Hansi Flick spoke to the press on Monday to preview Tuesday’s Champions League clash against Brest, but much of the conversation was still about Saturday’s disappointing draw away to Celta Vigo in The League action.
Barça wasted a two-goal lead in the final five minutes after going down to 10 men in what was a poor overall performance, and failed to live up to the standards set before the international break.
Flick was asked how his team can return to that level, and the coach offered an optimistic view of his team, acknowledging they are a young group prone to a few growing pains. The coach also stressed the importance of details and avoiding silly mistakes, which plagued Barça both against Celta and in the loss to Real Sociedad two weeks ago.
“We are at the same level as in previous games, in Vigo or [against] Munich. It’s not a question of physicality, it’s more about mistakes. There are many things we can do better with and without the ball, and that’s what we’re focusing on. I always think positively, that’s what I said. It’s a young team and during the season it’s normal to have some situations like that. For me, the important thing is to learn from it.
“The quality of the players is very high and we have to show it on the pitch, and we want to start showing it tomorrow, but the process of this very young team is part of football. We’re still leading the league, although with a smaller advantage, but any team would want to go down this path.
“We have a young team, the youngest in the league, and it’s not always a smooth road. You have to be careful in certain situations during the 90 minutes. With 0-2 in our favour and with the red card, we should have defended better than we did. We always want to play and attack, but sometimes it’s enough to control the ball and defend well. In The League there are very tough away games, and I like the away fans because they create a very good atmosphere.”
Hansi is not wrong that a team with some many young core pieces — like Pau Cubarsí, Pedri, Marc Casadó, Lamine Yamal, Gavi and others — won’t always be consistently great, but they can still correct small issues from game to game so that the team always has a chance to compete.
Barça should be fine with this coaching staff and with how well the team was playing prior to the last two games, but they really need to win on Tuesday to avoid any needless negativity. If not, and we’ve seen this movie many times before, things will slowly but surely get ugly.
