You make it sound as if Laporta did not spend 350M since his return, which in comparison to Madrid is 130M+ less. And that difference is due to current transfer window with Madrid spending 168M. Without 2025, spending between Madrid and Barcelona is essentially the same. So, with all do respect mate, what exactly are you talking about?
Barca invested substantial cash in current squad, while at the same time lucked out massively with not only Yamal, but also Raphinha and co. playing absolutely above their level. Not to mention the characteristics of a season in which Madrid had historically shitty defense, while City and co. absolutely crumbling.
In reality you should have played CL final and contested PSG for it.
Then again, itās not like he had to
sell some of the clubās assets to get the required money to make those signings. Another thing, Barcelona besides that summer didnāt make a big summer in the entire Laporta reign. It reached a point where our only summer transfer was Romeu which cost as ā¬4.3m euros in Summer 2023, next summer it was only Olmo given it cost us ā¬60m and the summer after that, it was Joan and Roony with cost us a combined ā¬27m.
Compared to our biggest rivals, signing the best player in the world last summer after winning their 2nd UCL in 3 years, and then proceeding to spend over ā¬150m euros the next summer. It really makes you question how are we competing, what you need to know is perspective. We were so damaged by Bartomeu as he haemorrhaged the clubās money, resulting in registration issues and the greatest player in our history leaving for free even after offering to cut his salary by 50%. And still even after earning ā¬638m, ā¬800m and ā¬763m over the next 3 seasons, we still couldnāt get over those issues due to us finally having the ambition to rebuild our stadium.
Also regarding the UCL, I agree we should have been in the final, but the good thing is over the seasons, we have only been seeing linear progression, from group stages to quarter finals then semi finals, it makes you now think if we will win it next season, how I see it, you need experience to progress and finally win trophies. Our core is very young, so they had to experience their first set of UCL games in the group stages, we finally made a big breakthrough in 23-24, where we reached quarter finals although everyone knows we shouldāve reached the semis but Araujo got that red card, in 24-25, more progression followed under a better manager as we won the domestic treble and were minutes away from the final, what separated us was inexperience and naivity that ensued after we finally took the lead in the tie with just 3 minutes to play of normal time.
Laporta did an amazing job to say the least, in an era where our biggest rivals had a renaissance under Ancelotti built on individual brilliance by Benzema, Vinicius and Bellingham. Now for 2025-26, I really think it will be our year and we will hopefully lift that beautiful cup come May the 30th in Budapest.