Grandpa Flick's most deserved award

BarcelonaThe Barça fans, devoted to a team that has won three national titles this season, filled Montjuïc as if it were the last time. La Liga had been celebrated lavishly after Thursday's derby victory with a massive procession through Barcelona, ​​so the match in question, which pitted the reigning champions against Champions League rivals Villarreal, mattered little. Among the more than 49,558 people present at the Estadi Olímpic, not a single complaint was heard following the visitors' 3-2 victory. Hansi Flick, on the other hand, was a little upset by the defeat.

The German coach took a rather low-key stance in the celebrations. Unlike Joan Laporta, a great lover of the spotlight, he ceded the spotlight to the players at the trophy presentation, although he didn't participate in the classic sardana afterward. He was also grateful that the speeches scheduled for the official schedule were ultimately canceled.

Flick did speak at a press conference, and issued an initial warning to Barça, which has become a three-time champion less than a year after Deco and Bojan convinced him to replace Xavi Hernández. "Next season we will have to work even harder to win titles," said the Barça coach, who also lamented the excessive "mistakes" they had made, which Villarreal took advantage of to take the three points from Barcelona. Flick is delighted with the team's desire to celebrate and also with a Barcelona fan base that is living on cloud nine, but his critical and demanding spirit already places him on edge.

"His speech has resonated deeply with a dressing room that stopped believing in Xavi, but who knows if his spark remains now that the players have already won," reflects a source consulted by ARA at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, where the traumatic European elimination is still brewing. Football, as we know, is cyclothymic and capricious; A sensational sport in which signing Kylian Mbappé is no guarantee of success, not even for the all-powerful Florentino Pérez.

Flick, then, has his work cut out for him. At 60, he's already decided this will be his last adventure in coaching. He accepted Barça's challenge after becoming the first German coach to fail to make it past the first round of the World Cup. With three out of a possible four titles in his bag, and above all with the feeling of having squeezed the best out of an unbalanced and inexperienced squad, he feels his prestige has been redeemed. However, he feels he still has time to finish the contract he signed until 2026 and commit to another year, until 2027, when he will be 62 and his four grandchildren, with whom he often walks around Turó Park when they visit him in the city, will be older. At that point, he'll assess whether he wants to continue working. Present and short-term future. You'll see. The signing is scheduled for this Wednesday, as has been announced. Sports World and has been confirmed by the ARA.

In a recent interview, Laporta, his main supporter, declared the renewal a done deal: "We reached an agreement about two months ago, but Deco will be the one to finalize everything. Hansi prefers to take it year by year. I think he's living one of the best periods of his career and being at Barça makes him happy." The Barça executive president, with the ball and the narrative in his favor ahead of the elections scheduled for 2026, also has the best source to speak with such forcefulness: he is a close friend of Pini Zahavi, the veteran agent that Flick hired at the beginning of 2024.

The 1

Given that the person talking to him about money is practically another member of the family that currently governs Barça, it is a matter of days before Flick and his top assistants – Marcus Sorg, Toni Tapalovic and Heiko Westermann – extend their commitment to the club and see the 11 million euros gross annual salary that, apart from supplements, they are going to be improved. While Laporta's idea is to reward him with a salary increase that will be paid progressively until 2027 and that will not necessarily take up extra space in the calculation of the fair play of the League, as the current contract expires in 2026. This detail is important in terms of planning a squad that will need to be strengthened again in a context of economic constraints. The list of priorities begins with the defense and ends with more arguments for the attack.