With Real
Madrid hosting Barcelona
in the first Clásico of the season on Sunday, we take a look at why
the tactics of Hansi Flick could go a long way to deciding the
outcome.
Since Hansi Flick took over as head coach of Barcelona last
summer, they have been one of the best teams in the world both
statistically and for sheer enjoyment.
No team from Europe’s top five leagues have scored more goals
than Barça since the start of last season (207), while only Paris
Saint-Germain (167.5) have created more than their 158.5
non-penalty expected goals. Barcelona have also won 73.6% of their
games in that time; nobody has won a higher percentage.
In total, there have been 293 goals in Flick’s 72 games in
charge (207 for, 86 against) – at least 22 more than any other team
from Europe’s top five leagues since the start of last season.
This is a fun football team, but there’s a flaw in their
system.
Barcelona, this season, have given up 24 big chances in La Liga – a chance
from which the attacking team would usually be expected to score.
Only 10 of the 96 teams across Europe’s top five leagues have given
up more. In La Liga, only Sevilla (29), Girona (29) and Levante
(25) are below them on the list.
When analysing Flick, the question is how much risk you’re able
to tolerate. His ambitious counter-press and high defensive line
can look brave one moment and chaotic the next. A mass of Blaugrana
shirts moving in unison towards the opposition goal can quickly
turn into a blur of bodies chasing back as an opponent races
through against them.
The German is seemingly happy with the trade-off. There will be
goals, and there will be excitement. Barcelona will press high,
suffocate opponents, and win a lot of games. But there will also be
lapses, moments when the structure cracks and the cover breaks.
Those without an appetite for risk will say the solution is
simple: drop the line deeper. But that high line is the essence of
the system. Without it, this wouldn’t be Flick’s Barcelona. He is
betting that his team will produce more moments of brilliance than
lapses in focus.
Which side of that equation wins out on Sunday when they face
Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu, Barcelona’s biggest game of
the year, will tell us a lot about how ready they are for the
biggest stages this season.
Real Madrid vs Barcelona Prediction
Pressing
Issues
Barcelona’s injuries can’t and won’t be accepted as an excuse if
their season unravels. But it would also be unfair to dismiss the
absence of players who were vital to the system last year when they
won their 28th La Liga title. This system is built on automatisms
and synergies all over the field. Without continuity, it can look
sloppy to the point of incoherence.
Raphinha
has missed the last four games. Flick, more than anyone,
understands what Barcelona lose without the Brazilian. “I miss
Raphinha. He was really important last season. He’s fantastic,” the
coach admitted, so he will be disappointed if reports on Friday are
true that the former Leeds United winger won’t be available on
Sunday.
Lamine
Yamal has missed four games in the league, though he is also
back now, and Flick promises we will see “a different Lamine” on
Sunday.
Fermín
López missed almost a month of action but returned with a bang,
becoming the first ever Spanish player to score a hat-trick for
Barcelona in the Champions League in their 6-1 thrashing of
Olympiakos on Tuesday, though Gavi
being out until at least the new year is a huge blow.
Arguably Barcelona’s best front three of Yamal, Raphinha and
Ferran
Torres have played just 247 minutes together across all
competitions in 2025-26. Their main three from last season, Yamal,
Raphinha and
Robert Lewandowski have only been on the field together for 22
minutes this season.
Raphinha has kept up his impressive output from last season,
with three goals and two assists in 384 La Liga minutes before
injury, but he was arguably the most important part of Barcelona’s
press in 2024-25 as well. He understood when to jump and when not
to press.
In their first big test of the new campaign, the 2–1 Champions
League loss to PSG, Torres started ahead of Lewandowski, and
justified the decision with exactly the kind of performance this
team needed, even if the result did not go their way. His 37 high
pressures were the most by any Barcelona attacker in the Champions
League this season.
As a result of these missing pieces, Barcelona’s high turnovers
per 90 have dropped this season, from 10.1 to 8.1. The continuity,
the positioning, and the understanding looks a little off.
“It’s all about positioning, to be well placed,” Flick said
recently. “If the distances are too big, you’ve lost because you
have to run more and you give more time to the opponent and that
kills you defensively. That is something we have to change.”
It’s not an uncommon sight to see Barcelona players with
exasperated arms in the air after pressing with abandon, only to
turn and see a free opposition player receive the ball in space.
When you force Barça to pass forward quickly and get their players
to bite, that pressure just isn’t there and it’s not about hunger,
desire or conditioning. It’s about positioning.
Raphinha, again, was central to helping in this phase. He was
given freedom to drop between the lines, drift centrally or move
outside to find spaces to alter the opposition’s defensive shape.
He has a sense for what to offer that few can replicate.
Despite recording nine goal involvements this season (five
goals, four assists), his alternate, Marcus
Rashford, has been good but not great and has struggled to
adapt to what Flick needs from him.
“He’s a good option as the number nine,” Flick said about
Rashford. “But he can also play as the 11. When we were thinking
about him, we knew he was versatile and he has improved a lot in
the last couple of weeks.”
That suggests of course that he wasn’t brought in to play any
specific position but to serve as a
break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option across the front line, and
he has played 798 minutes this season across a variety of
positions. Rashford has been good in spells and has even shown
signs of his class, but it hasn’t been other-worldly either.
Joan
García, the goalkeeper recruited from Espanyol in the summer,
is another player who has been missing for a few weeks. Before his
injury, García was averaging just 2.7 unsuccessful passes per 90,
while
Wojciech Szczesny has averaged 6.0 since coming in. García was
quicker off his line too, with 2.1 sweeper keeper actions to
Szczesny’s 1.2.
These are fine margins, but when you have a system that is
calibrated for perfection, they can really matter.
How to
Hurt Barcelona
“I’ve studied Barcelona for years. Every team that sits back and
waits ends up losing; 98% of them. You have to look for other ways
to beat them,” Sevilla manager Matías Almeyda said before his
side’s incredible 4-1 win over Barcelona at the start of
October.
In the three matches where Barça have truly struggled this
season, they recorded fewer than 10 sequences of 10+ passes. In
every other game, they’ve had at least 15 such sequences. When the
structure collapses and when the pressure comes on, it collapses
completely.
In those three games, they drew with Rayo Vallecano, and lost to
PSG and Sevilla.
With the Clásico on Sunday, Xabi Alonso has a decision to make
because what worked for Sevilla and PSG doesn’t automatically
translate for Real Madrid.
Raphinha was missing for both of those defeats, and his
potential presence changes the dynamic completely. When he’s
available, Barcelona always have the out-ball over the top. You can
press them high and still lose out with a single pass. Without him,
that release valve just isn’t there.
That Raphinha came away with five goals and two assists from his
four games against Madrid last season shows the difference he can
make in the Clásico, and if he plays, he could be a massive
presence both on and off the ball.
Xabi
Alonso’s Big Decision
Barcelona had Real Madrid’s number last season, to say the
least.
Barça won all four of the Clásicos, outscoring Madrid 15–7. In
those games, Madrid’s press was barely functional. Barcelona had 38
high turnovers to Madrid’s 18. Madrid allowed 54 sequences of 10+
passes, while Barça allowed Madrid just 19.
But new Los Blancos boss Xabi Alonso has Madrid playing with
more certainty, and that’s the key to beating Barcelona. You have
to choose a way of playing and you have to commit to it.
Half-measures are a one-way ticket to being shredded to pieces.
Alonso hasn’t turned his superstar attackers into defensive
workhorses overnight, but he has made them more coordinated, more
willing and more responsible in that phase.
He’s also asking for a more efficient effort out of Jude
Bellingham. At times last season, Bellingham was caught trying
to plug every gap himself. The structure is clearer now and the
burden of responsibility out of possession is better shared and
understood across the team.
Madrid want to play similarly to Barcelona, just with slightly
less vertical aggression. They want to control possession, force
you onto your heels, and then strike. If the first strike doesn’t
land, the counter-press is meant to keep you trapped.
The alternative is to sit off and wait, defend deep, absorb, and
counter. After their recent 5–2 derby defeat to Atlético Madrid,
Alonso may be wary of being too bold again. But it’s also possible
that being bold is exactly what this particular fixture
demands.
Because against this Barcelona, you don’t get to play safe. You
choose your risk, and you live with the consequences.
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