Barcelona were crowned La Liga champions with three games to spare as they just about held off Levante to earn a 1-0 victory with a strike from skipper Lionel Messi.

But the title winners were a ragged bunch in the latter stages, as Levante repeatedly came close to earning a leveller which would have been warranted considering the flow of the final 30 minutes.

And ahead of the Champions League semi-final showdown, manager Ernesto Valverde has plenty of food for thought.

No Messi, no party

Although they reached the interval with the deadlock still intact, there was nothing particularly wrong with Barca’s first-half performance. They were in complete control of the game, with Levante only very rarely venturing forward, and also created plenty of chances as visiting keeper Aitor Fernandez made several decent saves.

The one criticism you could level at the team was a lack of clinical finishing, so it was just as well they had the luxury of bringing on one of the greatest goalscorers in the history of football as a half-time substitute: Lionel Messi.

With their talisman in the action, there was a sense of inevitability about Barca’s opening goal, which became a question of when rather than if. And indeed, it took only 15 minutes for Messi to make his mark, receiving a pass from Arturo Vidal to the right of goal and adroitly stepping inside a defender to curl home.

It was an entirely appropriate way for Barca to seal the title, because Messi has been head and shoulders the best player in La Liga this season, leading the competition in goals scored (34) and assists (13). This has been, truly, ‘La Liga de Messi’, so there could have been no better player to score the title-sealing goal.

Better balance without Messi?

Although Messi provided the decisive contribution with the goal to take the points and the title, it cannot be denied that Barca were a pretty chaotic sight in the latter stages, with relegation-threatened Levante causing plenty of problems going forward and only denied a late equaliser when Enis Bardhi’s shot hit the inside of the post.

Overall, Barca were much more convincing as a team during the first half, and although this can partly be attributed to Levante’s limited attacking intentions during that period it’s also easy to conclude that Messi’s introduction imbalanced the team.

The biggest problem was the wide areas, where Nelson Semedo lost his favourite ally as Ousmane Dembele switched from the right to the left flank, while the Frenchman himself was very much out of sorts and still getting back to his best after injury. Dembele looked much more dangerous on the right flank, teaming up with Semedo, while the presence of Messi is much more suited to the better associative play of Sergi Roberto at full-back.

So perhaps the biggest winners in terms of Wednesday’s game against Liverpool will be Roberto and Philippe Coutinho, who looks in much better shape to start at the moment than Dembele, although he should have scored at least once in the opening period.

If nothing else, the final stages showed that Barca have no room for complacency.

One down, two to go

The celebrations for Barca’s title triumph will soon be forgotten, with Ernesto Valverde’s men quickly turning their attentions to the chance to win more silverware in the coming weeks.

Both of Valverde’s immediate predecessors who lasted in the position for more than one season – Luis Enrique and Pep Guardiola – wrote a chapter in the club’s history books by winning a treble, and that quest now lies ahead for the current crop with the Champions League and Copa del Rey in their sights.

The domestic cup final will be played against Valencia on Saturday 25 May, but the next task for Barca, of course, is the mere matter of a Champions League semi-final clash with Liverpool with the first leg at the Camp Nou on Wednesday.

This might seem an odd claim to make for a team which has just secured the league title with three games still to play, but their season will be tinged with more than a hint of disappointment if they are unable to match their domestic supremacy on the European stage. And the fact that Valverde rested Messi for two consecutive games in the build-up to the Liverpool clash shows just how seriously they are treating their continental campaign.

It is strange, though, that Luis Suarez has started all three league games since the quarter-final win over Manchester United, and Valverde will be open to the accusation that he did not rotate enough if the Uruguayan does not look sharp against his former club on Wednesday night.