Hansi Flick, 59, is a person you can win over with gestures. When he signed his contract papers as the new coach of FC Barcelona, Barça president Joan Laporta handed him two A4 sheets of paper. It was a handwritten letter with the chairman’s letterhead to dear Hansi, and in it Laporta not only wished him all the best. He also explained to him what importance Barça has for the people and society in Catalonia, and what responsibility he places in Flick’s hands. From that moment on, Flick was no longer the Bayern coach who had destroyed FC Barcelona 8-2 in August 2020. Flick was part of the family – and is now paying back.
SZ Plus Bayern defeat in Barcelona
:Hazard warning lights for the Kompany system
The 1:4 against Hansi Flick’s FC Barcelona would also have to question the radical approach of the new coach at FC Bayern. But Bayern are defending themselves against this impression with various strategies.
A 4-1 win against FC Bayern in the Champions League, as Barcelona celebrated on Wednesday on the Montjuïc hill, is not the kind of success that clubs like Barça write on their letterhead. But it heals souls and has features of catharsis. The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya announced that it wanted to make space for a new work of art: a screenshot of Thomas Müller sulking on the bench, on which the timestamp (61:04) and the interim result could be seen in the upper left corner , which ultimately resulted in the final score: BAR 4 – BAY 1.
No one contributed more to the victory than Raphinha Dias Belolli, 27, who grew up in a favela in Porto Alegre, Brazil, matured as a footballer at Vitoria Guimarães and Sporting Lisbon in Portugal, at Stade Rennes in France, at Leeds United in England. When the game was over, it wasn’t the stylized ball of stars, the trophy for the game’s best player, that elevated him above all the other players in the game. The true honor was that his teammates threw him in the air.
Raphinha had scored three of the four goals, and on the evening of his best of a hundred competitive games he was a bayonet made flesh of the “symbolic, unarmed army of Catalonia,” as the late writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán always called his Barça. Last summer there was hope in Barcelona that Raphinha could be convinced to move to Saudi Arabia, then they would at least earn part of the 58 million euros that they transferred to Leeds United in 2022. Then came Hansi Flick.
“I’ve never had a player like that,” he said, and in Barcelona they now think so too. Raphinha is “a good example of how this team works” because he is “always in a good mood”, “gives his all in every training session, has a very high intensity” and no matter whether he is working against the ball or scoring goals himself prepared, showing “good dynamism,” said Flick on a Wednesday when he seemed particularly relaxed, happy and talkative. He only seemed reserved when asked one question: when he was asked whether he felt satisfaction at having shown Bayern.
For heaven’s sake, said Flick, the past can no longer be changed, so it’s better to leave it alone. Because the question was of course aimed at the fact that he was about to return to FC Bayern in the summer. Was sure, too his return to the club. At least that’s how he felt. In any case, communication broke down at some point and Flick did not take over FC Bayern. Instead, he became a ghostbuster in Catalonia’s capital – the man who helped Barça banish ghosts of the past. The 8-2 disgrace in Lisbon now hurts less in Barcelona. “Flick has paid his debt,” wrote El Periódico de Catalunya.
Flick finds a new position for Raphinha
To be precise, he has been doing this for weeks. Under him, Barça won eleven games in 13 games and only lost in Pamplona and Monaco. And they celebrate that Hansi’s “Flicki-Flacka” (Sky) follows different ideological dogmas than what became famous as Tiki-taka. A counter-attacking and pressing machine called Barça, which only had 40 percent possession of the ball, played 377 passes, 188 fewer than FC Bayern, ran significantly more than the opponent (126 to 120 kilometers), took advantage of four out of four chances, and received homage : Who would have thought?
The fact that this works has a lot to do with the persuasive work that Flick does. For example at Raphinha. Raphinha said on the eve of his 100th game with Barça that he had undergone a “mental and tactical” change with Flick. During the preparatory tour in the USA, Flick had taken Raphinha aside, given him a new role – and convinced him that he would be better off leaving his traditional position (and now occupied by a young giant called Lamine Yamal) as a right winger, behind the top should orientate himself: “I knew that I would have to get used to other positions if I wanted to triumph in this club.”
As Raphinha stood in front of a bouquet of radio microphones on Wednesday, he spoke words that revealed what his appearance didn’t even begin to express: unbridled pride. He himself has now scored nine goals in 13 competitive games, while former Bavarian Robert Lewandowski, who was healthy by Flick, now has 15 goals thanks to his goal to make it 2-1. “Winning in this way in front of our fans is very special,” said Raphinha, “because it was also a test to calibrate the good start to the season.” The next test is on Saturday, at Real Madrid, in the Clásico the Spanish league. Gradually they think further. Raphinha was asked what else could be expected from Flick’s Barcelona. “There are no words for it,” he said. Just actions, and they showed them on the pitch.
