Dani Olmo is sitting in a back room at Barcelona's training ground getting goosebumps talking about winning the World Cup. That alone tells you everything about where Barcelona's heads are right now. This lot aren't just confident. They're powered by something most clubs can only dream about.
A Different Kind of Fuel
When Spain beat Argentina in New Jersey on 19 July, Olmo's world tilted. His description of the moment it truly landed is disarmingly human: hugging Ferran Torres's mum, both of them in tears, whispering that what their sons had just done was historic. Not the final whistle, not lifting the trophy. A hug with someone's mum outside the dressing room. That's when it became real.
"It changes you, changes your life," he told us. Eight of Spain's 26-man squad were Barcelona players, and while Torres has since gone to Paris Saint-Germain, Rodri has arrived from Manchester City. So the World Cup winning mentality doesn't just linger in the background, it's been reinforced, redistributed, embedded deeper into Hansi Flick's squad.
Flick's greeting when Olmo returned to training 23 days after the final? "You're a champion of the world, Dani." And then, almost immediately: now do it with Barcelona. That's the challenge. That's the frame. [The Champions League demands that kind of clarity](/uprise/football/champions-league-is-fertile-ground-for-new-managers-but-knowhow), and Barcelona know it.
Eleven Years Is a Long Time to Wait
Barcelona haven't lifted the Champions League since June 2015. Olmo was 17 at the time, had just left the academy he first joined at nine, and was making substitute appearances for Dinamo Zagreb. He came back via RB Leipzig in 2024, helped the club to a domestic treble in his first season, and won the league again last year. Europe, though, has been a different story. Inter eliminated them in the semi-finals. Atlético Madrid knocked them out in the quarter-finals. Both times, the margins were thin and the lessons were hard.
Olmo is honest about why. Against Inter, Barcelona scored six goals across the tie and still went out. Against Atlético, the first leg weighed too heavily on them. A young team, he says, can convince itself that things will come right without doing every ugly detail right. That naivety cost them.
"Every minute, every sprint, every run is important," he says now. "Do or die." That's not the language of a team that thinks it just needs to turn up and play pretty football.
On Wednesday night they open this year's campaign against Feyenoord at Camp Nou, with the Metropolitano in Madrid on 5 June the destination they have in mind. [The transfer window gave them reasons for optimism](/uprise/football/world-cup-wishlists-early-movers-big-clearouts-2026-summer-transfer), and Rodri's arrival gives them something they've arguably been missing: someone who embodies control when the chaos starts.
Olmo also pushes back on the idea that Flick's high-line approach is reckless. It's brought titles. It's proved they can compete in Europe. What's changed is the attention to detail around the edges, closing gaps, minimising the small risks that the knockout rounds will always punish.
Our Take
Barcelona remain a young side, a fact Olmo concedes himself, against Athletic Bilbao last month they fielded a starting XI averaging just 23.18 years of age. But this is a young side with a World Cup winner's mentality baked in now. If they've genuinely absorbed the lesson that talent without ruthlessness gets you nowhere in the Champions League, this could finally be their year. We're cautiously convinced they've grown up.