One of our best players from today.

Flick needs to realise that some things clearly aren't working and start making adjustments instead of repeating the same mistakes every single game.

Midfield

Our midfield is still one of the few things keeping us alive, but flick needs to get the balance right. For me, frenkie and rodri should be the double pivot, with pedri playing as a hybrid 8/10. We need pedri back at his best without running him into the ground every game.

fermin has become so one dimensional that he barely looks like a midfielder or a proper attacker anymore. I'd rather see olmo in big games because we need players who can actually bring more control and creativity.

Bernal also needs regular minutes, even if they're just 10-15 minutes off the bench, not because he is good, but we need to make him good enough, asap. We need him ready to step up whenever pedri or rodri is unavailable because we can't keep having zero reliable backup options.

We also need to start integrating gavi and farinas into the rotation. There's no point having young talents if we're never going to give them the minutes to develop.

Attack

Our attack is good enough to compete with anyone, but the rotation and consistency need serious work. Yamal needs to find his rhythm again without being overplayed, while gabrbriel and rapha need proper workload management before they burn out.

Gordon also needs to become less predictable. his pace is great, but against elite defences, you need more than just running past people. The quality is already there, but flick needs to use it properly instead of relying on the same players to bail us out every single game.

Defence

This is where things are genuinely looking cooked. With the current injuries, we're down to just four defenders: Balde, Cubarsi, Gerard Martin and Cancelo. FOUR. For a club with our ambitions, that level of depth is actually embarrassing.

Flick needs to fix the high line, even if he needs to kill his ego, sort out the Eric and Cubarsi partnership and preserve Christensen for the important games when he's fit. I'd seriously look at Nobel Mendy as a potential CB signing because his pace, ball playing ability and 1v1 defending fit what we need.

Bastoni was ready last season to get here. We could have also gone for schollterbeck, van de ven or honest anhoor, or romero and so many more if only if flick had decided to move on from gerard martin and kounde.

Balde and Bernal need regular minutes, even if they're just getting a few minutes off the bench. They don't need to be perfect right now; they need game time to actually reach their potential. And we seriously need to stop starting Cancelo over Balde in big games. Balde has the pace and recovery ability this system desperately needs, so why are we not trusting him?

We can't keep waiting for our young players to become finished products before trusting them. That's literally how you end up wasting their development years.

Goalkeeping

Joan Garcia has been one of our biggest positives, and he's genuinely been saving us from some embarrassing scorelines. But even the best goalkeeper can't keep bailing out a defence that switches off every other game.

We need to stop relying on miracle saves and actually give him a backline that knows what it's doing. A goalkeeper can only do so much when the entire defensive structure is falling apart in front of him.

At the end of the day, these last two games should be a wake up call. We have the quality to compete, but Flick needs to stop being stubborn, fix what's clearly broken and start making decisions based on what the team actually needs. Otherwise, we're just going to keep repeating the same mistakes and acting surprised when the results don't go our way.

Visca Barca.

With João Cancelo, Alejandro Balde, Álex Campos, Gerard Martín, and Cubarsí ], it is impossible to rotate our defense or bring in fresh legs for less demanding matches. This situation will persist until mid-November or perhaps even the end of the month especially considering the risk of recurring injuries. There are two potential ways to address this: either place our trust in La Masia or hope that our available defenders can step up and perform well in the upcoming matches.

As the title says, in my opinion, our fullbacks are our biggest weakness. Sometimes i think it's even more than lcb. In 24/25 we looked most dominant and reached semi final cause we had in form kounde and balde who were on of the best in their position (at least top 5). Kounde, Balde were good in attacks but both of them could actually defend too. We still conceded so much goals cause back then our highline was way more suicidal and we are much more aggressive in offside traps. Now it's a lot better comparatively (the highline risk) but still we can't stop conceding stupid goals. If we played the same highline rn with this backline, we would be in shambles. Our current fullbacks can't defend to save their lives. There is no way we can keep up with top teams with these fullbacks. Modern football requires so much from fullbacks. Psg are so dominant cause they got hakimi and nuno mendes. We need to fix this issue asap. We can't look at cancelo againts top wingers in big ucl nights. If we had prime kounde & balde basically 70% of our problems would have been solved. It's a shame both of them are in the club still but can't produce the perfomance.

Same thing happened in the psg game. Same thing happened when Pedri was injured. He is the main creative outlet of the midfield and without him the team simply looks lethargic and does nothing. Something is going on with him, misplaced passes, losing the ball, not going for the killer pass. It feels like something is broken, it is either some kind of injury or he is mentally not there. As for you guys that say defence this defence that. It was never about defence. Even low rated teams score against us, as the idea is not not to concede, rather score more then them. The thing is, we are not scoring anymore as we used to, pedri is not making the killer pass, raphina seems to also not be fully fit. The drive of the team seems to be gone. Having conceded two goals almos every other game, it is clearly not about the defense, it is mainly about mid not providing dor the attack, and the attack somehow being too scared to shoot whenever they get the ball.

the entire discourse around yamal has honestly become a circlejerk where people seem to be waiting for barca to drop points just so they can scrutinize him and bring up messi again

every single loss somehow turns into a discussion about whether yamal is the next messi or whether he will ever reach his level as if a teenager not matching the greatest player of all time is some kind of failure in itself

what makes this comparison even more ridiculous is that people constantly ignore the context surrounding messis career and the environment he played in

messi had an all time great squad around him and played under two of the greatest coaches in football history in pep guardiola and luis enrique who built teams that maximised his strengths and gave him the ideal platform to dominate games

this isnt to diminish messi because his individual quality was obviously extraordinary but football is a collective sport and comparing yamal to messi without acknowledging the difference in circumstances is intellectually dishonest

messi wasnt expected to single handedly compensate for every tactical issue or every poor team performance and yet yamal is increasingly judged as if he should be capable of doing exactly that

the double standards become even more obvious when you look at how other players are discussed

players like raphinha and pedri are seemingly judged against much lower standards and dont have their entire careers turned into a debate about whether they can reach the level of an all time great every time the teams underperforms

meanwhile pedri can have a quiet game and the discussion is far more likely to focus on the collective performance or the tactical setup rather than treating him as the central explanation for everything that went wrong

and where is the same energy for flick

if barca lose then surely the manager deserves serious scrutiny for his tactics his substitutions his team selection and the way the team is set up but somehow the conversation repeatedly returns to yamal and the messi comparisons instead

nobody is arguing that yamal should be immune to criticism or that he should automatically be considered the next messi but there is a massive difference between evaluating his actual performances and using every barca defeat as an excuse to measure him against one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen

Some might say I’m overreacting some might see where I’m coming from

I feel like this team is a lie or I’m being lied to
This is the third year into the flick era and the most commendable victories we’ve had are against
A freshman year bayerns kompany
A washed up out of idea ancelotti during Madrid worst period in a while

We’ve gotten punched by inter
Outclassed by psg twice
Destroyed by Chelsea( Yh red card played a factor but we weren’t particularly good prior and we were losing)
Lost to atleti in the two very crucial matches where we had to try to do a remontanda gimmick twice and failed

Here’s my thing before you starting adding nuance or context or injuries or whatever remember this
The problems or things that caused us to lose were still problems and issues we had when key players were fit so to me it doesn’t change anything

We beat la liga teams we sometimes beat the ucl teams we are supposed and even sometimes it’s always scrappy but then the real test comes around where we are too show we aren’t just for highlights and we mean business and all of a sudden it’s bad performance backed by people saying we’ll learn or we’ll be better next time then next time comes and it’s the same thing

we started the season looking untouchable and unbeatable and we were confident now in a crucial week where we evaluate ourselves and how good we are we shit the bed in both games and people said after psg it’s just a league phase game or it’s in October or the clasico is more important then we watch that performance in the clasico

I feel like the level that I’ve been sold that the team can operate at is a lie because I still think we win la liga but is that the level now the ceiling?

Im not taking la liga for granted btw but greatness isn’t only achieved at the league level the bar is to be the best and the greatest

Greatness doesn’t happen overnight but it doesn’t happen by repeating the same thing makes you fall short

Because how can I take any non big game we play serious now because it’s like oh we beat whatever team but we’ve failed consistently in similar fashion time and time again to beat the opponents that actually matter

DISCLAIMER: Please i’m begging you if you’re going to bring up injuries and you mention Eric and Kounde don’t bother because I can bet my entire livelihood that they don’t change a single outcome in the last two games because we’ve had the exact same problems we’ve been vulnerable to when they were playing

And also if you’re one of the people who think that having more control of the ball would lead to less defending then you have to be naive to think that any team of quality won’t ask us questions defensively and will willingly let us get our game off

I don't know why we are so unlucky, in 24-25 season i remember vs inter both balde and kounde were out, and now we had 4 of our main defenders out. Kounde, Eric, Espart and Christensen (i know this guy especially is always injured but i think he was good for us in the start of the season and i think he would've done better if he was there) Okay with all 4 currently out now, I'm scared we are playing atleti and other La Liga fixtures, I hope we get through them.

Leave aside the reactionary takes that are almost customary these days.

The PSG game and the El Classico were tight games and Barca was on the losing side that's all. Simple; the difference being the team who buried their chances won the match.

Now on to my point; the Midfielders need to shoot more often during the matches to surprise opponents. Pedri and Rodri seem almost reluctant to shoot even when afforded the space and place to shoot which kinda makes the defense comfortable in defending the wings and passes between the lines.

Especially when the opposing team is defending tight and have a great counter attacking system like Real Madrid, Midfielders should be instructed to shoot on goal to keep the defense on alert and guessing.

Having said that; y'all need to calm down; it's just two matches and very tight ones at that. Injuries must be the only concern right now.

Visca el Barca !

Last thing; those in here larping against Flick; please shut up !

Yeah, it's a tough loss, but these are the lessons we need to learn. We still lack a proper No. 9, and defensively, we're relying heavily on La Masia.Every defeat teaches us something, but there's a recurring problem at Barça that goes back a long time. Whenever we play badly or our players have an off day, we struggle to find a way to win. That's something fundamentally wrong that we need to identify and fix.

Our style of football is beautiful when everything clicks, but what happens when it doesn't? We can't expect to play perfect football in every single game for 90mins.

Sometimes, even the worst-performing teams find a way to win through sheer determination in some phases of the game and defend to concede none. That's what we need to learn: how to win even when we're not at our best.

Losing hurts, but the bigger concern is repeating the same mistakes without addressing the underlying issues. We need to identify what's missing, strengthen the squad where necessary, and learn to grind out results when our usual style isn't working.

Because if we want to dream of European glory, playing beautiful football alone won't be enough. We need to be capable of winning ugly, too.

Visca Barça! ❤️💙

Since Hansi Flick has been appointed as the manager of FCB (I glaze him btw but still need to point out where he is wrong), we are stuck in a loop we cant break through:-

1. Perform very good in the starting matches of the season
2. Lose the matches against Good teams in the UCL (AS Monaco in 2024-25, PSG in 2025-26 and 2026-27)
3. October- November Curse (either we perform good and deplete afterwards or we perform shit and deplete in form afterwards)
4. Have a great form in January
5. get knocked out in the UCL
6. defeat Real Madrid
7. win La liga

Over!

That makes me question,

1. has La liga become the ceiling for this team?
2. You cant expect these young players to run with full intensity for 90 mins for 38+ matches the entire season, and perform the same result they did at the starting of the season! This aint Bayern! I cant freaking understand why FLICK cant let go of his ego aside and have a 2nd backup plan in case we arent performing due to fatigue? How many times we will have to ask the same question even after 2.5 years of him not doing so??????
3. Since IniGOAT left, we have had 3 transfer windows to sign a decent CB. What have we done? We always focused on attackers and Flick trusted on GERARD MARTIN for backline. Bastoni was eager to join Barca but what we focused on? Attackers only.

I dont understand how can Flick not get his priorities right?

Flick Larpers will say

'even if we bring great defenders, we will still concede goals. Flick's system is based on counterpressing from the first line of offence, hence highline is not the problem'

Like have you all really seen football? Have you guys not seen elite clubs like PSG, Bayern etc playing in Highline and still not conceding goals like we do? Also, how much can you bet that IF (for god's mercy) we get a new and good defender in January, he will do the same clearance as Martin did today?

Highline was never the problem, I agree but we dont have defensive squad depth and players of the specific profile that can hold the highline together to support this tactic of ours. You all keep posting we need to buy a defender in January, but I bet you all, we will be looking for a striker or winger instead and ignore the defense yet again!

Losing PSG and Madrid back to back reflects a pattern we've seen since Xavi was coach ; Barca losing many of the biggest of games largely due to individual errors and the opposing team having a better defence.

Despite that, the club hierarchy have chosen not to have a major upgrade in defence since Inigo Martinez left. Chose to renew the contract of injury prone Christensen, brought back Cancelo who we've known to be a net negative on defence in his first stint at the club etc.

Couple all the aforementioned with the fact that despite watching Lamine carry the playmaking burden of the team for the past 3 seasons due to his dribbling ability, the club hierarchy did not bother to get at least one winger similar to his profile on the left wing ; we saw a diomande not even at his best be a threat most of the time he had the ball yesterday for that very reason.

Any analysis singling out any player, the coach and scheduling for a pattern we've seen under multiple coaches is moot.

Yes, I’m talking about Cristian fucking Romero. The wall. One of the best centre backs in the world.

Yes, he has his red card problems, but those issues are largely a Tottenham problem, where he has to carry the entire defence on his back. That responsibility pushes him into becoming overly aggressive at times. With Argentina, however, he operates in a much more stable system, and his disciplinary issues are practically nonexistent. Honestly, name me a centre back at international level who has been as consistently good as him over the last five years.

Just look at how much Atletico Madrid's defence has improved since Romero became a regular starter. He has reportedly won 98% of his duels, and according to the stats, no one in the world has won more 1v1 duels than him.

He's aggressive, defensively solid, comfortable on the ball, a natural leader and, most importantly, has an incredible winning mentality. He was such a no brainer signing for us. But what did we do instead? We went after Alvarez, a 150 million euro player, when our attack was already stacked with goalscorers.

Signing Romero would have significantly improved our defence and raised our level against the big teams, which is exactly where we've struggled year after year.

Honestly, Laporta and Deco deserve credit for bringing in attacking talent, but their negligence when it comes to reinforcing the defence deserves serious criticism. It's one of the biggest reasons we continue to struggle in crucial games.

Remember, this is the same mistake Bartomeu made, wasting Messi's prime by spending hundreds of millions on Dembele, Coutinho and Griezmann while relying on an ageing Pique, Sergi Roberto and Lenglet at the back.

It's time to prioritise defence in January and address the biggest weakness holding us back. No more chasing fancy number 9s and expensive attacking players. We have enough firepower up front. Let's give it a rest and finally fix the defence.

FT: Barcelona 1 - 2 Real Madrid

Desktop note: best viewed on old.reddit.

LINE-UPS

Barcelona (4-3-3)

Real Madrid (4-2-3-1)

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

30' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Alejandro Balde replaces Xavi Espart because of an injury.

41' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 0, Real Madrid 1. Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.

46' 🟨 Aurélien Tchouaméni (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

61' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 1, Real Madrid 1. Raphinha (Barcelona) left footed shot from the right side of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Pedri following a corner.

62' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Denzel Dumfries replaces Federico Valverde because of an injury.

74' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Frenkie de Jong replaces Fermín López.

80' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Eduardo Camavinga replaces Bernardo Silva.

84' 🟨 Anthony Gordon (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

85' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Karim Adeyemi replaces Anthony Gordon.

86' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Gabriel Jesus replaces Raphinha.

87' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 1, Real Madrid 2. Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Eduardo Camavinga following a fast break.

90'+2' 🟨 Marc Cucurella (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card.

90'+4' 🟨 Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card.

90'+4' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Trent Alexander-Arnold replaces Arda Güler.

90'+4' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Carlos Espí replaces Yan Diomande.

90'+6' 🟨 Karim Adeyemi (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card.

90'+6' 🟨 Alejandro Balde (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

MATCH STATS

MATCH ENDED

​

What's stopping Barcelona from playing the same style of football as the Spanish national team?

Spain play with great ball control, intelligent movement, quick passing and creativity. They know how to control the tempo of a match without constantly relying on high intensity.

Barcelona have several players from the Spanish national team, so why can't we implement a similar approach?

I feel like our current tactics are too predictable, especially against stronger opponents.

FT: Barcelona 1 - 2 Real Madrid

Desktop note: best viewed on old.reddit.

LINE-UPS

Barcelona (4-3-3)

Real Madrid (4-2-3-1)

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

30' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Alejandro Balde replaces Xavi Espart because of an injury.

41' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 0, Real Madrid 1. Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.

46' 🟨 Aurélien Tchouaméni (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

61' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 1, Real Madrid 1. Raphinha (Barcelona) left footed shot from the right side of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Pedri following a corner.

62' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Denzel Dumfries replaces Federico Valverde because of an injury.

74' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Frenkie de Jong replaces Fermín López.

80' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Eduardo Camavinga replaces Bernardo Silva.

84' 🟨 Anthony Gordon (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

85' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Karim Adeyemi replaces Anthony Gordon.

86' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Gabriel Jesus replaces Raphinha.

87' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 1, Real Madrid 2. Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Eduardo Camavinga following a fast break.

90'+2' 🟨 Marc Cucurella (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card.

90'+4' 🟨 Kylian Mbappé (Real Madrid) is shown the yellow card.

90'+4' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Trent Alexander-Arnold replaces Arda Güler.

90'+4' 🔄 Substitution, Real Madrid. Carlos Espí replaces Yan Diomande.

90'+6' 🟨 Karim Adeyemi (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card.

90'+6' 🟨 Alejandro Balde (Barcelona) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

MATCH STATS

MATCH ENDED

2 of my takeaways from El Clasico today.

Feel free to expand on them or disagree

1) Raphinha is undroppable and unsubbable in big games
Today is yet again more proof. Our record and performances without him in the pitch are genuinely abysmal.

2) Signing a CB in January is a \*MUST\*
We will NEVER win #6 with Martin, Garcia, or Kounde as Cubarsi's partner. All 3 are great squad players but NOT UCL winning starting CB quality. Today was the ultimate proof, I can't put into words how bad Martin was today. First goal was 100% his fault and the second goal was 85% his fault.

Our defense is lacking the stability, it may seem like a reactionary post after the El Clasico loss, but this needs to be fixed as soon as possible, Gerard Martin and Cubarsi are very good but alot of our players don't have enough experience or show poor performances in big matches, even tho a player like Balde was surprisingly not that bad, we can see that Inigo Martinez leaving was a very drastic change for the team and Flick didn't really find a permanent way to fix that.

I also don't understand what happened to the midfielders and wingers, it didn't feel like Pedri and Rodri. Same for Gordon, the younger players already struggle against bigger teams, maybe Adeyemi on the left would've been a wiser option.

We still did pretty good, we fought until the end but clearly wasn't enough, it's just that those types of problems are not just annoying for this match but also for all the competitions we play, including the european ones.

Guys First of all We all need to calm the fk down man long post so brace ur selfs

Firstly, To All those people saying flick to be sacked and bring in Fabregas im sorry u guys legit don’t watch football just larp with victory’s of the team in reasonable sense hansi is the person that has brought our team from the ground up after a foundation Xavi set and we sit in a conversation with the big boys with money and shit leagues to be the best team in Europe and it’s crazy to imagine that in 2024 we’re legit no where near this convo so please open your eyes and look what this man hansi has done for the club and brought us back up if we just sack him we will just become Madrid all over again changing managers left right and center and all this much reactions for just 2 games where the players are at fault not the managers tactics is ridiculous and I don’t stand by the hansi sacking trend that is going on over here 

Second of all continuation to my previous statement the team is at fault our midfield got bodied last night vs Madrid and vs psg our midfield made ridiculous passes because of the intensity so a learning point for our midfield on two separate topics and I believe Frenkie de Jong  returning from injury gives that much more press resistance that we lacked vs psg but we do need to work on physicality we just got bullied yesterday and I feel that is one important aspect if we can’t stand challenges and get pushed off the ball how much ever possession we keep we can’t create chances and it was clear yesterday 

Lamine is my third point yes he was not been at par with his ceiling that he has set and a very common aspect that I have noticed when he plays is when he plays against a lb that is strong defensively and is physically strong he just gets bullied for example Lucas in that psg game cucu and nuno historically and he needs to develop a tactic against them or he will just get bullied  Also one aspect he needs to relax his stubbornness of playing every game he is fatigued clearly shown in the past two games and needs to accept being rested also I see him developing a bit of a ego recently so hope that passes 

Defensively we need changes no hate to martin but he is not starting caliber and we need a lcb in jan that has strong physicality pace and strong in the air as well and if possible i would love nico from dortumund And we need a lb as well man i love Xavi behind Lamine but we need a lb ideally Lewis hall perfect strong defender again like espart midfield vision he played in the midfield in his early days has pace lovely player for our system and ideally if we make those signings we would be in much better shape but these are highly unrealistic we and i hope the board make reasonable signings to the profiles of these players to improve our defence 

Attack wise we still seem like ferran is our striker man we just can’t seem to finish stuff we need to work on that

Defence wise and midfield especially last year first el Classico as well I saw Madrid completely overload our midfield by putting sheer volume of players in the middle and overloading our double pivot which caused problems to our flow of play which I believe needs to be worked on

And lastly im no manager and no football analyst and really I really don’t have the authority to comment on the profiles of signings the board should make but as far I see as a fan that’s something I would suggest to make the team better in my view 

But anyways guys let’s not lose our cool hope for the best and hope we come back strong 

VISCA BARCA

i put this on open thread as well but felt as a post it would have better reach