The two faces of Barça with Olmo or Fermín

BarcelonaHansi Flick is taking advantage of this break to mend Barça's shoes after a week in which the team has been stripped bare, both defensively and offensively. The defeats against PSG and Sevilla, while not a complete disaster, They have set off certain alarm bells in the coaching staff and in the sports management. The German has already spoken about "egos and collective effort," as well as "structure," while Deco warned this week in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio that without "work," Barça is a much more vulnerable team: "We're not that good." The demands of rivals like PSG, the current Champions League champions, and the avalanche of injuries that have weighed down the squad have not allowed the coach to fine-tune a starting eleven with consistency.

One of the main doubts that Flick still has to resolve is who will support the attacking midfield trio from the attacking midfield position, a position that Fermín López is competing for. López is expected to be recovered from the left iliopsoas muscle injury he suffered against Getafe against Girona (on October 18), which was disappointing. Of the ten matches the Blaugrana have played this season (eight in La Liga and two in the Champions League), four different players have started as a playmaker. The Terrassa native has been the one who has started in this position the most times: Rayo Vallecano, Getafe, Oviedo, PSG, and Sevilla, the last three when Fermín was already injured.

For his part, the Andalusian was the chosen playmaker against Mallorca, Valencia, and Newcastle. In the other two matches, the chosen ones—who only lasted the first half in the position—were Raphinha, against Levante, and Dro, against Real Sociedad. Two experiments that also didn't convince Flick: Raphinha, who is also expected against Girona, remains a mainstay on the left wing, while the 17-year-old will be given opportunities over time. Aside from the final scorelines, the impressions conveyed by both Fermín and Olmo have also varied. Furthermore, the Vallesan player, playing the full 90 minutes, is running out of gas.

The Terrassa native is more technically gifted, but he's neither providing the same attacking attack nor effectiveness as the Andalusian, nor does he have the same intensity in his pressing, a problem that has been particularly pressing after the defeats against PSG and Sevilla. In this sense, the absence of Raphinha, one of the other architects of the high pressing characteristic of Flick's Barça, has also been very noticeable. Rashford, who doesn't apply it nearly as well as the Brazilian, a player who works very hard in this area, doesn't apply it. In the attacking midfield, after these first ten games of the season, the data helps explain the differences between Olmo and Fermín.

Barça shoot more and are shot less with Fermín.

According to figures provided to ARA by Albert Valor, an analyst with the specialist firm Opta, Barça makes more shots, is attacked less, and has more ball contacts in the opponent's box when Fermín plays. Although Olmo has played more minutes, when comparing averages, the Barça number 20 only surpasses the player from El Campillo in two of the six parameters analyzed: contacts, contacts in the opponent's box, shots, shots on goal on target, goals, and assists. Of these, the former RB Leipzig player, when a starter, only has better records in terms of assists (0.2, i.e., one in five games for Fermín's head in three matches) and contacts (58 to 52). However, the number 16 player surpasses him in the average number of interventions in the opponent's box (4.3 versus 2.2), shots (2.7 versus 2.6), shots on goal (1.3 versus 0.6), and goals (0.7 versus 0.2).

Obviously, there are many more factors that influence this, such as the strength of the opponent or the teammates on the pitch, but based on the data, Fermín has a better record. If we look at the team as a whole, Barça also has better records in all the parameters mentioned above with the former Linares player on the pitch. The main differences are that the team has more shots (22.3 shots on average with Fermín versus 15.8 with Olmo), has more interventions in the opponent's box (40.3 versus 28.8), and also has fewer shots against them (5.3 versus 10.2). It's also worth noting that the defeats against PSG and Sevilla have a direct impact on these figures. Hansi Flick needs both: the bite and arrival of Fermín and the long-awaited talent of Dani Olmo.