Graham HunterNov 11, 2025, 03:11 AM ETCloseGraham Hunter is a Barcelona-based freelance writer for ESPN.com who specializes in La Liga and the Spanish national team.Follow on X
play2:44Flick: Defending is not in Barcelona’s DNAHansi Flick has defended his style of play following Barcelona’s 3-3 draw with Club Brugge in the Champions League.
Celta Vigo vs. Barcelona – Game Highlights (1:14)Watch the Game Highlights from Celta Vigo vs. Barcelona, 11/10/2025 (1:14)
Flick: Defending is not in Barcelona’s DNAHansi Flick has defended his style of play following Barcelona’s 3-3 draw with Club Brugge in the Champions League.
Hansi Flick has defended his style of play following Barcelona’s 3-3 draw with Club Brugge in the Champions League.
Barcelona manager Hansi Flick didn’t come out for his post-match news conference at Celta Vigo on Sunday sword in hand, dressed in the gladiator Maximus Decimus Meridius’ leather tunic, roaring, “Are you not entertained?!” But he should have.
Chin jutted out, hostile stare, arms akimbo, challenging everyone present with Russell Crowe’s “Gladiator” follow-up line” Is this not why you are here?”
Flick’s LaLiga champions had just completed their fourth of match the season that yielded six or more goals. The 4-2 win in Vigo marked 66 goals scored and conceded in 14 games — that’s more than four per outing.
Barcelona are not the best team in Europe, but they are the best ticket. The greatest guarantee of topsy-turvy football, non-stop action, nets bulging, hero stories, epic fails and great dollops of genius.
The vast majority of those who love football out there are enamored with the sport, the addiction of high drama and elite skill — not shackled to a club or their badge. Huge tranches of those who watch Spanish football simply crave entertainment. And boy, do Flick’s Barcelona serve that up with a big ladle.
It’s the Ziegfeld Follies meets the Harlem Globetrotters, with a drop of Keystone Kops plus Barnum & Bailey thrown in, too. There’s non-stop entertainment, jaw-dropping audacity, invention, lack of attention, lapses in concentration, surprises, fun, pugnaciousness and Jake LaMotta-style “I’ll throw a flurry of punches and then you throw yours.”
When did the rest of the world become such football Grinches? When did it become so fashionable and so attractive to the sheep in the media herd to trot along the same old path of “Baah, baah; bleat, bleat, bleat,” instead of mixing in the admission that a flawed implementation of high-risk tactics, when mixed in with attacking brilliance, is just appointment viewing?
Flick and his leaky (but lovely) team mix madness with magic, facing almost as many attacks and growling criticism off the pitch as they do shots on it — and that’s saying something! UEFA Champions League winners Ruud Gullit, Thierry Henry and Didier Deschamps all have taken aim at Barça and let loose these past few days.
The France coach said that “Barcelona plays with a very high line, regardless of the moment in the match, and that leaves defenders in impossible situations.” Impossible? Really, Didier?
Gullit, typically, was much more brutal. “Why insist on a plan which is doomed to fail,” he demanded to know, while calling Barcelona’s defensive ideas “kamikaze.” The plan wasn’t “doomed” to fail last season, Ruud.
Ian Paul Joy ranted, “Mark my words, if they continue to play this high line, Barcelona might win absolutely nothing this season.” Might. Indeed. A powerful word.
Joy was in line with Gullit (again), whose point of view is, “Every turnover is an open invitation to a counterattack. You can’t win titles playing like that.”
What both of these gentlemen seem to have failed to understand is that, a) you can win titles playing like that — Barcelona won three of them last season — and b) the high line was equally derided last season, especially by those who talk without studying. While it’s high-risk, zero-error-tolerance tactic, it’s highly effective if it’s executed well.
In summing up his trophy-laden first season at the club, the 60-year-old former Bayern Munich and Germany manager said, “The fact is that this team enjoys the respect of all of Europe. We look at ourselves in the mirror and are proud of our commitment and our style of play.”
What baffles is the fact that this exact brand of football — better applied, admittedly — produced several matches last season that firmly edged into the all-time-classic genre. Stuff we should all be deeply grateful to have enjoyed.
The Copa del Rey final Clásico? Seven goals, a barnstorming finish, large chunks of the match when it was clear that either side could win — ditto the second LaLiga Clásico.
If Flick could have played up Maximus Decimus Meridius’ “Are you not entertained?” demand on Sunday, then his squad could adopt the Robbie Williams anthem “Let Me Entertain You.”
The win in Vigo was Flick’s 50th LaLiga match in charge of the Blaugrana. His record: won 37, drawn five, lost eight. That doesn’t seem to reprehensible to me and, getting back to the entertainment theme, those 50 contests have brought 188 goals: very nearly four per match. Bumper-sized entertainment.
Sometimes they’ll boss a game (Getafe, Valencia and Olympiacos this season; aggregate 15-1), but on other occasions they’ll need the jolt of falling behind or being under the cosh before they unleash a barrage of brilliant passes, goal chances and Lamine Yamal dribbling magic. Win, lose or draw, they’ll cut loose on the opponent; we just have to sit back and appreciate.
This season he’s already given four more teenage debutants their chances: left back Jofre Torrents (18), Dro Fernández (17), Toni Fernández (17) and Roony Bardghji (19). Daring? Given how young Yamal, Alejandro Balde, Pau Cubarsí, Fermín López, Pedri and Marc Casadó already are, this is quite a feat, high risk and another indicator that the Barcelona DNA that the German constantly refers to is something he takes very seriously.
So, give a Bronx cheer the next time you read or hear a critic ranting vaguely that Barcelona’s high line is a recipe for disaster. It’s the modern equivalent of Alan Hansen watching David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Gary Neville blossom at Manchester United and claim “you can’t win anything with kids.”
Meantime, sit back and enjoy. There’ll be a goal or a mix-up or a red card or a wonder pass or a broken offside line in a minute. That’s just how they play.
Celta Vigo vs. Barcelona – Game Highlights (1:14)Watch the Game Highlights from Celta Vigo vs. Barcelona, 11/10/2025 (1:14)
CloseGraham Hunter is a Barcelona-based freelance writer for ESPN.com who specializes in La Liga and the Spanish national team.Follow on X
At Flick’s Barcelona, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
Watch the Game Highlights from Celta Vigo vs. Barcelona, 11/10/2025 (1:14)