Barcelona are out of the Champions League after Atletico Madrid knocked them out in the quarter-finals, ending a bid to reach the final four for a second straight season. Pau Cubarsi was sent off in the tie, and a potential handball involving Marc Pubill was not given as a penalty.
The exit matters because this was the competition Barcelona had pointed to as the true measure of Hansi Flick’s first full season in charge. Flick, who replaced Xavi in May 2024 and signed a two-year extension until June 2027, had guided Barca to last season’s semi-finals, but they have not won the Champions League since 2015, when Luis Enrique was in charge.
That long wait has sharpened the focus on what comes next, even if the immediate damage is limited. Barcelona are still nine points clear of Real Madrid with seven matches left in La Liga, and they host their home Clasico on May 10, a fixture that could go a long way toward deciding the title race.
Inside the club, the defeat will be read less as proof the project has failed and more as a reminder of how much still has to be solved. Barca’s transfer priorities are expected to be a striker and a centre-back, and the squad’s youth, depth problems, accumulated fatigue and injuries have already shaped this campaign.
Pol Ballus said the Champions League was the great dream of this Barca squad and the step they needed to take to keep progressing, but they did not manage it. Laia Cervello Herrero said she does not see the failure to win the competition as a major setback for the project, because for the first time in a long while she can sense real excitement around the club and its supporters. That split view captures Barcelona now: still ambitious, still competitive, but not yet where they want to be in Europe.
The immediate answer to is barcelona out of the champions league is yes, and the harder question is whether this season’s European setback changes anything beyond the margins. For now, the title race and the summer rebuild have become the next tests of whether Flick’s project can turn promise into something bigger.
