Thursday, December 19, 2024, 12:33
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a work in 1886 that fits Barcelona this season like a glove. Doctor Jekyll was a scientist who created a potion with which to separate the evil side of a person. By drinking it, Edward Hyde emerged from himself, a criminal capable of committing any atrocity. Hansi Flick, 138 years later, has conceived a team capable of leaving the football planet speechless by beating almighties like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich and also capable of losing at home against Las Palmas and Leganés. It is a team with two faces .
Certainly, Barça this year has no half measures. Flick’s team is playing hard and that causes outcomes as unexpected as what happened last weekend. Barça lost by the minimum against Leganés and confirmed that it is very difficult to make predictions with a team like this. It was already just a month and a half ago when it crushed Bayern and Real Madrid in just four days in two choral exhibitions in which everything went wrong. The rival’s offsides were constant, Raphinha and Lewandowski’s chances were synonymous with goals and the players’ faces were endless smiles, like the good streak the team was going through.
It was the high point of a Barça that along the way left behind performances such as the 7-0 win against Valladolid, the 1-5 win in Villarreal or Mallorca and the important victory in Germany against Borussia Dortmund. Flick’s men have left games to remember, but lately they have alternated those performances with other more gray ones and with some that have turned black. Two weeks ago it was UD Las Palmas that brought out the blues against the Catalans with a 1-2 that already suggested that something was not going well, a diagnosis that was confirmed last weekend against Leganés.
Flick improves Xavi
Just as Doctor Jekyll changed his face when he became Edward Hyde, Barça has also lost some of its hallmarks. Against Leganés we could see a team with problems in the circulation of the ball, with difficulties in finding players between the lines and with very few alternatives against teams in a low block. Flick’s players were forced to attack from the sides and not even Raphinha and Lamine Yamal, two of the most outstanding at the beginning of the competition, were fine. They were the face of a Barça that that day seemed to have taken the potion devised by Jekyll.
The poor results of the last few days have put Barcelona in a difficult situation and have forced them to make a comparison from which Flick does not come out well. After 18 League games, the German coach has 38 points, a figure identical to what Xavi Hernández had last year and nine less than what his predecessor achieved two years ago when he won the league title.
Despite this, Joan Laporta spoke at the Barça club’s traditional Christmas toast and was positive about the future. «We could be better, but I am not one of those who likes to look back. Today, it is as if the League has started for us and we are first. “We see the glass half full,” said the head of the culé team.
