Hansi Flick has supercharged Barcelona with intensity and intelligence

By premiernews On Sep 19, 2024

There have been 17 goals and hundreds of free-flowing attacking moves to choose from, but perhaps the most symbolic moment of Hansi Flick’s early reign at Barcelona came during a rare lull in play last Sunday.

Six minutes after Dani Olmo’s strike put Barca 3-0 up at Catalan rivals Girona — a side who beat them comprehensively both home and away last season — the home side’s Alejandro Frances played an awkward crossfield pass. As the ball bounced towards his team-mate Miguel Gutierrez in space, Olmo tore across the pitch and nodded it out of play to raucous applause from the travelling supporters.

Not only has there been buy-in from the players, the high tempo and refreshing intensity of Flick’s methods seem to have reached the stands, galvanising a group of fans long pacified by patient, possession football that has, in recent years at least, flattered to deceive.

This Barcelona are not just running harder, they are also running smarter. Co-ordinated without the ball but dynamic and direct with it, there is real optimism that another title-tussle with Real Madrid is beginning to take shape despite all the early talk about Madrid’s inevitable dominance after signing Kylian Mbappe this summer.

We are just over a month into Flick’s tenure at Barca and this comes with the important caveat that things can quickly change. The German manager himself framed his team’s 7-0 win over Real Valladolid on August 31 as “only the fourth game”. Even so, the processes underpinning Barcelona’s dominant start to the new season are exciting, with incisive passing from defence consistently able to find technical midfield players in pockets of space and dangerous forward runners in behind.

In the build-up, the most common approach is to see Alejandro Balde push down the left while opposite full-back Jules Kounde tucks in to form a back three. Just in front, there is a sole midfield receiver — 17-year-old Marc Bernal before his cruciate ligament injury, Marc Casado since — ghosting behind the first line of the opposition press to provide the option to progress through the centre of the pitch.

Further ahead, with Balde and Lamine Yamal holding the width to open up passing lanes between opponents, there are as many as four players between the lines, constantly rotating to make it difficult for their markers to track.

From this setup, the line-breaking abilities of 17-year-old centre-back Pau Cubarsi, on the ball in the image above (from Barca’s 2-1 victory over Athletic Bilbao on August 24), have been given a platform to shine.

Only two players — team-mate Inigo Martinez and Girona’s Daley Blind — can beat his 28.3 forward passes per game this season, but it’s the difficulty of the passes he can pull off, fizzing the ball upfield at a variety of angles, that keeps Barcelona moving up the pitch.

Against a more compact block, as against Valladolid in the example below, Cubarsi not only spots a subtle change in direction from Olmo up ahead but fires a crisp pass into his feet that breaks two lines, allowing the midfielder to turn and face up to the back four.

In the next image below, again against Athletic, as the opposition push up, his options are rapidly narrowing, the press forcing him into a sideways or backwards pass. Instead, he suddenly whips the ball back across his body and towards Raphinha, who has time and space to turn and run at the defence.

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Able to escape pressure with a variety of passes, Cubarsi’s range makes opponents think twice about pressing high and potentially opening up any gaps, allowing Barcelona to push forward and dominate the flow of the game themselves.

His fellow centre-back, Martinez, has grown into a more expansive, ball-playing role, too, and is the player with the most passes completed and the second-most progressive passes in La Liga so far this term. The movement of Barcelona’s No 8s — Raphinha and Olmo in particular — have consistently given the pair targets to hit.

As we can see from the graphic below, Raphinha has drifted all across the final third to pick up the ball in the left and right channels, whereas Olmo’s ability to find pockets of space means he is happy to pick up the ball in deeper, more central areas — as well as to sprint in behind.

Creating such seamless connections between defence and attack, equally happy to punch through the centre as they are out wide, has really allowed Barcelona’s build-up to thrive.

Raphinha makes a strong case for being the player who has benefitted most from Barca’s managerial change from Xavi to Flick. His attitude, along with the verticality his off-the-ball running provides, is emblematic of how the former Bayern Munich and Germany coach wants Barcelona to play.

Tracking data from SkillCorner tells us that Raphinha has covered more distance at a high intensity (speeds of over 20km/h) than any other player in the Spanish top flight this season, while he made 21 runs in behind against both Valladolid and Athletic, another La Liga high.

Those movements often help to create space for others in the centre of the pitch, as against Valladolid in the sequence of images below. This time, Kounde and Balde have pushed on, while Casado drops deeper to receive the ball — an example of how Barcelona can adapt their shape in-play to pack even more players between the lines.

Raphinha tears in behind and even though his run is not picked out, space opens up in what was once a congested part of the pitch.

Such movement around Lewandowski, who often cut a lonely figure at the top of the team last season, means the 36-year-old striker is much more connected.

Six minutes later and Raphinha is at it again — this time a floated ball finds him over the top from Cubarsi. The value of those positional interchanges is again on show, as Lewandowski points to the space he has just vacated for Raphinha to exploit.

A mention for Yamal, too. The 17-year-old is the player with the most touches in the attacking third in La Liga this season. He is an effortless creator when he can drift in from the right flank. With so much movement to track in the middle, he often finds himself with time and space on the wing.

Injuries continue to threaten to disrupt the fluency of the attacking patterns — the hamstring strain Olmo picked up against Girona will keep him out for at least a month — but with the returns of both Frankie de Jong and Gavi on the horizon, and with Ferran Torres another pitch-stretching option, the fluidity of the four in midfield should keep things ticking over.

Without the ball, Flick has been proactive in protecting the spaces that can open up when Barcelona push high.

The main innovation has been to take some of the pressing responsibility from Lewandowski, often asking him to drop deep and block the pass into the deepest opposition midfielder instead, while wingers Raphinha and Yamal press from the front.

It’s an approach that does leave options for the opposing team — the most obvious being the clipped ball into the full-backs that Barcelona’s wingers have just left behind — but the collective effort to plug the gaps has been noticeable, with Kounde and Balde prepared to step forward should the ball break down their side.

Flick has also been willing to adapt game-by-game.

Girona’s tendency to move their full-backs inside, for example, posed a potential problem for Barcelona last weekend, particularly if they could get the talented Miguel Gutierrez on the ball in central areas.

However, with Gutierrez’s movement inside leaving Girona without the option to clip the ball to the left, that presented Barcelona with an opportunity. It was one Flick recognised and Barca’s press was adapted to force their opponents down that side again and again.

Barca kept Raphinha out wide on the opposite side to block off that alternative route, also asking Lewandowski to step up and curve his run to funnel the ball to the left.

In the image below, as Blind eventually receives the ball, Yamal has already pressed high and is covering any passes down the line, while Olmo has followed in to stop the central option.

Lewandowski’s positioning blocks off two passes across goal and Kounde is aggressive, on the heels of Gutierrez should the pass sneak through.

Blind eventually manages to turn and clear the ball down the line under severe pressure from Yamal…

… but then it is Cubarsi, quick to step into the wide area that Kounde has vacated, who snuffs out the pass and forces Arnaut Danjuma into a mistake.

Going man-for-man so high up the pitch requires the whole team to follow, but there have been encouraging signs that players are up for the physical challenge, particularly down the right side.

The extra responsibility seems to have unlocked a new aspect of Yamal’s game — he is the player with the most tackles (seven) and ball recoveries (eight) in the final third this season in La Liga — while Kounde’s athleticism and solidity in one-vs-one duels have also come to the fore.