Barcelona Will Continue to Show Desire and Hunger in Pursuit of Treble Dream

If there is one thing that marks this Barcelona side out from any other it is their incredible desire to keep winning football matches.

Against Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night, the visitors had their chances to make a game of it, but they weren't clinical enough in the final third—precisely the opposite of the Catalans.

The final score was 3-1, but it could so easily have been two or three more if the hosts had stepped things up a notch.

Now 38 games unbeaten, just six more will see them set a new all-time European record, but that's not on the manager's mind at this point.

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Ben Hayward of Goal noted Luis Enrique's words after the recent victory against Sevilla, the last team to beat them in any competition: "It means nothing. If we win titles, it will mean a lot. If we don't win anything, then it will mean very little."

He's correct, of course, but this crop of players will surely want to write their names all over footballing history. More so than they have already.

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Into the Copa del Rey final, eight points ahead in La Liga and now in the quarter-final draw for the Champions League—the latter for the ninth season in a row. No other team has managed the feat on more than seven consecutive occasions.

Villarreal are next on the league horizon and then the big one—El Clasico against Real Madrid on April 2.

Both games will test the Blaugrana's credentials, but at present it appears that Barca just have a different level than anyone else.

Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez all made the right decisions when it mattered.

Arsenal were offered hope for a quarter-hour after a fine equaliser, with the home side's back line at sixes and sevens at times.

Jeremy Mathieu in particular placed his team in trouble on more than one occasion, but each time Javier Mascherano got his colleague and his team out of danger.

Gerard Pique's return for the next round should be greeted warmly because the Catalans are a more compact, solid and calm defensive unit with him around.

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He, along with every other player, will continue with this insatiable hunger for wins and trophies. 

Despite already winning everything on offer in the game in Pique's case, and almost everything for Messi et al, the mental strength from every member of the squad has never wavered.

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Average position, ball touches and pass combinations for Barcelona vs Arsenal. Crazy stuff! pic.twitter.com/1OvYWuwakM

— BARÇA NÚMEROS (@barcanumbers) March 16, 2016"

Physical issues have peppered this Barca season, but a lack of mental tiredness and the capacity to just keep going has arguably been a big part of what has seen the Blaugrana go on this unbeaten run.

The hardest part of any sport is keeping performances at a level that allows you to stay at the very top year after year. Only a few individuals and teams of one description or another manage to achieve it.

In football terms there's certainly not been a team that comes anywhere close to Barcelona over the last seven or eight years.

Two trebles and one Copa del Rey final defeat away from another. One sextuple—the only time the feat has been achieved in history. The list of honours is practically endless, but it's still not enough. 

There remains a lot of conjecture as to whether this team is actually the best club side ever, and too much subjectivity is involved to truly have that crown adorn this crop of players.

But if, as Enrique says, that trophies are the barometer of success, his Barca are right up there alongside the great and the good of the beautiful game.

And they still want still to achieve.