Flick asks his players for more connection to win at Brest

After the storm in Vigo, calm arrived in Barcelona. Yesterday, in the morning session, there were even two aisles of collechas. The first for Ronald Araújo. Unprecedented this season, the Uruguayan center back celebrated with his teammates that he is returning to partially train with the group. There was also one for Pedri, who turned 22. “We have a very young team with a lot to learn,” said Flick. “Even so, we continue to lead the League. With less advantage, but any team would want this path,” he claimed.

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In the same fight in Vigo, necessary to alert the players, Flick was convinced that the team would react against Brest. That feeling hasn’t changed. Yesterday, it was time to analyze the French team in the video room. And, above all, implement several corrections on the field of play. The football problem that Flick has detected is in the process of being solved. “The entire team has to be connected on the field when activating the pressure because, otherwise, problems occur in defense. Sometimes we want to play and move forward, but other times it is better to have the ball and control the game,” the coach warned.

Yesterday, in the training session, all this was practiced, paying special attention to the situations in which this forward pressure has to be activated and the movements that derive from it. Everything, with good faces and smiles. Because, in this teenage Barça, everything is a learning experience.

The rest of the corrections will come with the experience and maturity of the young people. “When you go 0-2 and you see a red card, you have to defend much better than how we did,” commented Flick, without any recriminatory accent towards Marc Casadó, aware that the midfielder is giving a lot of quality to the team.

“The entire team has to be connected on the field to activate the pressure,” said the coach.

Still, Flick is neither alarmed nor concerned. He only ensures that his players apply his instruction book again as soon as possible. Today, everyone will be tested against French side Brest in the Champions League, a rival that has not lost a single game in this group stage of Europe’s top competition. The Barcelona fans, who have three wins and one defeat in the Champions League, are sixth with nine points; one less and two places behind Brest, so a victory against the French would mean taking a giant step towards consolidating itself among the top eight and avoiding the first crossing.

The casualties of Lamine Yamal and Balde

They will have to do it, again, without Lamine Yamal, who stayed in the gym again yesterday. It was tested on Monday, in the team’s recovery training, along with the substitutes. But his right ankle still hurts. The youth player combines, at the club, work in the gym and other strengthening exercises with physiotherapists.

Barça has not won any of the three games without him as a starter. Flick is sorry. But not excessively either. Its mission is to give confidence to the group so that doubts do not enter. And in finding the key so that his replacement contributes part of the intuition of the 17-year-old youth squad. “Lamine has a quality that makes you control the ball, but also makes the opponent give us more space. I think and hope that it will be the last game he misses because he was very good today, but we will have to wait. I hope that Saturday against Las Palmas will be an option, perhaps from the bench, but we’ll see,” Flick said. Today, everything indicates that the person in charge of fulfilling the difficult role of replacing Lamine Yamal will once again be Dani Olmo.

“We have a very young team; we are leaders; “Any club would want this path.”

Balde will not start against Brest either due to discomfort in his right thigh, which also prevented him from participating in Vigo. “He is better and can be an option for other games, but not for Brest,” said Flick yesterday, who will have to choose between a Gerard Martín whom he protected, explaining that in Vigo he changed him after seeing the first yellow card, and a Héctor Fort who came out after the break and who brought more maturity. Yes, Eric Garcia will receive the medical discharge while Ferran Torres will now be available for the weekend against Las Palmas.