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Underwhelming feeling at Barca despite title win

By Richard Martin BARCELONA (Reuters) - Despite winning a 24th Spanish title and with a King's Cup final against Sevilla to look forward to next week, a feeling of deflation still lingers around Barcelona after falling short of their lofty pre-season ambitions. They had aspired to be the first team to win back-to-back trebles and the first side to lift the Champions League two years in a row, but a sudden loss of form cost them dear. Atletico Madrid knocked them out in the Champions League quarter-finals and will face Real Madrid in the final -- a match Barca's players will watch with a degree of envy. The 2-0 loss at Atletico was sandwiched between defeats by Real Madrid, Real Sociedad and Valencia, seriously endangering Barca's chances of winning a La Liga title they had looked certain to retain a month previously. The glum atmosphere gripping Barcelona in April was difficult to envisage when the players set off for the March international break boasting a long unbeaten run that was eventually ended by Real at 39. The media had described a feeling of 'euphoria' around the club, while coach Luis Enrique declared before the Champions League quarter-final draw: "The only team I wouldn't want to meet is Barca." How quickly the mood changed. "Everything happened all at once. We lost three league games in a row and were knocked out of the Champions League, and that left a bitter taste, because we felt we deserved to win it," Luis Suarez said last week. "But we stayed together as a team and we never lost our confidence." Javier Mascherano accused his team mates of getting caught up believing their own hype. "There comes a point when everything is distorted and your surroundings make you lose your way," he said. "Things were going well and everyone spoke about winning another treble as if it was the easiest thing in the world, when it was really an exception." Attention has already turned to next season, and Barca are reported to be on the verge of exercising their buy-back clause to secure former academy player Denis Suarez back from Villarreal for 3.25 million euros ($3.68 million). Barca will need to add more players though if they are to compete on all three fronts next season, with their over reliance on a fixed starting 11 a possible cause for their slide in form in the final phase of the campaign. Media speculation continues to link the club with Juventus pair Paul Pogba and Paulo Dybala, yet Barca are unlikely to spend seismic amounts of money on one player while they struggle to agree a new shirt sponsorship deal. Of equal importance will be negotiating new and improved contracts for Suarez, Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets and Neymar. Barca's current 35 million euro ($39.80 million) deal expires later this year, and unless the club can clinch a new deal soon, they could face a tough choice between keeping their all-star forward line together or offloading one of Suarez, Messi and Neymar and using the money to rebuild elsewhere. (Editing by Ken Ferris and Martyn Herman)