Hansi Flick’s Barcelona have made a flying start to the season with four wins from four La Liga games. Apart from the 12 points that they have earned, the team has won a lot of plaudits for the style of play.
The Spanish team has played an exciting brand of football under the German coach who has been a breath of fresh air after the rigid positional system under Xavi. Flick gives his players much more freedom to roam.
Barcelona’s 7-0 thumping of Real Valladolid was a culmination of all the good work that the club has shown throughout pre-season and the first three games of La Liga. Every single thing the team tried came off on the day and the results were there for everyone to see.
Many players have been benefactors of Flick’s fluid, attacking system. Robert Lewandowski has been brilliant in the German’s team so far having already scored four goals in four La Liga games and is currently on international duty with Poland.
The 36-year-old veteran striker has taken this opportunity to compare Flick’s team to that of Xavi’s, as quoted by SPORT. Here is what the ex-Bayern Munich star had to say:
“It’s something different, you can tell, we didn’t have a game like that last season. We started well, sometimes we stumbled and sometimes we got it right but the season is long, many things can still happen.”
The most important thing about Flick’s Barcelona so far has been the willingness to play a system that allows players to express themselves. Xavi’s team was extremely rigid with players instructed to occupy certain positions and not given the freedom to move from it.
Had Xavi had the players to deploy that system, it would have worked out brilliantly but unfortunately, chance creation became almost non-existent at times in the Spanish tactician’s setup, meaning that Lewandowski was often isolated.