At the end of the 2023-24 season, Raphinha got out his whiteboard and a coloured marker pen.

There was plenty to reflect upon. It had been a poor campaign for Barcelona: political and financial turmoil, a sense of drift on the pitch, no trophies. Nor was there much to celebrate on an individual level. He had shown glimpses of quality, but his manager, Xavi, did not view him as a central figure. Raphinha completed 90 minutes on just six occasions all season.

At that moment, though, he was thinking about the future. Not about the possibility of leaving Catalonia, although the idea would later cross his mind as speculation swirled during the summer transfer window. No, he was setting targets for himself, plotting a course into the hearts and minds of Barcelona fans.

On the whiteboard, which lives at his home gym, he wrote down the number of goals he wanted to score for his club in 2024-25. He wrote down the number of assists that would satisfy him. And then he wrote down the number of titles that he hoped would, 12 months later, erase the disappointment of a season lost.

Only Raphinha knows what those numbers were. We can, however, be fairly certain of one thing: he must have set the bar pretty high.

The Brazilian comes into Tuesday night’s Champions League quarter-final second leg against Borussia Dortmund with 28 goals to his name in all competitions — eight more than in his first two seasons at Barcelona combined. His tally of 20 assists is also his best since he moved to the Camp Nou in 2022.

In total, he has scored or set up 48 of Barcelona’s 146 goals in all competitions — more than Robert Lewandowski (43) or Lamine Yamal (31). In Europe’s top five leagues, only Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (55) has accumulated more goals and assists this season.

There is much more to football than brute data, of course, but these figures do tell a good deal of the story here. So, too, does Raphinha’s admission, last month, that the thought of winning the Ballon d’Or has begun to cross his mind. To call this his breakout season for Barcelona would be to undersell things by an order of magnitude.

Tactical tweaks have played a big part in Raphinha’s transformation.

In his first season at the Camp Nou, he played on the right wing. While this is his preferred position, he found the going tough. For his previous clubs, he was the king of wide-open spaces, making hay on the counter-attack; for Barcelona, who usually play against deep defences, the job involved more patience, more intricacy. The emergence of Yamal, a wriggly lock-picker, pushed Raphinha to the left, where he felt less comfortable.

Less content, too, until a rethink over the summer. “I understood that if I wanted to play for this club, I had to adapt,” he said in a press conference before the 4-1 Champions League win against Bayern Munich in October.

Although still nominally the left-sided attacker under Hansi Flick, Raphinha now has more of a hybrid role. He doesn’t stay wide and doesn’t run with the ball as much as before. Instead, he moves inside to take part in the build-up and then makes darting runs beyond Lewandowski. The graphic below, which uses tracking data from SkillCorner, illustrates the extent to which the system allows Raphinha to make the most of his pace and energy. He makes an incredible number of runs in behind and few match him when it comes to high-intensity sprints — runs where the player is moving at over 20kmh (12mph) for at least 0.7 seconds.

Raphinha’s roaming has two effects. In the first instance, it creates space for team-mates: opponents are drawn away from Yamal on the left, while Lewandowski — not the physical force he once was — is able to work in the little pockets of space that appear around the edge of the penalty box. It also brings Raphinha into more dangerous positions. He is shooting as much as in previous seasons, but from more central areas and closer to goal.

When it comes to assists, it is worth nothing that Raphinha’s numbers are ever so slightly down compared to last season (0.48 assists per 90 minutes vs 0.51). But this is more a factor of his team-mates’ finishing than it is of creativity: his expected assists (how many assists a player can be expected to make from the passes he plays) per 90 has actually risen significantly. Overall, there has been a marked improvement in his final product.

Off the ball, Raphinha does not track back as much as in previous seasons: he has averaged 0.28 tackles per 90 in his own defensive third, down from 0.59 last season. Instead, he is the man to set the tone further up the pitch, triggering the Barcelona press and generally making a nuisance of himself. “He always plays at high intensity,” Flick said in a press conference after the Bayern game. “I have never had a player like him.”

The appreciation is mutual. Raphinha has spoken about the confidence Flick has given him and about his personal touch: when Brazil were knocked out of the Copa America last summer, it was the German who called him, telling him not to make any decisions about his future before reporting for pre-season training.

Nor was that the only boost to Raphinha’s ego. In August, after a vote by Barcelona’s first-team players, he was named one of five club captains — a reflection of his standing in the squad. His leadership qualities have really come to the fore in the months since, both on the pitch — witness him sticking up for Yamal after he was on the end of a heavy challenge by Villarreal’s Sergi Cardona in September — and off it. He is seen as a role model by younger team-mates; Flick describes him as “always smiling, always positive”.

You could never accuse Raphinha of not caring, even as he was struggling last season, but he admits there is a difference in him this season. “If I was working at 100 per cent before,” he said in October, “I’m at 200 per cent now.”

Raphinha’s form has not just lifted Barcelona, it has also brought his name into a wider conversation.

It is hard to think of a European club — with the possible exception of Shakhtar Donetsk — whose history has been defined to such a degree by Brazilian players. Brazilian attackers, specifically, have formed a particularly strong bloodline at the Camp Nou.

The big five here are Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho — more Rs than a pirate convention — and Neymar. If you had, a year ago, asked 100 Barcelona fans whether Raphinha might one day be placed in that pantheon, you’d have been laughed out of town. Today, though? It’s not a completely outrageous question.

This season has already lifted Raphinha above Romario and Ronaldo when it comes to total goals and assists for the Blaugrana. Granted, the latter pair were at the club for a good time rather than a long time, but longevity has its benefits. Another campaign or two like this one and Raphinha will be creeping up towards Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and Neymar in the table above.

As an individual campaign, it also stands up. Raphinha’s goal and two assists in the first leg against Dortmund took him past Romario and Rivaldo’s best efforts. Ronaldinho is also within reach. Ronaldo’s tally of 60 in his sole season for Barcelona looks bullet-proof, but it is worth remembering that Raphinha may yet play as many as 12 more matches in 2024-25. There is scope here for something really special.

Greatness, of course, is as much about intangibles — tone, feeling, connection, context — as it is about numbers. Ronaldinho’s playground ebullience captured Catalan hearts in a manner that could never be boiled down to data. Romario was raffish and part of a beloved team. Rivaldo guided Barcelona through a tricky transitional period with stoicism and poise. Neymar played in what was probably the greatest front three in the history of club football. Even Ronaldo, who left after a year and later joined Real Madrid, commands a grudging respect.

This isn’t to undermine Raphinha. If anything, it improves his case. His starting position as an underdog makes his current status at the club all the more impressive. He may be a more businesslike player than, say, Ronaldinho, but supporters appreciate his grit and application as much as his colleagues do.

Trophies, of course, are also a factor. Ronaldo’s personal season for the ages yielded Cup Winners’ Cup and Copa del Rey medals, but no league title. Both Romario and Rivaldo won La Liga (once and twice respectively) but failed get over the line in Europe. Ronaldinho and Neymar fared best on the silverware front with two league titles and one Champions League win apiece.

Barcelona won La Liga in May. This season, everything is yet to be decided. They are still alive in three competitions, still have a shot at a historic treble — especially if their No 11 continues to tear it up like the great Brazilians of previous years.

Will they win La Liga? The Copa del Rey? The Champions League? All of that is still unwritten. Unless Raphinha put it up on his whiteboard last summer.