Flick’s Barça is going through a strange moment. It alternates bittersweet victories, like against Girona and Olympiacos, with more encouraging ones, like Sunday’s against Elche, but also with worrying defeats, like the one in the classic. Now they added a draw that doesn’t matter much in Bruges. Barça still hasn’t woken up and the best Lamine Yamal has appeared.
“If you concede three goals, it is very difficult to win,” analyzed De Jong. Eric García agreed with the Dutchman: “They create a lot of danger for us, with two passes they plant themselves inside the area. It’s something that obviously needs to be improved.” Flick is worried about the game, but apologizes for the repeated injuries: 13 this year, half of those suffered last season. It’s not the only fear in Ciudad Deportiva; Added to the differences between doctors and physiotherapists are the physical preparation requirements. “We lost a lot of players, but they are coming back,” Flick complained before the draw in Bruges. Some returned, like Lewandowski and Olmo. Instead, he just played Lamine. “It’s special and it will always make a difference,” said De Jong.
It happened in Bruges that number 10 looked like number 10, as if he had already left behind that (famous and complicated) pubic injury that had left him in the pillory since it was broken during the Spanish national team’s training camp during the September holidays. “There was a lot of talk about my injury, that I was sad and very motivated,” Lamine said. And he showed glimpses of his talent, closer to his best version, although still without his best partners on the field. From the start, Flick trusted the same eleven with which Barcelona defeated Elche in the last round of the League at Montjuïc. Something, however, didn’t work at Barça, not even with Lamine in the Lamine version.
Without a coordinated attack, especially under pressure, Barcelona’s defense suffers. And Flick is unable to find solutions, no matter how hard he works in the few free moments that Barcelona’s tight schedule allows him, according to sources at Ciudad Deportiva. “There are things that need to be adjusted. We are working on it, but we don’t always transmit it to the field. We are weak at the moment in the counterattack, in the surveillance, in the pressure, in the way we position ourselves at the back. A little bit of everything,” said De Jong. And Eric García, in the same vein, added: “This is everyone’s job. We have turnover in difficult areas and I think this needs to be minimized.” And Flick concluded: “It’s not just about defending on the last line. We have to be aware when they give us one or two touches.”
The attackers are not the first defenders, as they were last year, and the defenders suffer as a result. Desperate after Bruges’ first goal, Flick didn’t even calm down with Ferran’s temporary equalizer (1-1). He called his new defense leader, Eric García, and they had a heated conversation looking for solutions. They didn’t show up.
Barcelona carried the game forward on the right wing so that Lamine could overcome the lines with the ball tied to his left boot, while Rashford found no space and Ferran Torres only worried the Bruges defense when Fermín left him one on one in front of Jackers. The appearance of Lewandowski and Olmo after passing through the dressing room did not change Barça, also dependent on the inspiration of Lamine Yamal.
“I got injured and my year has just started,” explained Lewandowski. But his journey didn’t start in Bruges as Flick needed. Neither did Dani Olmo. Barça’s defense faltered, so much so that even Szczesny was close to condemning the Blaugrana to defeat at the buzzer, while the attack offered no better solutions than Fermín’s and, now, luckily for Flick, Lamine’s. It wasn’t enough.
About The Author
