Hans-Dieter Flick

Hansi Flick - how do we rate him?


  • Total voters
    136

Loki

Well-known member
Hansi Flick: “Our idea is to press our opponents, it’s crucial and part of the Barça mentality. We can do it better in certain situations. When it’s structured, we do it well, but if there’s no pressing, the line is too high. We have to improve and train for this every day, it’s a process and that’s normal. It’s not just about the players, the staff too, we’re one team. The club, the fans, we must all be united. Last year that was the key to success. Everyone must know what to do to win and not focus only on themselves. That’s the key to winning titles.” #fcblive

So translation is, he either wants to increase our pressing minutes, or play more defensevly without it. Probably both, since you can't press 90 minutes anyways, especially against world-class teams. Sounds like a simple plan, let's see on the pitch how it'll look like.
 

jamrock

Senior Member
Trying to press a team that's just as good or better than you are technically, while being significantly better physically won't end well 7/10.

It's like when other teams try to press us, we have the players to pass out of it, but with PSG they also have those kind of players, a manager that emphasizes that they should be comfortable while being pressed and fitter players.

So he'll need a plan A++ or hope plan A is played to perfection
 
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Porque

Senior Member
Trying to press a team that's just as good or better than you are technically, while being significantly better physically won't end well 7/10.

It's like when other teams try to press out, we have the players to pass out of it, but with PSG they always have those kind of players, a manager that emphasizes that they should be comfortable while being press and fitter players.

So he'll need a plan A++ or hope plan A is played to perfection

Plan A++ is hoping the referees do their fuckin job.

Plan A+ is hoping the opposition miss when they dont.
 

ZenI

Professor Balthazar
We are just too bad overall, we have a couple of really good players but the rest is very average. Some overperformed last year under Flick but he can only do so much. If the quality isn't there it will show eventually.
We aren't really - but we sorely miss better players on LB and 9 + send Olmo to get some shock therapy, dude needs to be more consistent and add some grit to his personality/play style.
 

serghei

Senior Member
Trying to press a team that's just as good or better than you are technically, while being significantly better physically won't end well 7/10.

It's like when other teams try to press us, we have the players to pass out of it, but with PSG they also have those kind of players, a manager that emphasizes that they should be comfortable while being pressed and fitter players.

So he'll need a plan A++ or hope plan A is played to perfection

Depends on how you press. There are many forms of pressing. Pressing and high line should absolutely be important components in our game, but we need to improve at how we do it and implement more variation.

Going gung-ho vs these teams is not going to work. You have to press after you cut off their passing options. It's useless to press PSG top players while they have easy options to pass. They will complete a pass almost every time.
 

serghei

Senior Member
Flick blamed our off the ball performance vs PSG, which makes me happy, because he knows this is what did us eventually. Not losing 1 vs 1s as much, but inconsistent off the ball match from many players.

With Raphinha who is a workhorse off the ball and a fit Yamal, things will be different I think.

It is good this match came early.

PSG players lost duels also btw. Rashford cooked some PSG players, and on the other flank Mendes should have been off vs Yamal. Rashford played a great assist from right near Hakimi too, and Mendes lost Ferran for our goal.
 

serghei

Senior Member
There's nothing wrong with ambitious pressing, but every player has to do his part for it to work. Not pressing the keeper as much and not displacing defenders so wildly off position should be done next time.

If pressing fails in the early phase, don't double down on it, trippling the risk, but revert to a positional defense. Take the hint, pressing failed, but you are not out of options to defend well. Not the end of the world, do not hand out acres of space stupidly when the opponent is in control.

Keeper is not likely to pick up dangerous passes. He should be pressed rarely and only when the opponent really is boxed down. We should focus more on his passing options. Pressing or not pressing the keeper is also one of the main variations and it makes a very big difference. You lose a man easily when you press the keeper and he has an option to bypass it.
 

Barcaman

Administrator
Staff member
"Positional defense" at 1-1 doesn't help us. If we went with 1-0 at HT it could have been different.
In one sentence: We needed to chase the win and lost the running match.
 

ToranagaSama

Active member
Barca fans will never be happy, it's the usual boom-bust cycle.

"Lucho doesn't have a clue, our midfield play sucks, it's just get ball to MSN and pray!"

"Valverde is too much of a coward, why sit back, be pragmatic and defend a 3/4 goal lead, go ATTACK! I'd rather lose trying to attack than defend the lead as Barca!"

"Why is Flick always playing such a high line dude, just sit back more and defend the lead, be pragmatic. What's this Bayernball, we need Lucho back for proper midfield play, look at his fluid total football PSG!"

Repeat.
 

serghei

Senior Member
It's not about playing the high line in itself. It's about playing the high line without proper set-up.

There's 4 players near Vitinha and none of them are pressing him. You don't play a high line AND allow the best passer of the other team all the time to pick a pass, while also at the same time you somehow manage to leave a player like Hakimi completely unmarked. That's the issue, not the high line in itself, but doing it stupidly.

vlcsnap-2025-10-05-14h30m35s289.png


This is a few seconds before. Here Vitinha is handled by De Jong. Balde has Hakimi. 5-6 seconds after, Vitinha is alone on the ball unpressed, and Balde forgets Hakimi is playing.

vlcsnap-2025-10-05-14h29m19s199.png
 
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