Barcelona fans celebrate winning La Liga title in El Clasico

Barcelona, Spain — Draped in club flags and with their faces painted blue and maroon, Barcelona fan Max Dour and his father Nico joined thousands of others celebrating their team’s crowning as La Liga champions under the glow of flares lighting up the night sky at the famous Plaza Catalunya in the Catalan capital.

Playing at home, the football giants sealed their second consecutive Spanish league title with a 2-0 win over bitter rivals Real Madrid in a highly-anticipated El Clasico on Sunday.

The league triumph was made all the sweeter by a lacklustre performance from Madrid and the tens of thousands of cules – as Barcelona supporters are known – packed inside the Camp Nou stadium.

The iconic venue carried an air of anticipation for what fans believed was an inevitable victory. They chanted “Campeones, campeones (champions, champions)” throughout the match and well past the referee’s full-time whistle.

Come Monday afternoon, Barca fans will once again pack the city streets when the players join their celebrations with an open bus parade through the streets.

“I promised my son if we won La Liga, then we would go to the Canaletas [fountain] to celebrate, so here we are,” said Dour, a businessman who is a Barca season ticket holder, like his 14-year-old son. “How better could you end the season and win La Liga?”

The Canaletas fountain at one end of Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s famous thoroughfare, is where fans traditionally gather to celebrate victories, but it was closed off for works on Sunday.

It is part of Barcelona folklore.

During the 1930s, the main sporting Barcelona newspaper, Las Ramblas, would record the team’s results here on a blackboard if they were playing away. The blackboard has long gone, as has the newspaper, but the tradition of celebrating victories there remains.

Dour, 50, praised the team’s consistency throughout the season and credited that quality for their title win.

“Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid only seemed to play for certain games,” he said.

Such was the pull of the derby – and the chance to see Barca crowned champions – that fans travelled from across the world.

Vance Sterling flew in from Missouri in the United States just for this  match, after saving up for the $2,000 match tickets.

With the azulgrana (blue and maroon) colours painted on his cheeks, Sterling, 33, said: “It has been worth the journey. This has been a marvellous experience. Winning La Liga by beating Real Madrid in this stadium – how could you beat it?”

Barca’s win or Real Madrid’s loss?

For other fans, however, their joy at winning La Liga was slightly muted.

“It is great that we have won the title of course, but strangely it has not been so emotional or exciting as it was last year when it was coach Hansi Flick’s first season,” Adrian Fabregat, another Barcelona season ticket holder, said

“I think we may have been a little obsessed with the UEFA Champions League. That is what Hansi said he was determined to win.”

Fabregat, 45, a computer worker who has been a fan since 2004, said that Real Madrid’s poor form helped Barca win the title.

“They dropped points to clubs they never should have drawn with or even lost to, which has helped. We have been more dependable. It is always great to win the title when Real Madrid do not win anything else.”

Flick has now won a third major title, including the Copa del Rey in 2025, in his two years in charge of Barcelona. During the same period, Madrid have finished a second successive season with no major silverware.

Madrid will now limp to the finish of a disappointing season in which Xabi Alonso was fired and – barring a drastic change of events – Alvaro Arbeloa is also expected to be ousted in a summer shake-up.

Spanish football expert Graham Hunter believes the title win does not make for a “good season” for the Catalan club.

“In objective terms, Barcelona have gone backwards this season,” he told Al Jazeera.

“They have conceded in every UEFA Champions League game and were knocked out in the quarterfinals of the competition by local opponents Atletico Madrid, rather than the semifinal like last season. They were also knocked out in the semifinals of the King’s Cup.

“Irrespective of whether their winning margin and the date of their league victory is better than last season, they have not played better football, in fact, they have often played less well.”

However, Hunter said two players shone for Flick.

“Lamine Yamal has been outstanding.”

“He has often carried the team. He is, without any doubt in football terms, a genius. Joan García in goal has played blindingly well,” he added.

Hunter agreed that Barca’s triumph had a lot to do with Real’s poor form.

“It is undeniable that Real Madrid have been chaotic and have often gifted points to minor teams.

Sacking a manager in mid-season and watching his replacement have an even lower win rate was not a good look. The two-horse race was always going to be won by the thoroughbred against the Shetland pony,” he added.

Alberto Martínez, a football journalist for Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia, said Flick and his players pounced on the opportunity presented by the crisis at Madrid.

“Barcelona’s continuity, with the manager and players, were key to their victory” he said.