The new season could be really tough, especially in CL. Not that I have bad feelings about Valverde. Let's just wait for his press conference and our activities on the transfer market. The competition in CL will be harder considering which of the English teams will take part this year. Arsenal is a joke for years, Leicester was a one hit wonder and Pep's squad wasn't balanced yet.
United and City will spend big on the transfer market, you can expect some good transfers of Liverpool and Chelsea too. Chelsea/Liverpool are kind of a question mark as they had no international games this season. They will have to manage their squads differently next season, but they have lots of money to strenghten their squads. Conte's international record doesn't impress me, but Chelsea was always a tough opponent for Barça. Mou's teams/style too. Liverpool fucked us in last preseason. I know, it was just a friendly, but the losses vs PSG and Juve reminded me of this game.
We really missed a good chance this year as it will be way more difficult to win CL next year. I gotta admit though that Juve is a good team and you can withdraw against them over 2 games.
I never thought about this, but now that I think about it, you are definitely right. The CL is going to be a huge pain next year. Mou, Pep, Conte, Klopp, all very tactically astute managers who will give us a hard time if we play against them. It's unfortunate Arsenal isn't in the CL next year. We always do well against them.
Feels to me Valverde is coming into the club with a lot of pressure. Personally, I will be happy if we just take La Liga next year while showing some signs of playing good, organized, football. Making the CL semis will be a nice achievement considering we struggled so much to do so under Lucho. CDR I don't really care much about, feels like we always win that meaningless trophy.
I really hope he doesn't crack. Lucho is a mentally strong character (his stubbornness is both a pro and a con) but I'm not sure how Valverde will deal with a lot of criticism from the restless Catalan media and a locker room full of big egos.