ESTADI OLIMPIC LLUIS COMPANYS, BARCELONA — In this age of tactical nuance, possessional control, and a focus on finite details, one element of the beautiful game can sometimes be lacking from the upper echelon of the football hierarchy — fun.
Not for Hansi Flick at Barcelona, though.
Thanks to the German’s tactical setup this season, Barcelona are the most fun team in the world, and it’s not even close.
“You can say this, but for me it’s not always fun, sometimes I’m really stressed. But in the end I’m usually happy.”
Ok Hansi, that checks out, my apologies. But for us, it’s fun as hell to watch.
Forget bunches, this Barcelona team is scoring goals in waves. Tidal waves. They even got Simone Inzaghi out of his shell at Inter Milan.
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Sure, Barcelona’s famed high line was their ultimate undoing in the Champions League semifinal, but it has won them on the brink of a domestic clean sweep at the expense of their sworn enemies. On Sunday, it was the reason they triumphed in their El Clasico title decider against Real Madrid, their fourth win of the season against Los Blancos.
Barcelona have now surely won La Liga, while already having captured the Copa del Rey and Supercopa trophies.
The final Clasico of the season was the perfect encapsulation of how Flick’s insane, almost perverse tactics are meant to play out. Score one on us? We’ll score more. Score two on us? Watch your back.
Sure enough, Real Madrid fell right into the trap. Kylian Mbappe’s two goals in the opening 15 minutes only lit an even bigger fire under Barcelona’s belly, as the hosts swung themselves into the lead 25 minutes later. Astonishingly, they were 4-2 up by halftime.
Real Madrid caught Barcelona’s high line twice on balls over the top, but the home side didn’t panic at the Montjuic. Instead, they reversed the scoreline in the blink of an eye, scoring four straight goals of impressive variety.
“The mentality of my team is unbelievable, it’s really great to see this,” Flick said after completing his 2024/25 Clasico quadruple. Barcelona’s mental fortitude is a key part of their aptitude for turning games around, but it’s not the only reason. The German’s approach instils confidence in his side and fear in the opponent.
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What are Hansi Flick’s tactics at Barcelona?
Hansi Flick has deployed a 4-2-3-1 formation for much of the season at Barcelona, but that does little to paint a true picture of how Barcelona really play.
The distinct feature of Barcelona’s structure both on and off the ball is their high defensive line which sees the two center-backs push incredibly high up the field both in and out of possession. Often, Pau Cubarsi and Inigo Martinez are positioned on or past the midway line, an extreme risk taken by the head man often for a massive reward.
Of course, Barcelona are extremely exposed at the back playing this way, but they often don’t care. When an opponent tries to counter-attack, Barcelona are prepared, and run a top-class offside trap. In the Big 5 European leagues, Barcelona have caught opponents offside 169 times, the most of any club with the next-highest team being Parma on 115 — remember, that’s true even while Barcelona holds possession of the ball an average of 68.7% of the time, meaning the opponent has very few chances to play forward. Parma, Valencia and Las Palmas (the next three on the list) do far more defending to compile their caught-offside numbers.
When teams do manage to break the offside trap, they are usually in on goal, with Flick trusting the speed and accuracy of Cubarsi to use his pace as a recovery asset. When that doesn’t work, and the opposition manages to score, Flick knows the cost is worth the reward.
Hansi Flick’s risky tactics at Barcelona are well worth the risk
“When we start this philosophy and how to do this, in the beginning, maybe we had some doubts of course, and why not, because it’s totally different than how they [the players] have played before,” Flick said in his pre-match press conference before the final Clasico of the season.
“Some matches in the beginning there was some doubt, but we changed it and the team has been really great. It’s really good, they adapt to the things we want to have and make it really good.”
The reason is that when on the ball, Barcelona have severely compressed the pitch, forcing their opponent to defend in a panic. When the opponent does win the ball, Barcelona spring a vicious counter-press, to which all three lines are committed.
“In the end, it’s all about the whole team — it’s not only about the last line,” Flick said, “Because the last line is at the end what you normally see. But for us it’s very important we get pressure on the ball, this is the most important thing. How we want to do it, who starts that dynamic, and then who’s the next, who’s the next, who’s the next, and where we can win the ball — this is the important thing.”
Barcelona’s counter-press is exceedingly active from all directions, because they know they cannot allow the opponent to have the ball for too long. Because of this, along with the extremely compressed pitch due to the high line, it’s extremely risky for the opponent to commit numbers forward on the counter — if they screw it up and cough up the ball, they’re cooked.
While Barcelona have nearly wrapped up all three domestic titles, this did prove their downfall in the Champions League, but it took a tactical masterclass from Inzaghi plus a heroic effort from multiple Inter Milan players across both legs to snatch an extra-time victory by a 7-6 aggregate margin.
At the end of the day, Barcelona ran into the perfect team to undo the Flick tactics. Inter are the most well-disciplined defensive team in Europe and have the counter-attack prowess to back it up. Even then, it took a number of exceptional goals and a few bad Barcelona bounces to win by the thinnest of margins. Sometimes, when you roll the dice this much, you leave the table empty handed.
Regardless, Barcelona have won more than enough this season for Flick to justify his approach, and the world has benefitted greatly from it. Whether you think it’s a football revolution or an absurd peculiarity, Barcelona matches have become must-watch events.
Very rarely do teams this committed to exciting, attacking football come around. When they do, they often spark for a moment and then fizzle out, yet Barcelona have done anything but. Thanks to an exceedingly young core of players, a new center-back is really all they need in the transfer window this summer — they should be well positioned to run it all back next season.
So thanks for all the delightful fun this season, Mr. Flick, even if sometimes it gives you and Barcelona supporters a heart attack.
The deafening roar of the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic when Raphinha scored Barcelona’s fourth goal proves this gunslinger style is perfectly suited for this brilliant side, and as a result won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
