Lamine Yamal wanted to give a message. This time he chose to send him to the field first. However, he saved one card: after showing that his talent was back against Bruges, on the 10th he showed his self-confidence. “If they whistle at me”, he warned about the few whistles he received from the Bruges fans, still with bitterness on their lips after a difficult-to-digest draw for Barcelona, “it’s because they know I do my job well”. He then recalled how he lived his last two months, when his name jumped from Hansi Flick’s mouth to Luis de la Fuente’s, both fighting over the management of Lamine’s minutes. “There was a lot of talk about my pubalgia, which was very sad, but it was the same as always. I was focused on what I was doing and trying to play at this level, which is how I feel best and have the best time”, highlighted the Barcelona forward.
It turned out, in any case, that Lamine was not only making noise in the sports press, but also in the gossip press. His remarkable and eventful relationship with Argentine singer Nicki Nicole has come to an end. A separation that they celebrate in the Sports City of Barcelona. “We’re not really sure it did Lamine any good,” they said. In addition to the personal conflict, the number 10 also needed to purge his behavior in the classic, loud in the preview, silent at the Bernabéu. “He is very intelligent, he knows perfectly well what he did well and what he did wrong. He learned”, warned the people around him. An attitude that is corroborated in Ciudad Deportiva. “He is usually the best in every training session, but in the last few days he has been very active. He wanted to gain pace”, explain sources in the sports field. Lamine scored in the victory against Elche and then saved Barça in Bruges.
The problem for Flick is that he only had Lamine. And that’s a lot for Barcelona, but it’s not enough. Except in the Champions League. “It’s good that Lamine had a good game, but we have to talk about many things,” said the Barcelona coach.
And the things that Flick guarantees need to be said have been said for a long time in the sports field: “Games are not won by the bravest, but by the most intelligent”. But the German coach, always with his ears closed to external noise, also remains deaf to internal noise. “We can talk about changing everything, but I’m not a coach who makes those types of changes. We want to play according to our DNA, we don’t want to defend in a low block and win 1-0 in transition”, defended the German. His statement in the press room was curious: no one attacked him. The message then had other recipients.
Flick has been balancing politics at Barcelona for some time now: he cried foul when Rashford wasn’t registered, frowned at the mess on his return to the Camp Nou and gave in to internal disputes in the medical department. He also suffers from divided opinions in locker room management; There are those who claim that he is very protective of Lamine, while others claim that he is the only one trying to control an ego that threatens to become uncontrollable. “You have to focus on trying hard,” the coach publicly disclosed.
Lamine already seems to remember Lamine. Flick’s Barça, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten Flick’s Barça. Pressure doesn’t work, nor does recovery after loss. Few weaknesses are more evident than the problem of marking offside, with no voice in leadership since the departure of Iñigo Martínez.
Eric García’s good level is not enough to erase the Basque central defender’s mark, especially after Koundé, Cubarsí and Balde have dropped in level. Not even the good level of the duo formed by Pedri (now injured) and De Jong works to control the games. Blow by blow, Barcelona miss Raphinha and Lewandowski, and Lamine is left alone. Flick knows this, but for now he can’t find solutions.
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