Luis Enrique: Barcelona failure to win Champions League does not spoil glorious season

A hat-trick from Luis Suarez in a 3-0 win at Granada sealed back-to-back titles under Enrique and a 24th Spanish championship for Barca as Zinedine Zidane's Real came up agonisingly short despite Cristiano Ronaldo's double in a 2-0 success at Deportivo La Coruna.

Yet there will be some envious glances from the Barca camp when fierce foes Madrid bid for an 11th European Cup against city rivals Atletico on May 28 in Milan.

By that time, Barca could have completed the Liga and Cup double in Spain. Enrique's side face Sevilla in the final of the Copa del Rey at the Vicente Calderon next Sunday, a match they will be strongly fancied to win against a side who will contest the Europa League final with Liverpool in Basel only four days earlier.

Astonishingly, some commentators will point to a crucial slump in Barca's fateful form in April when they lost three Liga matches and the Champions League quarter-final defeat to Atletico as a sequence of results that took some of the shine off their season.

It ended their prospects of repeating last year's golden haul when they won Liga, the Copa del Rey, the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup.

But Barca finished the league season scoring 24 goals and compiling five straight wins. In Luis Suarez, they possessed Liga's highest scorer with a whopping 40 goals from 35 matches.

Enrique said his side and the supporters should be "very happy" with how the season has worked out for the club.

"We played very well over the full season, were many weeks on top of the table, and the most consistent team wins the title," said Enrique. "I am very happy for all Barca fans, for our families and the club.

"People suffer a lot in some moments, and now we have won six of the last eight titles -- which shows this club has a winning mentality.

"We must value each title win, it is worth a lot."

Enrique dismissed suggestions Barca were feeling bad about failing to become the first club to win back-to-back Champions League titles since the modern inception of the tournament in 1992.

"We know how difficult it is to win trophies -- it costs other teams a lot. In history just two teams have previously won consecutive doubles.

"We always set high objectives for ourselves -- and we will keep doing that.

“If you win the League, you can’t say it’s been a bad season because it’s the trophy for consistency.

“It shows that you’ve been at a very high level all season. If you think you’ve had a bad season then forget it.

“This league needs to be appreciated and enjoyed as it deserves. It was a very tough campaign and it took a lot out of us.

“I ask the fans to celebrate in style, including on the street, but in moderation.

"I’m boring at 46, but I know my players are preparing a big party.”

Defender Gerard Pique praised Barcelona's resilience.

"We've had to win the league twice, we were so far ahead and we thought we had it wrapped up," said Pique.

"Then it looked as if we'd lost it although we always had it in our hands. Twenty years ago Barca would have lost this league because we've drowned in our own pessimism many times.

"This generation has changed that, this is a winning team, one that can stand up and be counted, a team you can rely on."

On an evening of Eurovision, Barca will feel naturally disappointed when they reflect on their own Eurovision. Luis Enrique's free-scoring and freewheeling side remain wonderful to watch, but it is easy to forget they are only human. Even for Barca, enjoying back-to-back clean sweeps was always a huge task due to the ferocious competition in the global game, and it was unfortunate that they ran into a lull in form when they were confronting Atletico in the last eight of the Champions League.

Diego Simeone's team are not the type of unit who were likely to cave in and so it proved as discipline, supreme organisation and clinical finishing proved enough to end Barca's hope of another historic season. Yet to try to paint a season when they could end up with another domestic double in Spain as a failure is really a massive compliment to Barca's ongoing brilliance.

After winning everthing in sight one season, the only way is down. This Barca side are hardly on the way down if they are being judged on winning European Cups. Their magnificence is also illustrated by how they held their nerve after allowing Real and Atletico a view of an unlikely title success in Spain.

As Luis Enrique points out, to judge Barca's season as anything other than a resounding success would be like trying to suggest Lionel Messi should be disappointed with 26 goals from 33 Liga outings. It is as ridiculous as it sounds.