Hansi Flick and Barcelona are cruising to a title in Spain, and yet this season will feel bittersweet when it’s all said and done.
If you were told two years ago that Flick would arrive and immediately deliver two La Liga trophies, any Barca fan would have been thrilled. That same summer, Kylian Mbappe became Real Madrid’s next Galactico, and all signs were pointing to an uncertain road ahead at the Camp Nou, with few resources available to match their rival’s spending power.
In the Champions League,
Barcelona were lost in the woods. They haven’t been back to a Champions League final since winning it against Juventus in 2015.
Since the infamous 8-2 elimination to Bayern Munich in 2020, Barcelona were relegated to the Europa League twice, where they were knocked out early by Eintracht Frankfurt and Manchester United, before making a return to the Champions League knockouts under Xavi, who brought them just short of the semi-finals after a painful quarterfinal elimination to PSG.
This is where it’s interesting to revisit the history.
Xavi is really the manager who got the club back on the rails. He won La Liga, and made Barcelona one of the top teams in the Europe again at a time when many people wondered how much farther the Blaugrana could fall.
He was not treated with respect when Joan Laporta gave the Barca legend the sack, and yet Hansi Flick came in, delivered, and rescued the Barca president from serious criticism.
Flick was brought in largely because of his Champions League pedigree. He was on the sidelines for Bayern Munich the night Barcelona were sent into a tailspin, and went on to win the competition.
Surely he was the right man to lead the Blaugrana back to mountaintop.
Largely, he has. Barcelona is without a doubt a top five team in Europe, and should be considered one of the favorites in Europe heading into his third year in charge. Barcelona are where they belong.
The way they were eliminated, however, against Inter year one, and Atletico Madrid in year two, will raise questions about their ability to go the distance in the future.
PSG versus Bayern Munich is a worthy final. Arsenal versus Atleti, on the other hand, seemed like a mistake of history. Barcelona should have been there, and then they should have been the favorites to make it all the way to Budapest. Nonetheless, they found a way to make a mess of things, and here we are. Déjà vu all over again.
More than anything, perhaps, this is an opportunity to exercise humility and to talk about what is realistic given the way the club is run at the moment, and the constraints there within.
In a nutshell, without more depth across the board, Barcelona will continue to be at a disadvantage. Their starting eleven can compete with anyone, but over the duration of a hectic calendar, one in which La Liga will always be the top priority, the Champions League will continue to be a big challenge, because all the right cards will have to fall into place at just the right time.
For now, it’s best to be grateful for what Hansi Flick and the Barcelona players have accomplished together. They have punched well above their weight the past two seasons.
At the club level, it would be nice to have more transparency to understand where things really stand.
One way or another, we will learn a lot this summer.
Hopefully, finally, Flick gets some backing.
If we’re being honest though, is it likely?
