After ordering all its players to leave to celebrate the title of the League to the Costume of the Espanyol stadium-they defeated 0-2 to win the championship-Hansi Flick gave the prominence to the squad. He remained in the background, with no more spotlights than when he let himself be kept for his boys and that a conversation relaxed with Joan Laporta about the different treatment that the template propitiated: one, discreet, they looked for him to elevate him through the air; On the other, omnipresent, they found him to wet him. “His relationship with Jan explains how Hansi understood the club. With a president too present, Flick always kept distance. LapTa never questioned anything,” they explain from the board.
The night was enough that he won the League to understand Flick in Barça: he tactically corrected the team after a first time without brightness, he understood how the celebrations had to be managed on Cornellà’s grass and retained the right distance, neither so close nor so far, with respect to the mandamases, as well as with the players. And, as if that were not enough, he controlled the speech in the press room: “It is everyone’s triumph. We know what had happened here two years ago (the field invasion of the Spanish radicals when Barça de Xavi celebrated the League). We had to have respect for the rivals.” Flick, in short, controlled the scene, sports and non -sports, indispensable foundations to win at Barça.
Flick turned 60 at the head of a hot bench like the culé. An experienced guy with two experiences impossible not to internalize for the technician: the German team and the Bayern.
In the World Cup in Qatar, he forced an until then apolitic guy to manage policy: the bracelet of the rainbow of Manuel Neuer. “It is a pity that we can no longer defend human rights,” complained before the premiere of Mannschaft against Japan. The ideological load was conditioned to the German expedition and Flick suffered. A key learning for a club loaded with politics and ideology such as Barça. The German raffled each of the extra -sports conflicts: from the controversial inscriptions of Dani Olmo, to the ramks against LaLiga.
Hansi Flick learned of everything without obsessing anything. “Read what is said in Germany and have people who control the most important of what is said here,” summary from the sports area. The relationship with the press is another of its changes. While his passage through Germany was as close as accessible, in Barcelona it has only limited himself to being close.
Same warm with journalists who, with fans, exemplary citizen of the Sant Gervasi neighborhood, Flick has been impenetrable. “In intimacy you can speak in Spanish, but prefers to handle in English,” says an employee. It is his way of staying allegedly isolated, when he knows he is not.
If in Germany he suffered external policy, in Bayern, the internal. His confrontation to Hasan Salihamidzic, sports director, precipitated the departure of a club in which he had achieved the Sextete in 2020. “They think too differently,” he revealed, at the time, his friend Matthäus.
In Barça it happened just the opposite: its relationship with Deco is key. “We knew that, improving the coach, the thing could change,” warned the sports director. It was precisely the first to make contact with Flick. In May 2024, Deco traveled to London to meet him. At that meeting, Flick was presented with a detailed report of the Barca staff. He explained the details and roles to change, in addition to showing a deep knowledge of the most important Canteranos. Flick had not only studied Barça, he had also gone through the oracle: he visited Guardiola in Mercanster. When he returned to Barcelona, Deco concluded: “This guy is a football coach.”
There were aspects, in any case, which worried those responsible for the Sports Directorate: “According to reports, it was not a tactical genius,” says an employee of the Barca sports area. Gündogan, then, in the club, and Ter Stegen validated this theory. Flick’s fort, on the other hand, was the management of the costumes. But in the offices another question arose: “A manager who does not speak Spanish?” The distance of the language shortened it with nonverbal language: affectionate, close, sincere. “A group of young people with a hunger of crazy people were led by a paternalistic, ambitious and hardworking technician. The perfect storm,” explains a manager.
Input, the clear rules reigned. Players like Koundé, Iñaki Peña and Fort were sanctioned for arriving late at the technical talks. Then, he wove an individual contact. Ansu Fati, for example, prepared a motivational video after the winter market; While, players like Araujo and Eric García, regular alternates, were always honest and clear about their intentions. “I can’t complain about anything. He always was face to me,” the Uruguayan told his surroundings.
In a group of 23 players, however, there is no lack of discrepants. There are those who believe that the rules were strict until Lamine Yamal broke them – “What would you have done? Did you leave out the child?”, Replicate from the board -, as well as those who felt betrayed as Iñaki Peña. “He defended him more about the account. The reports said that Szczęsny had better numbers. Iñaki gave him the perfect excuse when they were late,” they clarify from the sports area. The voice also raised the four F (Ferran, Fati, Fermín and Fort). “There is a group of 13 or 14 players in which he trusts and the rest we go behind,” complained one of the relegated.
Only nine players played more than 50% of the minutes. That is, more than 2,610 minutes. Flick, meanwhile, does not analyze it in the same way. “We have 17 or 18 plugged players,” he said. And, according to reinforce from the sports area, it was enough to see the quality and intensity of training to endorse the technician’s thesis. “For more good atmosphere in a template, substitutes always want to play more. It is normal,” they concluded from the sports direction.
Beyond Lewandowski, a lonely guy until Szczęsny appeared, the Barca group has always been united. Few clearest examples than the public ride by Olmo, Eric, Iñigo and Pedri after winning the league to visit Ferran Torres, operated on appendicitis at the Barcelona hospital. There are also other less viral, such as the Life Councils of Araujo and Raphinha to Lamine or the unconditional support of Balde to Ansu Fati. “In the costumes there is a special environment. They take care of each other and that I love,” concludes Flick.
Nobody was surprised by the technician’s ability to regenerate a dressing room sunk with Xavi. “Hansi has changed to this team,” group leaders agree. But it turned out that the change was mood, but also tactical. And, in that aspect, they are surprised. “It is true that some of us contact Bayern players and the selection we knew to ask for Hansi. The references were not spectacular, but here we have worked very well,” explain the same sources as the costumes.
Flick has dedicated many hours to planting a defensive line with an average height of 34 meters. “At first, I gave vertigo. But I think we do it very well,” says Pedri. And, as if that were not enough, from collective efforts and individual talks, Flick has managed to exploit the best version of Raphinha, Jong and Koundé in Barcelona. Pedri was again Pedri, protected Lamine and Lewandowski recalled his relationship with the goal (40).
He has dominated the tactics of the team and the self -esteem of the locker room, has managed the club’s policy and has seduced the environment. All with the same recipe with which he has controlled a difficult guy to control as lamp: a little far away, a little close. What two legends such as Koeman and Xavi could do, a German coach did without further as Barca than his admiration for Cruyff: to dominate the Barcelona scene, Laporta rested in Hansi Flick.
