Here's how Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri led Barcelona to La Liga title in Flick's first season

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Lamine Yamal provided the dazzle, Pedri set the pace and Raphinha scored the crucial goals as Barcelona won the La Liga title by playing its most electric soccer since the heyday of Lionel Messi.

While his players excelled in a campaign that also included a Copa del Rey title, Barcelona's success was in large part due to coach Hansi Flick.

The former Bayern Munich manager took the same core of a squad that won nothing the previous season under Xavi Hernández and turned it into the one of the most entertaining sides in Europe.

Flick’s non-negotiable game plan of pressing high up the pitch to recover balls in attacking position was fervently executed by his players. The result was a domestic double and a memorable Champions League semifinal against Inter Milan that Barcelona was seconds away from winning.

Backed by Yamal's 53rd-minute goal, Barcelona clinched the title Thursday with a 2-0 victory over Espanyol.

“Flick has a large part of this title,” Pedri said after the decider at Espanyol. “He completely changed the team, and this season is one to be remembered.”

Here are the other keys to Barcelona’s success in the 2024-25 Spanish league season:

Yamal confirmed his status as the rising star of international soccer just weeks before the club season began when he stole the show in Spain’s European Championship victory.

He carried his fantastic play into Barcelona’s season, and over the course of the campaign his weight in the attack increased, as did his role as a vocal motivator.

His comment to a teammate when Madrid was up 2-1 in the Copa del Rey final summed up his and Barcelona’s mentality: “It doesn’t matter if they score one goal, it doesn’t matter if they score two goals. They can’t hang with us.” Barcelona went on to win 3-2.

Yamal helped lead several comebacks and was a big reason that Barcelona swept all four clasicos against Real Madrid by a combined score of 16-7: two in the league, the cup final and the Spanish Super Cup.

And, fittingly, he curled in a stunner to lead the victory that sealed the title.

If there is one player who symbolizes the renewal of Barcelona this season it is Raphinha.

Raphinha blossomed from a workhorse winger into a decisive scorer and team leader who could play at multiple positions.

The Brazil forward scored 18 of his 34 goals in the league, including twice in a 4-3 comeback over Madrid that pretty much decided the title race.

Robert Lewandowski poured in 25 league goals as the veteran striker completed a formidable front three that was comparable to the great Barcelona trident of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suárez.

Their goals and the superb play of right back Jules Koundé helped vindicate the decision made by club president Joan Laporta three years ago to sell off future TV rights and other assets so that Barcelona could sign Koundé, Lewandowski and Raphinha as part of a bid to rekindle the club’s winning ways.

Ferrán Torres also emerged as a super sub striker, especially when Lewandowski was injured late in the season.

Despite the fantastic play of Barcelona's forwards, Pedri was the most indispensable player for Flick.

The midfielder, who at age 22 is already completing his fifth season as a undisputed starter, put in his best campaign since he broke out for Barcelona as a teenager. He led the team in minutes played and firmly established himself as the successor of midfield greats Xavi and Andrés Iniesta thanks to his ball control, vision, passing and sense of timing.

Pedri was helped by new arrival Dani Olmo, Frenkie de Jong, Gavi Páez, Fermín López and Marc Casadó to provide Barcelona with the best midfield in the league.

Flick’s most notable imprint on the team was its very high line in defense.

The first-choice back four of Alejandro Balde, Iñigo Martínez, Pau Cubarsí and Koundé were masters of pushing up the field and coordinating perfectly to spring offside traps.

They compacted the space the opponents had to work in and allowed their teammates to swarm in and steal balls to devastating effect.

An honorable mention goes to Wojciech Szczesny, who came out of retirement to play in goal for the injured Marc-Andre Ter Stegen.

Barcelona’s future looks bright.

Yamal at 17 leads its youth movement, and Pedri, Gavi, Cubarsí, Fermín, Balde, Casadó, Pablo Torre, Ansu Fati and Gerard Martín, along with other youth-team players used by Flick, are all under 23 years old.

The only players near the end of their career are Lewandowski at 36 and Martínez at 33 years old.

So, all in all, Flick’s Barcelona has the potential to keep this going for years to come.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Barcelona's Fermin Lopez, left, and Lamine Yamal celebrate after the La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, May 11, 2025. AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Barcelona's head coach Hansi Flick, left, and Espanyol's head coach Manolo Gonzalez hug before a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)

Barcelona's Fermin Lopez scores his side's second goal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Barcelona and Espanyol at Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

Barcelona's Lamine Yamal scores during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between Espanyol and Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to Americans on the war with new missile attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf Arab states Thursday, underlining Tehran’s insistence that it rejected Washington’s outreach for a ceasefire while maintaining its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain planned to hold a call Thursday with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime. The 35 countries, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. The call will discuss “diplomatic and political measures” that could restore shipping once the fighting is over.

Washington has insisted that Iran allow ships to freely transit the strait, but Trump this week has said it is not up to the U.S. to force it, and in his address encouraged countries that receive oil through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”

In his address, Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” while also insisting American “core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”

Iran's military said defiantly on Thursday that its armament facilities are hidden and will never be reached by Israeli or American attacks.

“The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant,” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.

Just before Trump began his nearly 20-minute address on Wednesday, explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage. Less than a half hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was working to intercept incoming missiles.

Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.

Following a joint statement in March condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels that called upon Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait,” the 35 signatories were to hold a virtual meeting Thursday hosted by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Though the oil and gas that typically transits the Strait of Hormuz primarily is sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region that were joining.

“Trump’s message was that the United States can sustain its own economic and energy ecosystem, while countries dependent on regional exports will either have to buy from the United States or manage the Strait themselves,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote after the address.

“While Trump explicitly thanked U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf for their cooperation and allyship, an expedited U.S. withdrawal without securing the strait will leave many of these countries, whose economies are dependent on energy exports, in the lurch.”

No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while the war is raging. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the group “will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities.”

Bahrain, which now holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has been working to get the world body to address the crisis as well.

Though Iran has allowed a trickle of ships through the strait, it remains largely closed. Iran has also been repeatedly attacking Gulf Arab energy infrastructure, sending oil prices skyrocketing and giving rise to broader economic problems worldwide.

Following Trump's speech, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in early spot trading, up nearly 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war with their attacks on Iran.

The rising energy prices and stock market jitters have been putting increasing domestic pressure on Trump, who used his address to offer a defense of the war while also suggesting it was close to winding down.

He acknowledged American service members who had been killed and said: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”

The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation from the U.S.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.

Weissert reported from Washington and Rising reported from Bangkok.

The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)