Barcelona have just completed arguably the greatest, most thrilling, unpredictable and dramatic sequence of four high-stakes matches across just 15 days that club football has ever seen.
If you’ve loved this outrageous spectacle, the bad news is that their coach, Hansi Flick, wants such football to be put to a stop. Immediately. But before you rename him Hansi the Grinch, the bitter, misanthropic green creature who stole expected goals, hear me out.
Between April 26 and May 11, we were privileged to witness a Copa del Rey final, a two-legged UEFA Champions League semifinal, two decisive periods of extra time, a total of 25 goals (many of them filthily beautiful), three different host cities (Seville, Barcelona and Milan), all followed by hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide — topped off by the magic of a teenage genius (Lamine Yamal) while two trophies (the Copa, and LaLiga) were sealed.
For the neutral, it has been the perfect antidote to woes about robotic, risk-averse players in the modern game and sterile tactics; and to legends of the sport, too, such as Thierry Henry, who recently admitted he has grown bored of football.
One of the clearest watermarks that we had seen classic soccer compressed into an unfeasibly short period was Jordi Cruyff saying, “My father would have been proud of this team.” Yet Flick really, really wants to put a stop to it.
On Sunday, he added another clear indication of how unhappy he is with the exact facet of Barcelona’s play that has made it irresistible for the neutral to watch their barnstorming, three-trophy season.
“Only all of you can decide whether we are the most enjoyable team to watch in Europe,” Flick smiled when asked about it. “For me … it’s not always fun. I’ve sometimes suffered a lot.
“This journey, which the team and I started last summer, hasn’t ended yet. I know that we have huge improvements to make in our defending. I, my staff and many of the players all know the importance of defending better. And that’s not really about the four guys who play in the last line of defense. We need much greater defensive stability. It’s not easy defending like we do and all of us commit errors, but we must learn and we must get much better.
“It just hasn’t been easy to train those improvements when all season there’s been a match to play and travel to and from, every three or four days. As far as next season is concerned, you’ll see.”
His top criticism of his players, since August, is their unwillingness to stop attacking blindly late in matches and instead manage a lead. They feel like puppies chasing a tennis ball in the park. He wants them to think like Rottweilers.
Back in November, having lost at Real Sociedad and drawn when 2-0 ahead at Celta Vigo, Flick said: “This is a very young team and we need to take more care in certain specific situations. When we were 2-0 at Celta then had a man sent off, we needed to defend much better. We always want to attack and play, but sometimes it’s enough to control possession and defend a lead really well.”
There’s another facet to what Flick wants to change, although only neutrals will hope it doesn’t happen because Barcelona fans will be outright thrilled at what he’s proposing to improve.
Sunday’s all-time thriller against Real Madrid made it six times this season (six!) that Barcelona have been two goals behind in a match (Benfica, Atlético Madrid twice, Madrid, Celta and Inter Milan — twice away from home and four times at their own stadium) but come back to draw or win.
Flick wants to take that grandstanding and chuck it in the bin. Damn him and his demanding perfectionism, right? He doesn’t want the stress and risk of having to keep on overhauling two-goal deficits.
When this season ends, it’s going to be the case that Barcelona missed out on only one of the four trophies that were available to them this season following Flick’s arrival — the big one: the Champions League.
And I know one tiny detail, which might not have registered on your radar, is on his mind from that epic elimination in Milan last week when they were leading 3-2 and heading through to the final with two minutes left. It was when Barcelona broke upfield and Yamal opted to shoot instead of conserve possession, win a throw-in, a free kick or a corner.
The teenage genius hammered his effort off Yann Sommer‘s post, with the Swiss goalkeeper completely beaten. If it goes in, then Yamal almost automatically goes direct to the Ballon d’Or ceremony to pick up the Golden Ball that I fervently hope he wins anyway.
No criticism from me for the 17-year-old attempting to absolutely kill the semifinal, but on Flick’s “Things About Which We Can Be More Ruthless” scale, it’s impactful that from the next action, after Yamal’s shot cannoned off the post, Inter stormed straight up the pitch and scored the equalizer that brought extra time and, ultimately, defeat. If he had kept the ball, played for time, would Barcelona be heading to Munich in a couple of weeks’ time to contest the Champions League final and joust for a treble? Quite possibly.
Flick has always exuded pride in his team and admiration for the players. He 100% wants them to play aesthetically beautiful and entertaining football, but he wants tiny details of mentality, intensity, grittiness and ruthlessness to upgrade.
And hence, Barcelona’s clear first priority in the upcoming transfer market is to sign a high-class central defender. They have had Jonathan Tah (a title winner with Bayer Leverkusen and a 6-foot-5 29-year-old who played a couple of times for Flick when he was in charge of Germany) at the top of their list for months. That’s partly because he’ll move on a free transfer, and Barcelona’s Financial Fair Play situation is so acute that his free-agent status is deeply attractive.
But with his current coach, Xabi Alonso, about to take over at Real Madrid (expect an announcement imminently), will Tah join him there instead? We shall see.
Flick, like all great leaders, is planning for the next campaign at a time when others are only just beginning to celebrate the current taste of victory. And he wants one of the greatest entertaining teams in modern history to morph into a version that is less dramatic, more gritty, less heart-stopping and ruthlessly stops opponents.
If he achieves it, then who can stop them next season? No one.
