The list that makes Hansi Flick smile the most

BarcelonaHansi Flick explained to the press gathered at the training camp in Birmingham during the preseason that he did not expect to see his team performing at full capacity until after the international break, which will run from September 24th to October 6th. A summer marked by the World Cup, with more than a dozen blaugranas participating and up to eight playing until the final with the Spanish national team, as well as the arrival of new faces with the adaptation process that this implies, led the coach to express this concern. Mind you, he set a clear goal: to win the first eight matches until the break no matter what. On the verge of achieving the set goal, the blaugrana machinery is performing above expectations.

1. Meet the goal set during the preseason

If Barça beats Sevilla this Saturday at the Sánchez-Pizjuán, they will achieve eight out of eight (seven in the League and one in the Champions League) wins in all matches. The Blaugrana machine, however, does not seem like a team that just scrapes through its matches as it can, unlike Real Madrid, but rather the complete opposite. The team is running smoothly and is captivating: full of victories in the League, with 28 goals, which means an average of 4.6 goals per game. Is this the best Flick's Barça we have seen so far? "I don't like to compare teams. We won five titles over the last two seasons and now we want to win more," said the coach after the scandalous thrashing against Racing (7-2). "The most important thing is that we play together as a team," the manager resolves.

2. A solvent transfer market

Barça has closed a demanding transfer market with flying colors. Demanding, because at the end of this season the club will have to return to Montjuïc, where it will be for at least six months until the roof of the new Camp Nou is finished, and that means that revenue will drop again: the rent for the Olympic Stadium will have to be assumed once more and revenue from ticketing will fall. In conclusion: it will go back to being outside the 1:1 rule and the difficulties in signing players and making registrations will return. This had turned the summer market –with the extension of the winter market– into a decisive transfer window for this season and the next. The arrivals of Rodri, Gordon, Adeyemi, Gabriel Jesus, and Cancelo improve a squad that is not missing the goals of Lewandowski and Ferran. Raphinha is solving like an angel not having been able to sign a striker, but it remains to be seen whether the team will miss any reinforcement in defense, especially on the left side of the center-backs.

3. Raphinha's reconversion

"The coach has been a key person for my role in this team and, also, for what I think of myself," said the captain after the victory against Racing. Flick has given him the captaincy and entrusted him with being the new Barça number nine. Raphinha's response: 11 goals and 3 assists in 7 games. Here one must also take into account the changes in the physical preparation area, because the Brazilian spent a good part of last season in the infirmary. The great novelty – and a red line that the coach drew to guarantee his renewal – was to entrust the reins of the players' preparation and recovery to someone he trusts implicitly: Benjamin Kugel. While Julio Tous no longer leads this area – for example, Pepe Conde and Raúl Martínez are still there – Flick has handed the keys to Kugel. And, for the moment, the results are excellent.

4. Recover players and the performance of the youth

Physical level and injury prevention are key factors for the functioning of the demanding collective machinery that Flick demands from his players, but another facet that makes the German smile and that, in fact, is inseparable from physical performance, is the recovery of the best versions of his footballers. With Flick we have seen the best Raphinha and one of the challenges of this season is to recover Andreas Christensen. The Dane wanted to renew and the coach agreed because he trusts him. Karim Adeyemi, the fashionable name right now at Barça, has also arrived after a discreet season at Dortmund and is performing like a lightning bolt. And what to say about the young ones: to the long list of debutants with Xavi to whom Flick has given continuity, now we must add Xavi Espart. If last season the surprising breakthrough was that of Gerard Martín, this one is Espart.

5. The suffocating and collective pressure

Barça's offensive exuberance (33 goals between La Liga and Champions League in seven matches) is also explained by a non-negotiable task for the 'blaugrana' side: post-loss recovery and high—and suffocating—collective pressure on the opponent. This is a mechanism that requires the effort and conviction of the entire team, because if just one or two players drop their duties, a mismatch in the pressure can already make it ineffective. At Barça, everyone works hard, starting with captain Raphinha, who is often the first to initiate the high press. "We all have to run. If you don't run, you don't win," Lamine Yamal said a few days ago. "We know what we have to do, and if we all do it together, we are, as I said, unstoppable, both with and without the ball. We are very dangerous. And yes, Hansi wants this from us, so we give everything, even in the press," explained Adeyemi in an interview with ARA.