Barcelona's Dominance in LaLiga: Figo's Insights

Barcelona’s perfect storm is turning heads in all the wrong places in Madrid.

Seven games, seven wins. Twenty-one points from 21. Thirty-one goals scored and a six-point cushion over Real Madrid. Hansi Flick has not just landed at Barcelona; he has detonated a statement at the top of LaLiga.

And one of the men watching most closely is a figure who knows both sides of this rivalry better than most: Luis Figo.

Figo’s reluctant admiration

Speaking to Radio MARCA, the former winger, now a UEFA adviser and still indelibly linked with Real Madrid, did something that never comes easy in the Spanish capital: he praised Barcelona.

“They have started very strong. They're winning, they're playing very well, they're scoring goals,” Figo said, summing up a start to the season that has felt relentless rather than merely impressive.

From the outside, Barcelona look sharp, ruthless, almost liberated under Flick. The numbers back it up, and so does the football. High tempo, constant pressure, goals from everywhere. Even a Real Madrid legend can’t ignore it.

But Figo knows this league too well to get swept away.

“You have to see how the season goes, which is very long,” he warned, pulling the handbrake on early-season euphoria before adding that such a level benefits the entire division. “For Spanish football, logically, it is good.”

Barcelona’s rise, in his eyes, is not just a threat to Real Madrid. It is a standard the rest must chase.

Madrid, bruised but not beaten

Six points behind and already playing catch-up, Real Madrid are under early pressure. Figo, though, refused to sound any alarm bells.

“Surely Madrid will compete until the end. This is a competition that has to be regular until May. There will be highs and lows during the season,” he insisted.

That word — regular — matters. LaLiga is not a sprint. It exposes flaws, tests depth, punishes complacency. Figo has lived it from inside the dressing room. He knows that the title rarely belongs to the team that shines in September; it goes to the one that survives February and finishes May with something left in the legs and in the head.

“When there are lows you have to have the maturity and also the quality to overcome them and move on,” he added.

It sounded less like commentary and more like a reminder aimed squarely at the Bernabéu. Barcelona may be flying, but Figo expects Madrid to drag this race into the late spring, when experience and resilience usually start to matter more than early fireworks.

Ballon d’Or debate and the Mbappé factor

Away from the league table, Figo stepped into another battleground: the Ballon d’Or.

With voting closing on Monday, the former winner chose not to plant his flag behind any one candidate, even as names swirl around the game.

“Who has the power to decide is the one who votes. You have to wait to see what happens. I don't vote, so I don't have that problem in my head,” he said, swerving the usual partisan endorsements.

He did, however, single out Kylian Mbappé.

“He is always at a very high level. He's one of the best in the world, to score goals,” Figo concluded.

No bold prediction. No campaign speech. Just a clear nod to a forward who continues to define big moments and big nights.

A new generation pushing through

While Figo kept his Ballon d’Or view neutral, the public conversation is anything but.

Lamine Yamal, the Barcelona teenager electrifying the season, currently leads the trends. His rise has been so sharp that his name now sits in the same breath as established stars. Alongside him, Barcelona teammate Rodri and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane are also in the running, each carrying a different profile, a different case, a different kind of season behind them.

The awards will sort themselves out soon enough. The league will not.

Barcelona have thrown down an early marker under Flick. Figo has seen enough to applaud it, but not enough to concede anything. Madrid, he insists, will be there in May.

If Barcelona keep this pace and Madrid find their response, LaLiga is heading for the kind of title race Figo himself once helped define.