the tone around the dressing room now: no comfort, no complacency, no coasting. Not if you want to chase four trophies.
Depth, Deco and a ruthless message
Laporta’s optimism is not built on mood alone. He believes the squad, reshaped and balanced under sporting director Deco, finally matches his rhetoric.
“We have a very competitive and balanced squad, and Deco has done a great job,” he said, underlining a summer’s work that has given Flick options in almost every line.
From the president’s point of view, the depth is such that he can talk about two strong XIs without sounding extravagant. “We have a lot of quality and we can form two competitive teams, and there is no room for relaxation.”
That last line matters. No room for relaxation. It is both a warning and a challenge, a public reminder that in a squad this stacked, anyone who eases off risks being left behind.
The internal message is clear: the club has done its part in the market. Now the players must do theirs, week after week, competition after competition.
The dream of four trophies
Laporta did not bother with subtlety when he outlined Barcelona’s goals. He listed them, one by one, as if reading from a season manifesto.
“We are candidates to win the titles,” he said. “Our objectives this year are to win the league, the Copa del Rey, the Super Cup, and the Champions League.”
No hedging, no talk of “competing” or “being there at the end.” Win them.
Barcelona have not put together a year of four or more trophies since 2015, when Luis Enrique’s team swept through Europe and beyond, lifting La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup. That remains the modern reference point, the standard against which every ambitious Barça side is measured.
Laporta is not pretending this is 2015. But he is openly chasing that scale of success again, insisting that “team spirit” and a collective mindset are the route back to that level.
Think this way, he argues, live this way, and the trophies will follow.
Europe above all
Domestically, Barcelona want everything. Laporta has made that clear. Yet when the conversation turns to the Champions League, his tone sharpens.
“We have a special enthusiasm to win the Champions League,” he admitted, and the words carry the weight of a club that has watched the trophy drift further away with every passing season.
The last time Barcelona won it, also in 2015, they were still at the height of the Messi era. Since then, the competition has brought collapses, scars and long, painful nights that reshaped the club’s priorities and its patience.
Now, under Flick and with a squad that Laporta believes is “very competitive and balanced,” there is a renewed sense that Barcelona can once again stand up to Europe’s elite, not just in name but in performance.
The start of the season has fed that belief. The energy is different. The running is different. The president feels it, and he is not afraid to say so.
The question is no longer whether Barcelona dare to talk about the Champions League. It is whether this version of Barça can turn Laporta’s public ambition into the kind of nights the club has been missing for almost a decade.
