Barça have a year ahead of them full of challenges - to become the first team to retain the Champions League trophy, match the 4 successive league titles of the Dream Team and try and equal the historic six trophies of two years ago.
The players, coaches and backroom staff will begin work on July 18th with a complicated objective
ahead of them – to match or even on improve on the work done over the last few years.
One of the biggest challenges will be to try and become the first team to retain the
Champions League – something that they came close to doing a couple of years ago when they
missed out on the Madrid final after going out to Inter in the semis.
Four Leagues
Another objective for the team will be to match Johan Cruyff’s
legendary Dream Team who won four league titles on the run between 1990 and 1994, after
Guardiola’s fantastic achievement in guiding them to the title for the last three seasons.
Six Trophies
This will also be the fourth time that Barça have gone for six titles in a season - something
they managed to complete successfully in 2009, when they won the Spanish Cup, League, Champions
League, Spanish and European Super Cups and the World Club Cup, but weren’t able to in the
92/93 and 06/07 seasons.
Individual challenges
As well as the challenges for the team, there are also a number of
possible records for the individuals involved: Josep Guardiola could match the 11 titles won by
Johan Cruyff as coach between 1988 and 1996 –indeed he has 10 already and if the team take
the Spanish Super Cup in August, the World Club Cup could see him pass Cruyff’s record.
Víctor Valdés and Antoni Ramallets
Valdés also has a chance to match a famous Barca legend, he has already won four of the
Zamora Trophy awards as the best keeper and could match the only playto make it five - fellow
Catalan Antoni Ramallets.
Pedro Rodríguez will also be aiming to keep up his goal scoring feats and match his feat of
scoring in all six competitions –something he achieved in 2009/10.
More records
Finally, the team will be trying to beat their astonishing figures from last season, when
they won 16 games on the run, took 52 points from the first half of the campaign, scoring an
amazing 61 goals in those 19 games. They’ll attempt to better the 46 points from their away
games – and scoring in every game on the road and with a small squad of 23 players try and
match the record of scoring –between the first team and the reserves – in every round
of games.