The big 'hidden' star of Hansi Flick's Barça

BarcelonaTo understand Eric Garcia's redemption at Hansi Flick's Barça, we need to go back to the summer. More specifically, to the Olympic Games, where he teamed up with Pau Cubarsí and the national team took home gold. This prevented the two players from doing pre-season training under the German coach. The competition held in Paris ended on August 9. Barça began the League at Mestalla on the 17th of the same month.

Without Araujo, who had been injured with Uruguay, and without the conviction that Christensen could be 100% fit for the start of the Flick era in a difficult place, the sporting management required Cubarsí and Eric to return to the team as soon as possible. In this way, neither of them could have a few days of rest that would have been prudent after the demands of reaching the final of the Games (there were holidays before the Olympic event), a competition during which Flick took the opportunity to greet them through messages.

Eric, whose Barcelona fan base is not in doubt – that's why he didn't renew with City and exhausted his contract to sign for Koeman's Barça, which presented more urgency than certainty – agreed to make this gesture to show his commitment to the club and its new coach after a season on loan at Girona, in which he was loaned out. The starters at Mestalla were Iñigo Martínez and Cubarsí. The centre-back from Martorell played in the last 20 minutes.

Flick's left-hand man with Eric

The season went on and, as with other players, Eric was seduced by the honesty and rationality in Flick's treatment, who was able to tell him that, with the injuries in the squad, he was counting on him, even though he had not made him a starter in the first games. The German was consistent with his words and began to give him minutes. But above all, he placed him as a pivot, a position that Marc Casadó had earned after Marc Bernal's serious injury.

Eric, who had already played as a pivot on occasion with Xavi, although without continuity, offered a good performance. Thus, he chained together three consecutive starts in this position in the League, in the victories against Villarreal and Getafe and in the defeat against Osasuna in a game with many rotations. In the following match, he played 84 minutes against Alavés, a match in which he had not been a starter but in which he came on after six minutes due to an injury to Ferran and in which he ended up providing an assist. In between, he was also chosen as a starting pivot against Monaco, in his debut in the Champions League, but an expulsion after 10 minutes hampered his participation.

Although Eric does not hide the fact that he prefers to play as a centre-back rather than a pivot, he was satisfied with having accumulated participations in that position and he was not unaware of the guarantees that the Iñigo-Cubarsí pairing was giving in the heart of the defence. His progress was interrupted by a muscle injury that occurred during the warm-up of a match against Sevilla in Montjuïc in which he was supposed to start. This mishap kept him out of the game from mid-October until the beginning of December.

During this process, Flick and also his coaching staff (especially the assistant coach, Marcus Sorg, and even Thiago Alcántara, who had collaborated with thestaff in the summer), they showed the same left hand, taking an interest in the evolution of the footballer during the recovery process and letting him know that he was a piece that fit very well into their football proposal and that they were waiting for his return.

Eric Garcia's return to the starting eleven

Despite the care he has received, Flick is faithful to the things that work for him and does not stick to anyone. If you are unlucky enough to get injured, you will have to earn your place again. After being discharged, Eric gradually entered the team, with the added competition that Araujo was also available and occupied the vacancy left by Iñigo's injury and that, in the pivot, De Jong was also beginning to monopolize minutes. This context generated, once again, the siren songs of a return to Girona, in which the club and the player had seen their paths meet very successfully. "When he came the first time, perhaps it could have seemed that he took a step back, but coming here he took two steps forward," they comment to ARA from the Girona club. Míchel would have welcomed him with pleasure.

Meanwhile, Eric continued to train at a good level, quietly, accompanied by the group of young players who are the mainstays of the dressing room, led by players like Pedri and Gavi, while also maintaining a good relationship with Ferran, Lamine Yamal, Fermín and Balde, among others. Apart from his attitude towards working, the good will he showed towards Flick during the period he was a pivot and the "material of a future coach" - as they recognise in the dressing room - have helped him to win over the coach again, who wants to continue counting on him even though he is not giving him too many minutes.

With Araujo showing several shortcomings in the ball's output and hesitations when it came to ruling out offside, Eric's meritocracy has been rewarded and he has managed to get back into Flick's circle of confidence. He earned his place by dint of hard work, and also emerged as a goalscorer with his head, a virtue he had already begun to show in Girona. Particularly relevant was his goal in the comeback against Benfica in the Champions League, a game in which Eric's luck changed again.