Hans-Dieter Flick

[serghei]

Performed well in your dreams maybe. Stumbled to a league title somehow, mostly due to Stegen, defense and opposition not finishing chances. Performance in both CL campaigns was bad. Got played off the park by likes of Shaktar, a team playing on a neutral ground. Beat a Napoli in dissaray and got shafted by first important team we faced.

By the time CL restarted in February we were already out of all comps. Indicative of our playing level last season.

Yes, there are fine margins in CL, but our level of play didn't warrant being at the top. If you just want to lie to yourself as if getting past PSG would have meant anything other than statistics, be my guest. But guess what? We dominated them for 1 half in total, out of the 4 played. With Donnarumma gifting us 3 goals.

Not this again. It's been established a while ago that the above is simply incorrect. It is not a matter of opinion. Data is there and shows the club dominated its rivals in nearly every relevant statistic in the La Liga season of 2022-23.

 

[JamDav1982]

PSG were a poor side in CL lets be honest.

Also Barca were 2 goals up.. PSG needed 3 to win that tie before penalties.

This is a PSG team that failed to score v Dortmund in next two legs.. they scored 6 v Barca in two legs and hit woodwork multiple times.

The tie is not over as soon as Araujo is sent off it is still alive.

On his red card.. poor pass and even dumber decision to take him down but that all came from Lucho targetting Araujo on ball and setting those traps also.

Xavi doesnt get off scot free in that latest European failure due to that red card either.

 

[BJJ]

This club needs to get with the times. It's still holding onto past glories and can't get over it's obsession with small players who are cute technically but lack athleticism and mental drive.
I really think too many managers get seduced by the Masia myth and fail to see the obvious problems that are staring them in the face.
Monaco just looked bigger, stronger and faster. It looked like boys against men. You have to marry technique with the other attributes I mentioned earlier.
Looking forward to the Valencia game but dreading it too.
Does anyone know how Valencia looked pre season???

 

[Porque]

Flick needs to get rid of the smiles and plesurentries, and grow some fuckin balls.

Did you see the pitch quality for the Gamper!?

Xavi would have been all over that shit, blaming it for the result. Catalan press would have eaten it up, Laporta literally, and the team would be going into the Valencia game feeling fabulous.

 

[TheStig]

Does anything work at this club? How was the pitch so bad if no one stepped on it for 3 months?

 

[CañoRegateGol]

First of all we need atitude, be ready to play with pride and honour and die for it.
If you have this you can apply all the strategy you want.
But if your team is full of wankers, even Father Cruyff can't do anything.

I need 15-16 fellas who wants to eat the world.

 

[BusiTheKing]

The one thing I want to see this year is some actual chemistry between our core players. Yamal, Pedri, Frenkie, Gundo, Lewy, maybe Raphinha but he's not that type of quality.

Seen sparks here and there but don't think we've had the real thing for quite some years.

 

[Devils]

I know it's only friendlies but gotta say the matches against Milan and Monaco really showed what i think most people fear about this dude: Suicidal defensive tactics and high lines that leave us completely exposed.

We'll see what it looks like vs Valenica this weekend. Wouldn't be surprised at all if we see the same.

 

[Haraldinho]

A miracle if we beat this voodoo Madrid this year.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

We can already tell Flick is giving us a loser mentality.

First time in 100 years 100 percent of the fans have already given up.

 

[ajnotkeith]

Flick needs to get rid of the smiles and plesurentries, and grow some fuckin balls.

Did you see the pitch quality for the Gamper!?

Xavi would have been all over that shit, blaming it for the result. Catalan press would have eaten it up, Laporta literally, and the team would be going into the Valencia game feeling fabulous.

I sense this post is half joking because you actually make a really observant point.

Part of why team morale was so good under Xavi, I sense, because they actually bought his excuses and thought they deserved to win all those games but simply lost due to referees. They didn't lose confidence throughout his entire tenure.

If there's one thing Xavi was absolutely good at it was keeping the players bought in and committed, good man management skills in some ways. It's hard to know whether that was an intentional tactic or simply him whining to defend himself but it ironically seemed to keep the team feeling good.

 

[ajnotkeith]

Not this again. It's been established a while ago that the above is simply incorrect. It is not a matter of opinion. Data is there and shows the club dominated its rivals in nearly every relevant statistic in the La Liga season of 2022-23.

Yes, but do note that Madrid had a uniquely weak year on all fronts. Indeed the main difference between 22-23 and 23-24 is that Madrid went from 78 points to 95(!)

If Flick was competing against Madrid 22-23 then I would expect him to win the title. In other words, if Madrid are keeping an 80-85 point average we should be competing to win it.

If Madrid has a year like they do last year along with Mbappe it's hard to blame him if he doesn't.

 

[ajnotkeith]

f course, if we compare these players with Real Madrid's squad and with City for example... they do not belong in the same tier. But nobody expects Flick's Barcelona to beat Madrid and City. If they will beat these teams it would be much like how Wolverhampton beat City last season. A good degree of luck has to be involved.

But the other teams in the league... no excuse really. Only team that gets close to us squad wise is Atletico, and they have a clear match-up problem vs Barcelona in a league scenario.

That's a fair assessment.

I would expect Flick to achieve around 85 league points and depending on draw make it to CL QFs or SFs.

 

[serghei]

That's a fair assessment.

I would expect Flick to achieve around 85 league points and depending on draw make it to CL QFs or SFs.

That means he is gonna waste a lot of points vs smaller teams. Much like Xavi did last season. Not good enough.

 

[serghei]

Yes, but do note that Madrid had a uniquely weak year on all fronts. Indeed the main difference between 22-23 and 23-24 is that Madrid went from 78 points to 95(!)

If Flick was competing against Madrid 22-23 then I would expect him to win the title. In other words, if Madrid are keeping an 80-85 point average we should be competing to win it.

If Madrid has a year like they do last year along with Mbappe it's hard to blame him if he doesn't.

Madrid can't do anything about the other 36 games you play against other opponents. You drop very few amount of points vs likes of Bilbao, Betis, Sociedad etc, not to metion likes of Granada, Cadiz or who's in the league at the moment in the relegation zone... things open up for a title challenge. Leagues are about wasting as few points as possible vs good, but not great teams, and medium to low level sides.

Take City last season. Lost 0-1 vs Arsenal and drew 0-0 at home. Still won the league because they wasted fewer points vs rest of the field.

If you look at their h2h vs Liverpool and Arsenal, they won zero games, lost 1 and drew 3 out of 4 games, 3/12. Arsenal won 2, drew 2, lost 0, 8/12 points. Still lost because of too many fuck-ups vs rest of the field.

Madrid won the h2h vs us that season btw. 3-1 and 1-2. So the league was actually won by us vs rest of the field, which was and still is made entirely of teams weaker than Barca on paper.