Hans-Dieter Flick

[Temptation]

His time at Barca will determine whether he's a klopp or a bielsa.

Bielsa would have won at least 1 league title if you gave him the opportunity to manage a talented team like Barca, but his football wouldn't be sustainable over 2+ seasons.

The best managers stay true to their core philosophy but adapt on the edges

He's already miles clear of Bielsa.

You're forgetting that he has already won a sextuple at Bayern (apart from his domestic treble at Barca).

There's no guarantee Bielsa can actually win major trophies with his methods at a superclub. He seems a bit insane.

Flick is dogmatic only in terms of his philosophy and tactics. As a personality, he's very calm and mature.

 

[jamrock]

He's already miles clear of Bielsa.

You're forgetting that he has already won a sextuple at Bayern (apart from his domestic treble at Barca).

There's no guarantee Bielsa can actually win major trophies with his methods at a superclub. He seems a bit insane.

Flick is dogmatic only in terms of his philosophy and tactics. As a personality, he's very calm and mature.

His personality is what makes him really different from the mad one.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Bielsa is more or less like an academic guy who everyone can learn from, but even his students are better in the professional settings.

He doesn't belong to this discussion, at all.

 

[Messi983]

Marcelo Bielsa's criticism of modern football:

“I am certain that football is in a process of decline. More and more people are watching this sport, but it is becoming less and less attractive. We do not favour what made it the best sport in the world."

We promote business, because business means that a lot of people watch the matches. But over time, there are fewer and fewer footballers worth watching, the game is less and less enjoyable, and this artificial increase in spectator numbers will be reduced.

Football is not five minutes of action, it is much more than that, it is a cultural expression, a form of identification.”

Mister knows.

 

[jamrock]

Mister is him, give him this Barca he's winning a la Liga title

Then everyone will die of exhaustion lol

 

[BusiTheKing]

Yes there are glaring issues in the defensive shape but to me it still seems surprisingly unacknowledged how we have more or less abandoned the attacking style that made us good last season.

Go and watch the highlights from the 4-0 at Bernabeu or the 3-0 against Bayern. The way we attack seems unrecognizable based on our current gameplay. We have simply become way more focused on building possession than attacking on the move.

Injuries now, sure, but we still choose to go out and play the way we go. And it is still very different from last season.

The silent assumption now seems to be that the fruitful chaos of last year's success was always unrealistic in the long term, that we would sooner or later have to "mature" into a more controlled barca-style protagonism. To me this is just a lack of nerve, comfort zone thinking.

 

[jamrock]

A lot of what we were missing is those two games is raphinha making his runs and the quick releases and progressive passing of casado at the start of last season

 

[BusiTheKing]

No reason why Ferran or Rashford can't make those runs. In my opinion we would get more out of both with a more direct style.

Even with Raphinha in the beginning of this season we were playing like we do now.

 

[malvolio]

No reason why Ferran or Rashford can't make those runs. In my opinion we would get more out of both with a more direct style.

Even with Raphinha in the beginning of this season we were playing like we do now.

Yeah there's reason. Ferran and Rahford are mediocre at best and shouldn't be starting games for a club like FC Barcelona.

Raphinha barely played in his favorite position and Yamal was mostly missing. Olmo is trash and we're basically playing with 10 men because of it.

But it's also true that our game doesn't work like last season.

Just look at that match vs Madrid you posted. All our goals were basically balls from deep in wide open space, with players running into. Lewandowski unmarked on both goals he scored. Basically some Championship level game management from Madrid which provided us the platform to shine.

Bayern game pretty much same stuff. Press high->get ball-> quickly launch ball to runner in space-> player runs and scores.

Positional attacking is not the same as countering or running into wide open spaces. Teams have probably adapted to this stuff. Like they also adapted to our offside trap.

 

[serghei]

With Xavi we got dumped by PSG in the quarters the year before and one could argue we would have made it to the semis if Araujo wouldn't have been sent off.
We got an easier draw last year. If we were on the other side of the draw we get Liverpool/PSG, it's probably an early exit and talks of not being contenders.

I get it why people felt different last season, with the results and roller-coaster football we were playing. But Barca has always been there or thereabouts . Bar the two years of being eliminated from the group stages of course.

Team started to improve in CL since 2022. Despite that, we are not there yet vs the top sides. Doesn't matter if it's Flick, or Xavi. The difference is mostly stylistical.

Squad cost us every time.

 

[serghei]

Flick had better wins, but that's understandable tbh as the players become more mature and experienced.

Still a gap vs bigger clubs that we need to find ways to reduce.

But of the two, despite results and shortcoming vs big teams being similar, Flick is playing better football that will benefit more the club going forward. Even if he will fail vs big teams just the same.

Xavi's best results came by being pragmatic. This was his way of elevating the team. He fixed the defense by going pragmatic, as a way to win soms titles. At clubs like Barcelona this was not a very pleasing sight.

Flick had some of the same issues to tackle, and he did it with high intensity press and a more energetic, offensive style. This is simply a better way to reach similar results at a club like Barcelona.

Xavi knew this and wanted to transition to a more offensive style, with short term fixes like old Gundogan, and technical rejects like Felix and Cancelo. All three attacking minded players.The football was more entertaining, but the defense was not nearly as good.

No matter how you go around it, the issue is being manager of Barca atm is a struggle. You know the moves that need be made, but to make them finances need to improve by a lot.

 

[KingLeo10]

Letting go of Clownbele was a big mistake.

This team would absolutely overwhelm opponents with a fluid front 3 of Raphinha, Ousmane, and Lamine.

 

[jamrock]

Fuckbele wanted out, after finally starting to look decent for us, he's a rat bastard.

 

[Temptation]

Letting go of Clownbele was a big mistake.

This team would absolutely overwhelm opponents with a fluid front 3 of Raphinha, Ousmane, and Lamine.

That's huge coming from you. You were his biggest critic.

He won you over with the recent Messi quotes, didn't he?

 

[KingLeo10]

That's huge coming from you. You were his biggest critic.

He won you over with the recent Messi quotes, didn't he?

Calma, been saying this since last April-May