Despite all the problems surrounding the club, Hansi Flick is having a good start to his career at FC Barcelona. The German tactician has led his team to victory in his first two official matches, and the team looks to be playing at a good level, with players like Pedri and Lewandowski shining most brightly.
Flick has been one of the coaches who had no ties with the Catalan club whatsoever before he was appointed as the team’s head coach. Two of his predecessors, Xavi Hernandez and Ronald Koeman, had both been club legends before they took on coaching duties at the club, and thus it was believed that the German would bring a starkly different approach to Barcelona.
One of the aspects in which changes were feared was the way the youth was used by the Catalan team. Xavi gave a lot of players from La Masia the opportunities to shine with the first team, and fortunately, Flick has also not shied away from using academy talents whenever he has a choice.
In fact, the German coach was pleasantly surprised by seeing so many young La Masia players ready to play for the first team. As highlighted by FC Barcelona on their X account, he expressed this surprise as he spoke to the press ahead of the match against Rayo Vallecano. In this regard, Flick said:
“It happens also in Germany but not three in a row in a team. This is not normal. What I can say, in the pre-season, we also had 15-year-old players who did a good job. This is very good.”
“We analyzed the Barca B team before we arrived and we saw a lot of good things. Yesterday I also saw the Barca B match and it’s very good on which level they are. I think everyone has many things where they can improve but the basics are very good.”
With the way some of these youngsters have responded to the trust put in them by Flick, and keeping in view the German coach’s own comments, it looks likely that Barcelona will continue to rely on their youth academy to provide top-level talents for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully, Flick will be able to utilize these talents in the best way possible to ensure they have a glittering career ahead of them and the team also benefits from their performances by getting some piece of silverware in their hands at the end of the season.
