Say what you like about Hansi Flick, but the first-team head coach isn’t for turning.
Win, lose or draw, he clearly won’t have his Barça side playing any other way than with the high-risk, high-reward high line.
As we saw again at Celta, when it doesn’t work and the Blaugranes are so easily exposed, it looks amateurish.
However, in the second half, there was a clear indication of how well it can contain opposition teams when used correctly.
What needs to be addressed is the lack of all four defensive players pushing forward at the same time.
On Sunday night it was Alejandro Balde playing Celta’s players onside; in other games, Ronald Araujo and Jules Kounde have been at fault.
And yet, Culers have grown so used to this way of working that to see Flick bend to the will of others just wouldn’t do.
Part of the appeal of the high line is precisely because of the risk involved. Lest we forget that football is still an entertainment business, and, to coin a phrase, “are you not entertained?!”
I guess that the real issue is that this season it just isn’t working as smoothly as it did in 2025/26.
Teams have cottoned on that if they time their runs well enough, they’ll beat the offside trap and, more often than not, will get a shot away at goal.
If we go back only a few months, precisely this way of playing was being lauded across Europe as we came within a hair’s breadth of qualifying for the Champions League final.
Although Barça lost against Internazionale, those two semi-finals were epic and, arguably, two of the best and most exciting games to ever be played at that stage of the competition.
A few tweaks here and there and there’s no reason whatsoever why Flick can’t oversee another second half of the campaign as he did in 2024/25.
Barcelona still have the players to be brave and execute such a plan, so perhaps Culers need to understand that there will be some bumps in the road but, ultimately, this is a team primed for success playing in a manner that some teams wouldn’t even dare think about doing.
That’s intoxicating for a supporter and, frankly, in Flick we trust.
Here’s to 50 more edge-of-the-seat encounters…
