Two weeks after lifting the World Cup with Spain, Joan García has already fixed his sights on the next prize: winning the Champions League with Barcelona for the first time.
"I've been at Barcelona for a year. We won La Liga and the Spanish Super Cup, and this year I won the World Cup, so obviously the objective for next season is the Champions League," the 25-year-old goalkeeper said, according to ONE. "The World Cup is the biggest trophy in international football, and the Champions League is the closest equivalent at club level."
García was one of eight Barcelona players in Spain's World Cup-winning squad, and started as Spain beat Argentina in the final in the United States on July 19. It capped a rapid rise for a goalkeeper who was playing for Espanyol little more than a year earlier, before Barcelona activated his release clause in June 2025.
His first season at Camp Nou delivered the league title and the Spanish Super Cup, but the Champions League was where it went wrong: Barcelona were eliminated by Atlético Madrid in the quarter-finals, and García failed to keep a single clean sheet in nine European appearances - part of a wider slump that saw the club go a club-record run of matches in the competition without shutting out an opponent.
That history is presumably part of why García is careful to frame the coming season's target with caution rather than certainty. "It has to be somewhere in the middle," he said. "Becoming obsessed isn't good, because the negative effect can be very big if you don't achieve the objective. But we have a lot of confidence that we can do it."
A sixth European Cup would put Barcelona level with the very top of the competition's all-time roll of honour. The Catalans have lifted the trophy five times - in 1992, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015 - and currently sit alongside Liverpool and Bayern Munich, one behind record holders Real Madrid.
García also touched on speculation surrounding his teammate Ferran Torres, who has been linked with a move away from the club this summer. "He's a great player who gives us a lot both on and off the pitch," García said. "If I could choose, of course I'd keep him."
For García personally, the last thirteen months have been a near-uninterrupted ascent - from Espanyol's number one to Barcelona's undisputed starter, to a World Cup winner's medal with Spain. The Champions League, the one major trophy still missing from that run, is now the explicit target for 2026-27.
