given time off in Brazil before starting his recovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThere are no guilty parties. It\u2019s an injury, and that\u2019s part of football; we have to accept it. It hasn\u2019t come at the best time, which saddens us, and now we\u2019ll have to see how we manage it, we have a lot of players.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cThese things happen. He went to Brazil. Normally we want players here [when they are injured]. We were talking on FaceTime and he was very down, and to help him relax and clear his head, we decided together with Deco he could spend a few days relaxing in Brazil with his family. Sometimes you have to make different decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alternatives to Raphinha \u2013 \u2018I\u2019m happy that Gavi is there\u2019<\/p>\n
Manchester United loanee Marcus Rashford is the favourite to replace Raphinha on the left side of attack. Flick surprised by mentioning Gavi as an option though \u2013 he managed eight minutes of action before the international break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy with Marcus; he\u2019s performing well. He\u2019s had some physical problems in recent weeks, but now\u2019s an opportunity for him. We also have other options like Fermin or Gavi, who\u2019s at a very high level. I\u2019m happy he has recovered that level in training. We\u2019ll see what we decide, because we have several choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019ve talked about the surface\u2019 \u2013 Flick on Metropolitano<\/p>\n
Flick has been highly complementary of Diego Simeone\u2019s side in their three previous meetings this season, which have resulted in two wins and a defeat for Barcelona, but crucially, progress to the Copa del Rey final for Atletico.<\/p>\n
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\u201cYes, it\u2019s a match against one of the best teams in the league and in Europe. Therefore, they have a lot of quality and any player can decide the game. It\u2019s very important not to make as many mistakes as in the last match there. I liked today\u2019s training session and there are two very important months ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGriezmann is a fantastic player, the way he plays football, it\u2019s so light. It\u2019s almost like he\u2019s dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the talking points from their defeat at the Metropolitano was the playing surface, with multiple Barcelona players losing their footing in the first leg of their Copa del Rey meeting.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it. I\u2019ve told the players that we need to look into this and they might have to change their studs. They need to prepare and adapt, it\u2019s their responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barcelona sit atop La Liga with a four-point advantage, but Real Madrid can cut the gap to a point before the game at the Metropolitano. With a tricky run ahead, and Raphinha out of action, the run-in is littered with obstacles for the Catalan giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has confirmed the return of Jules Kounde and Alejandro Balde from injury, following over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[106169,418,177277,209942,413,249005,106171,84437,16340,105064,4898,403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-562172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-alejandro-balde","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-eric-garcia","11":"tag-frenkie-de-jong","12":"tag-gavi","13":"tag-griezmann","14":"tag-hansi-flick","15":"tag-jules-kounde","16":"tag-marcus-rashford","17":"tag-raphinha","18":"tag-real-madrid","19":"tag-soccer","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}