La Liga champions have displayed the occasional soft underbelly and the manager must find solutions
Before Sunday, Sevilla hadn’t beaten Barcelona in 10 years, but by the time the final whistle went it was a thrashing like no other, and Hansi Flick’s players, who had collectively willed the game to be over several minutes before it actually ended, glided off the pitch gutted and pale as ghosts.
Asked his opinion after the match, Pedri said, “We have to be honest with ourselves, I don’t think we’ve ever played as badly as we did today.” Pundits also joined voices with the midfielder to call it the worst game in Flick’s 17-month stay at the club so far, but that aside, it was evident that the performance had been the culmination of a number of problems that have floated around the club of late.
When Flick takes another look at the match, he’ll see tiredness, injuries and missed chances as some significant factors as to why the game was lost in Seville. All reasonable points, but still hardly balm for his wounds.
The defeat was Barcelona’s second in a week, following their Champions League loss to Paris Saint-Germain, after which Flick confessed his side were simply not at the level of the European champions.
Bookending the thumping at the hands of Sevilla was the international break, which Flick may be thankful to have. A week of no club football is a week extra for Barcelona’s missing stars to recover; Raphinha, Lamine Yamal, Joan Garcia, and Fermin Lopez were all absent in Seville through injury.
There is some argument to be made about luck. The opener came via a penalty from a dubious foul; Sevilla were perhaps lucky to get it and Barcelona could have valid objections.
Going behind early was of course a huge psychological disadvantage for Flick’s side, although the counterpoint is that Sevilla had been on top before the goal and continued right afterwards, Alexis Sanchez buzzing around the pitch looking for various ways to hurt his former club. The Chilean converted coolly from the spot to put his side ahead and had some other very nice moments.
“The first half was not good for us,” Flick said. And Pedri echoed him. “We didn’t know what to do with the ball,” said the midfielder, and that captured it nicely.
When the going gets rough, all the inherent weaknesses of a team’s setup suddenly become very visible, like an embarrassing pimple right on the forehead. Flick plays an extremely risky high line and many times his team pull it off quite well. Everyone enjoys it, life on the edge.
But that also means that when they don’t the results can be atrocious. Sevilla’s forwards had a field day bursting through the back line and making the 40-yard run up to the Barcelona goal.
Just before the half hour Djibril Sow was put through by Sanchez and Sevilla should have converted, but Isaac Romero’s attempt was disappointing. It was from a similar situation that the home side went two-nil up just moments later, Ruben Vargas squaring for Romero to get it right on that occasion.
Barcelona hit back through a fine Rashford volley but before that there had been the one-v-one miss. Roony Bardghji also had his misfiring boots on.
Things vastly improved for Flick’s side in the second half; in fact they were dominant and it would have been a different story if they had been clinical enough. The penalty, for instance, could have turned things around but Robert Lewandowski sent that just wide. “In the second half, the reaction was good,” Flick said. “I appreciate a lot what we did, how we played and it was really good to see.”
But if there is anything to take away, it’s that he knows his team are vulnerable and need fixing up. The returning stars will help but there will need to be tactical improvement and more effort too.
Interestingly enough the performance in Seville mirrors the shambolic display in Vallecas at the end of August. There they were not missing Raphinha or Yamal, or Fermin Lopez for that matter. Barcelona had started well but were then slowly overrun and repeatedly scythed apart. But Flick’s side had Joan Garcia to stand tall on that occasion and resist the thunderbolt while his teammates floundered.
Against Sevilla Wojciech Szczesny was not quite at that level of ability or form. He may think he could have done better to keep out the third goal, for instance, which conclusively ended the game as a tie, although by then Barcelona’s chances of equalising were already looking rather slim.
The international break followed that game in Vallecas too, but before they could join their national teams Flick locked his players in the dressing room and called for more intensity, unity and focus.
His opinion after losing on Sunday was quite similar. “The most important thing is the reaction and the emotion I see in the dressing room,” Flick told the media in Seville. “When we start again after the break, we will fight for every title – La Liga, the Champions League, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa. Players will come back and we go on. We work hard, we stay positive.”
Echoing him, again, was Pedri. “The coach and us, the players, will work hard to improve a lot of things after the break so that this doesn’t happen again,” he said. Both sides will need each other’s best more than ever in the games to come.
