FC Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick revealed a touching gesture Gavi made towards a teammate during … [+] Sunday’s brutal 7-1 thrashing of Valencia.
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FC Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick revealed a touching gesture Gavi made towards a teammate during Sunday’s brutal 7-1 La Liga thrashing of Valencia.
The Catalans stayed in third and reduced bitter rival Real Madrid’s advantage to seven points through the goalfest, which some found impressive given the number of players Flick rotated with at least five changes to the line up.
For Flick though, “the situation that impressed me the most was when I spoke to Gavi, who I wanted to bring on in the last 15 minutes”.
Despite being one of the benched players in favour of close friend Fermin Lopez as a CAM, Flick revealed that Gavi said: “No, put Pablo Torre on”.
“And this is amazing, it’s great. You can see how players are connected to each other. It’s fantastic and for a coach it’s amazing. I love Gavi for his attitude and to speak that way at that moment is fantastic,” Flick beamed.
Explaining the rotations, however, Flick remarked: “We needed fresh legs, and everyone was impeccable and very involved throughout the match.”
The German was a fan of how “the team was from the beginning, very involved in the game” and stressed that having often second choice players perform so well “is not a problem for me”.
-“It’s good to be able to choose between so many players with quality,” he stated.
Scoring two goals and providing two assists in Gavi or Dani Olmo’s slot, Fermin was complimented for playing “a fantastic game”.
“He was very good with the ball and very good in finishing. I love Fermin,” said Flick.
Though he could have easily been the villain of a thrilling 5-4 comeback win against Benfica in the Champions League after clattering into Alejandro Balde in the first half and also giving away a penalty – with the Lisbon giant scoring in both incidents – Wojciech Szczesny is proving to be a good luck charm for Flick.
“A week with Szczesny in the starting line-up, two wins. One against Benfica and another against Valencia. It’s a difficult situation for Inaki Pena, but it’s something that has been discussed internally and we took this decision,” Flick commented on his goalkeeper selection dilemma.
Though Barca continues to hit the back of the net at will, “the fact that we scored 100 goals this season doesn’t mean anything” to Flick.
“We want to put on a good show for the Culers, but our goal is to win titles – not to set goal records,” he concluded on this.
