Hansi Flick fucked it big time imo.
Firstly he overused our starting players in games already confortably won even by HT and kept playing them absolutely for no reason instead rotating/resting them and give chances to the likes of Victor, Fort, Martin even Ferran particularly when he knew all to well he doesn't have quality subs for them.
Thus the starters got more and more fatigued and injury risking. The result was Lewa, Balde and Kounde all got injured in the most critical part of the season and he had to start playing the players he didn't sub even when winning confortably in LL vs. the fecking Inter in the fecking SF of CL out of them all.
Secondly, he didn't manage to make Barca able to defend Inter who is not a great attacking side by any means. Inter scored in two leggs whenever they needed it. I thought Flick learned his lesson and that the return leg won't start AGAIN from 2-0 for Inter but guess what, that's exactly what happend in both matches. Inter scored 7 goals out of 10 shots on target, that's completely unacceptable.
He also started Olmo at Milano instead of starting Fermin who could run and press more and bring Olmo when Inter was starting to get tired.
He persisted with Martin too.
Ofc individual blunders weren't on him but still, he is the first to blame for what eventually happend to the team in CL desipite individual errors.
Great post.
I was complaining about his inability to rotate since October and that we'll pay the price end of the season. And now it happened. But I'm sure his fan boys for whom he can't do anything wrong will try to say tiredness didn't play any role.
As I've said before Flick is a "sprint" manager, not a "marathon" one. He would be the best coach in history if season would last 2-3 months and he could go all in for that period with his best players. It's also the same way he won that Covid CL that still comes with a big asterisk from me (and it's not because of the 8-2). Maybe he's just not used he has to play meaningful league games in April coming from a Bayernliga where the league is basically won in August. We'll see how/if he'll adapt next season. Squad depth probably won't be much improved so he'll have to use what he'll have at his disposal better.
One thing in our favor is we won't play in CWC (ofc purely from a sporting perspective, from a financial one we could definitely use that money) so we should be more rested compared to Madrid and most other top European teams who have better squad depth. But if I see us beating a newly promoted team 7-0 again in September/October and Flick still playing Lamine and Raphinha full 90 minutes then I'll know he has not learned anything.
People here were defending Flick and saying he only rests players when his staff (physios/doctors) tell him to do that. There was a story that dr. Minarro (RIP) told Lewa he won't play in that Osasuna game that was later ofc rescheduled. So don't know if he was the one responsible to tell Flick which players he thinks are fit to play and who needs a rest (and ofc I don't want to bad mouth a dead man) but Flick should also know better.
Not many players are tired in November but they will be in April when their minutes accumulate. And starting to rest them late in the season is mostly just a damage control. He should prevent that from the start. And at the same time give fringe players a chance to also prove themselves or at least "keep them warm" in case they will be needed. Not that you then get to the Valladolid game where you not only start two players coming off longterm injuries (which itself is a big enough risk) but also 3-4 players who have not played in months despite being available.
Yeah, we had injuries first half of the season but from January to April we mostly had full bench minus MATS, AC and Bernal but Flick's squad (mis)management made his bench look even shorter than it really is.
Another thing I dislike is Flick's in game management that is basically the same as his in-season one. He can only go full speed. He can't slow down and control the game. Always looking for that forward pass (that often ends in opponent's possession so we need to waste energy to get the ball back). There are just game situations when you need to take result/opponent into account and become a bit more conservative. And when leading with just a few minutes left against an even more tired opponent that's the moment to do that. Go dribble towards a corner flag, put the ball in the stands every 10 seconds, roll on the ground for half a minute. Just whatever. That's what all experienced winning teams are doing (you can either be that - a winning team or look good in a loss, so whatever you prefer). And most of them for prolonged period. I don't want to time waste for 20-30 minutes every game like Getafe. But for the last 2-3 minutes when leading I'll absolutely take it if the alternative is to concede a late goal because we can't defend (and we've seen more than enough evidence over the years, not just this season, a word defending is not in Barca players and coaches vocabulary).
And it's not like we've not been warned before, for example league game against Atletico at Montjuic when we were pushing for a winning goal and lost. Hopefully that won't come back to bite us and we'll finish the job in El Clasico on Sunday but if we'll somehow bottle and lose La Liga for a point that Atleti game will always be the one I will look at.
