The secret of Flick's Barça

BarcelonaHansi Flick's Barça is an animal that thrives on enthusiasm, and Tennessee Williams already warned us that this is the most important thing in life. Enthusiasm mitigates fears, soothes the legs, strengthens the mind, and makes a squad that is by no means the best in Europe achieve wonders. With that emotional state in place, you can find a lion in the middle of the savannah, and you'll be convinced of your ability to win. And Barça found a lion this Sunday. in the form of a 0-2 in the 14th minute against Real Madrid. But he'd already encountered it against rivals like Inter Milan and Atlético Madrid, and the situation ended with the lion begging for mercy. The secret to these comebacks born of the mind is enthusiasm.

There are few better visual definitions of enthusiasm than what happened yesterday at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys between the 19th and 45th minutes of the Clásico against Real Madrid. In those 26 minutes, Barça scored four goals, which served to take the lead from 0-2 to 4-2, and accelerated the time-space. It was 26 minutes, but it felt like only 10. The Real Madrid defense saw one high-speed train after another pass by during this stretch of the match without having the option of grabbing any of them. There was no platform, only chaos, all around. Just ask Lucas Vázquez, who's still wondering what he did to Raphinha for the Brazilian to make him look bad on Barça's fourth goal.

For any team in the world, a 2-0 lead against Real Madrid while people are still entering the stadium ruins their afternoon. Especially if you've just been eliminated from the Champions League. But the attitude of this young Barça can be summed up by the philosophy displayed by Lamine Yamal on Movistar+ immediately after the Clásico. "They've already forgotten the Champions League game [pointing to the fans] and so have we." And then he added: "I told my mother that the Champions League is played every year. We'll keep trying until we win it." He recounted this with the same calmness with which he celebrated the 2-2 draw by folding his arms.

Seven comebacks based on enthusiasm

"It's not reason that drives us to action, it's emotion," said philosopher and biologist Humberto Maturana. Barça has managed to take a lead or draw, even if only momentarily, in seven matches this season after losing by two goals. And, in six of those cases, they did so against Champions League-level opponents. The first comeback came on January 21 at the Estadio da Luz. Benfica was leading 3-1 in the 30th minute and 4-2 in the 68th, but Barça eventually won 4-5 with a goal from Raphinha in the 96th minute. The second display of extreme enthusiasm from Flick's team came on February 25 in the Copa del Rey against Atlético Madrid. Diego Simeone's team went ahead 0-2 in the 6th minute and Barça were already winning 3-2 in the 41st minute, a match that Sorloth tied with a goal in the 93rd minute, making it 4-4.

Atlético Madrid didn't learn their lesson, or Barça's enthusiasm proved too much for them. At the Metropolitano, they already saw the game as a 2-0 victory when Sorloth made it 2-0 in the 70th minute of the La Liga match on March 16. Few teams would have remained in the lurch. One of them, Barça. The duel ended 2-4. The third to win against Flick's men was Celta de Vigo on April 19, who went 3-1 up at Montjuïc in the La Liga match in the 62nd minute and took a 4-3 victory. Then came the two semi-final tie against Inter Milan, which, although it ended with Barça's elimination, saw Barça overturn a two-goal deficit in both matches.

In the first leg, on April 30th in Barcelona, Dumfries made it 2-0 in the 21st minute and Ferran Torres made it 2-2 in the 38th. In the return leg, last Tuesday in Milan, Inter went 2-0 down at halftime and Raphinha made it 2-3 in the 87th. Yesterday against Real Madrid, the 2-0 lead in the 14th minute became 3-2 in the 34th and 4-2 in the 45th. With these four goals, Barça have scored a total of 16 in four matches against the Whites this season, which have earned them four wins. That's an average of four goals per game. Enthusiasm is capable of such feats.