FC Barcelona: Hansi Flick cites the Clásico to explain the defeat in Paris

20.10.26 FT Champions League

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On Tuesday evening, FC Barcelona already appeared to have their minds on Real Madrid. The Clásico will be played next Sunday. Hansi Flick links the defeat against PSG to this upcoming clash.

After the Champions League clash against PSG, FC Barcelona coach Hansi Flick acknowledged that the Clásico scheduled for Sunday had influenced his team-selection decisions. The former Bayern coach notably justified Rodri’s absence from his starting XI by his desire to preserve the player ahead of this crucial La Liga fixture. “The Clásico influenced the decision-making. If Sunday’s opponent had not been Real Madrid, Rodri would have started,” he explained.

Flick points to a lack of physical freshness

The Barcelona coach also put forward another explanation to justify his team’s difficulties: a lack of physical freshness. This was due to the problems encountered during the trip to Seville. After the match against Betis, the Catalan delegation remained stuck on their plane for around two hours because of an administrative procedure, before ultimately having to spend the night there.

“It is not an excuse, but we must understand that we made mistakes because we lacked freshness. The efforts made by the team in recent weeks have been incredible. We were unable to prepare sufficiently for this match. It was not an ideal situation, and we did not get the recovery we needed. You all know what happened after Seville. It was very difficult to manage and it affected us tonight. We must analyse what happened and improve certain aspects in the future. Today, we obviously did many very good things,” Flick said.

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Joshua SOSSOU

Editorfr, en, ar

As a sports fan, and particularly a football fan, I've been putting my writing talent to good use for a number of years now to promote African talent and the continent's football in general. On Foot Africa, enjoy reading each of my lines.

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