For many Barcelona fans, the memory they have of their new coach, Hansi Flick is not likely to be a very good one. You see, back in August 2020, Flick led a ruthless Bayern Munich team that hammered Barca 8-2 in the Uefa Champions league. Bayern would later go on to win the treble that season.
Flick’s new assignment is to now make the team he once battered look like that treble-winning team he led to battle. This looks like an uphill task for the new coach given Barca’s recent struggle for for form and title, but the board at Camp Nou are confident Flick is the man to turn their fortunes around.
“By bringing Hansi Flick as coach, FC Barcelona have chosen a man well known for his teams’ high pressing, intense and daring style of play which has brought him great success at club level and international level, winning pretty much all there is to win in the world of football,” Barca wrote on their website.
Hans-Dieter “Hansi” Flick, 59, was born in Heidelberg, Germany. He started out his playing career as a member of the youth team at BSC Mückenloch before stints at SpVgg Neckargemünd and SV Sandhausen. He later went on to play for Bayern Munich and FC Köln.
Flick started his coaching career in 1996 as player-coach at FC Victoria Bammental. In 2000, he took over at Hoffenheim with whom he gained promotion to the Regionalliga Süd, before departing in 2005 to RB Salzburg to become part of the coaching staff under Giovanni Trapattoni and Lothar Matthäus.
Between 2006 and 2014, he was the assistant coach of Germany under manager Joachim Löw as they won the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and subsequently served as sporting director of the German Football Association until 2017.
Having rejoined Bayern Munich as an assistant coach in 2019, Flick was made interim manager following the departure of Niko Kovač in November 2019. He was later appointed permanently and recorded 22 wins in his first 25 games in charge, surpassing Pep Guardiola’s figures of 21 wins in his first 25 matches. He went on to win the UEFA Champions League that season, completing the club’s second continental treble.
Flick was also given the UEFA Coach of the Year award for his exploits with Bayern. During his time with Bayern, he was often referred to as ‘Flicki-Flaka’ by the media in reference to his team’s style of play which was a mixture of the ‘gegenpressing’ and possession based style of football.
