Dani Olmo: “Winning the World Championship changes you, changes your life”

DAni Olmo nods at his right hand. “Look: goosebumps,” he says. The Spanish midfielder sits in the back room of Barcelona’s Joan Gamper training ground and tries to pinpoint the moment when he realized he had become a world champion. “I have an image in my head of Ferran. [Torres]mom: hugs her, we’re both in tears,” he says. “What your son just did… what we all did… is historic.” And that’s when you start to feel it. In these last minutes of the game this is impossible, impossiblebut when the referee blows, the thought comes to mind: “Did we do it?” “We…?” You feel it a little. When you lift the cup, a little more. And then when you see the families, when I see the reaction of my brother, my partner, my father. I’m not one to cry, but…”

But then Olmo knew and felt it: Spain was the world champion. It was July 19 in New Jersey, and it was true: Spain had beaten Argentina and nothing would ever be the same.

“It changes you, it changes your life,” Olmo says. “I’m not sure we understand it yet. [applauded] on other grounds, but we will truly understand with time. It’s like you’ve entered another dimension, into a very select group. I kept a 2010 when I was a kid. there. [Andrés] Iniesta, Xavi [Sergio] Busquets, Xabi Alonso, [David] Villa… legends. We held on to the past, longing for that generation, how happy they made us. Now it’s like, “You’re there too.”

So now it’s time to get back to work, a new generation to emulate. Twenty-three days after his victory in the USA, Olmo is back where he sits now: another session completed, another European season about to begin. The coach of his club was waiting.

What did Hansi Flick say? “You’re a world champion, Dani.” “I know, mister.” Olmo laughs at what comes next. “And now [we have to do it] with Barcelona,” he says.

Eight of Spain’s 26-man squad were Barcelona players and while Maria’s son Ferran left for Paris Saint-Germain, Rodri joined from Manchester City. What they did to their country can contribute to the success of the club, Olmo believes, just as what they did to their club contributed to the success of the entire country. Winning the World Cup changes your life; it can also strengthen an idea, and although Olmo analyzes the differences between Spain and Barcelona, ​​Flick and Luis de la Fuente, it is a triumph of idea, continuity and commitment.

“We had a very successful year: winning the league, the Super Cup… the World Cup was the finishing touch,” says Olmo. “Having a Barcelona base, high level players, competitive and ambitious, who know how to win, and good people – and I think that’s what we are – helps the national team. Whether you play a lot or a little, you are a team. This is a generation of winners at Barcelona too. We showed that in Spain; in Europe we fight for the top prize.”

This is what drives them: the Champions League has eluded them for 11 years, a whole generation has passed. There are none left since Barcelona last lifted the trophy in June 2015; Olmo has just turned 17. After leaving the academy he first joined aged nine and heading out on his own last summer, he made five substitute appearances for Dinamo Zagreb’s first team – a determined and courageous start to a journey that would eventually lead him back through RB Leipzig in 2024.

In his first season ago, he helped Barcelona to a domestic treble. Last year they became champions again. However, in Europe they lost to Inter and Atlético Madrid in the semi-finals and quarter-finals respectively. The next campaign against Feyenoord kicks off on Wednesday evening at the Camp Nou. They hope it will end at the Metropolitano in Madrid on June 5th. Lessons have been learned from successes and failures. The World Cup could bring them even closer together, Olmo said. “You can feel this extra confidence,” he says. “The Champions League is decided by small details that didn’t go our way, but the last two years were experience for the future. We were a young team.”

Were? “It’s still there,” Olmo admits. Against Athletic Bilbao last month, Barcelona fielded their youngest starting line-up at the Camp Nou, with an average age of 23.18 years. This is a special generation; it’s also one of the opportunities Olmo wasn’t sure would be open to him when he hit the road at 16. “I’m still young… I think,” says the 28-year-old. “But I feel like a veteran. La Masia is more alive than ever. Exceptional players have always emerged, but finding a place can be difficult. Thiago [Alcântara] “had incredible qualities and he had to move to Bayern to play at the highest level.”

“In my opinion, Barcelona have the best academy in the world; [Marc] Bernal, Lamin [Yamal] and now Javi Espar. Pedri is still young and has been at the top level for six or seven years. Now we have such experience. What was missing? The first year against Inter was like this: pfffit was hard [to take]. We could see ourselves in the final. Last year against Atlético… the first game was too hard for us; there were times when we let it get away from us. We are a young team, maybe you think there are no problems, nothing can go wrong. I think we realized that every detail, every minute, every sprint, every run matters. “Hey, 90 minutes, 120, do or die.” We must minimize the risk.”

Yet Barcelona live with risk, accept it. In fact, this is where they differ most from Spain. If there is a general idea, lessons that can be transferred are not quite the same, Olmo explains. He also insists that the word “risk” must be expressed in speech marks: after all, it has been successful, critical conversations about high lines and defensive weaknesses are at times too simplistic. “Flick always gives us confidence,” he says. “We believe in this idea and we will continue to do so because it brought us titles and showed that we can compete in the Champions League.

“IN choice Our queue is not that long, that’s true. De la Fuente requires pressure and intensity from us, but it is also true that we can live more in the middle block or in the mid-low block when we have to bite the bullet. Here we always try to go forward without the ball, looking for quick transitions. They are the same coaches, close to the players, their doors are open if you need anything. They are both motivators; maybe Louis, a little more. Hansi can look a little more serious, but sometimes he lets loose and cracks a joke. And the ideas are similar: attack, possession of the ball.”

Regarding the lessons learned in particular from the semi-final against Inter, where Barcelona scored six goals and did not pass, Olmo says: “Every year there are nuances, changes, adaptations. We do a good job of not being hurt by our opponents. We want to go forward, but if someone is late to close the scoring, we can remain calm. We can’t remain unprotected because one player doesn’t get there. I think we have that experience now.”

They also have Rodri, who perhaps embodies that control and that understanding better than any other Barcelona player who hasn’t even been there. Although they lost Robert Lewandowski as well as Torres and failed to sign Julian Alvarez, this is not, Olmo insists, an insurmountable problem. “There is no one in history like Robert,” he says. “But we play Raphinha at number 9. Gabriel Jesus has arrived. Hamza [Abdelkarim] things are going very well. The manager knows he also has a wildcard: me or Fermin. [López] This is the position I feel comfortable in. So he has solutions.”

“The club has done an incredible job,” adds Olmo. “Rodri, Gabriel Jesus, Karim [Adeyemi], [Anthony] Gordon has given us so much. Anthony and Karim are very fast, which helps our idea in attack, but the most important thing is the absence of the ball, which the coach really values: pressing and defending as one. And Rodri is the player who is most similar to Busquets.”

Did Olmo spend the summer trying to persuade him to come? This is a smile. “Um, it all happened really quickly,” he says. “It’s not that we wanted to talk about signings during the World Cup. But when the rumors started, we maybe sent a little message or something like that. He decided and we are so happy. He fits perfectly into our game, our system, our idea, which is like choice. It is positional and brings balance, which gives me more freedom to interpret the layout of the space. It maintains structure. We know the system is dangerous at times, but we have the experience and knowledge to decide when to act and when not to, when to watch our back. Rodri gives us that too.”

When Barcelona won the league in 2025, four players celebrated by taking city bikes and cycling along the Diagonal. It all started with Torres, whom they visited at the hospital where he was being treated for appendicitis, and although Olmo says it was the easiest way to get there, something started. In New York they hit the road again, he, Torres and Eric Garcia pedaling to the sound of sirens, which sounds a little dicey in the final days before the game of their lives. Olmo laughs. “We would wait to release the images,” he says. “But we were Very carefully and everything was fine.”

Tradition was maintained and another trophy was raised; there’s only one thing left. From Barcelona to New York. And Madrid? Olmo smiles. Incognito, perhaps wearing a mask and helmet. “We might have to download an app just in case,” he says.