Barcelona boss Hansi Flick has sent a warning to fans that the club could be in for a slow start to the new season after a busy summer and a “strange preseason”.
The coach spoke after Saturday’s triangular preseason tournament against Udinese and Nottingham Forest and spoke about the difficulties of working without so many of his first team stars who are still on vacation after the World Cup.
The vast majority of Barça’s World Cup participants return on Wednesday and will only have 10 days of training
and two preseason friendlies against FC Basel and Al-Ahly to prepare for the La Liga opener against Elche on August 23.
Barça have also been busy in the transfer market and are still expected to make more big moves with players set to both join and exit the club before the window closes, so the squad will look quite different to last season with very little time on the training pitch to get to know each other.
For all of those reasons, Flick is not expecting to see the best version of his team until after the first international break of the season.
“Many players are arriving this week; it’s an atypical and strange preseason. We have to respect the players’ vacations, and this preseason isn’t normal. We’ll have to manage it until the international break; until then, we won’t be at 100%.”
It’s important to remember that due to a change in the football calendar there will only be two international breaks instead of three at the end of this year, but the first international break will last three weeks instead of two between September 21 and October 8.
So if you were to believe Flick’s words, we shouldn’t expect to see Barça at 100% until mid-October. Get ready for a slow start.
