The decision that Ansu Fati has made with Barça

Yesterday Ansu Fati got on the plane that took FC Barcelona to Lisbon. Very seriously, he stepped onto the grass of the Luz stadium, where his team will play today a Champions League match in which he will hardly participate. His presence in Lisbon was not at all clear. The youth player, who inherited Messi’s number 10, has not scored since October 2023 with Brighton, where he left on loan without convincing. This year Flick has left him off the list in four consecutive games. He was in the stands in the final and semi-final of the Saudi Super Cup, witnessed Barça’s defeat of Betis in the Copa del Rey sitting next to the injured Ter Stegen and stayed in Barcelona when the team traveled to Getafe. It was on Sunday when Hansi Flick, after learning about Dani Olmo’s injury, decided to meet with Ansu Fati. He told her to pack her bags. That the next day he flew with the team. Ansu Fati nodded more relieved than happy.

Let’s rewind. There were a lot of hopes for this player. After firing Messi in 2021, the club gave him the number 10. They saw him as nothing less than the heir. At that time, Fati had already become the youngest footballer to score for Barça in the League and at the Camp Nou. He was also the earliest to score in the history of the Champions League, at 17 years and 40 days old. Now it is Lamine Yamal who steals all the attention. Now it is the 17-year-old winger who has been chosen to be Leo Messi’s great replacement. Even Pau Víctor, a year older than Fati, has more prominence. And in the Super Cup it was Toni Fernández from the reserve team who was chosen to complete the list.

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Flick has spoken with the forward to tell him that his problem is more psychological than physical

Flick couldn’t be clearer with his players. The German is a technician who appreciates conversation and sincerity. And Ansu Fati thanks him for that transparency because, although it seems obvious that the relationship between every coach and the locker room should be like this, he knows that not all coaches communicate their decisions in words.

This is not the case with Flick, who last week after leaving him off the list for the semi-finals and final of the Spanish Super Cup in Arabia met with him. “He told him that to take him into account he has to give one hundred percent and that, probably because of the injuries he has suffered, he is not psychologically prepared. Physically yes because he has passed all the medical examinations,” explains the footballer’s closest entourage. “Since he has recovered I have seen him at a high level in training, I try to help him as much as I can. Football is ups and downs, and you have to know how to manage those bumps,” Ferran Torres pointed out yesterday. Teammates like Pedri and Eric Garcia are also very attentive to him. The footballer feels like he is going through a labyrinth. How long it will take him to overcome it and find a new version of himself is anyone’s guess.

The footballer, in permanent contact with the coach, has told his agents that he does not listen to offers

Flick told him that if he wanted to stay, they would take care of him. But he won’t play. For now, that is the path that Ansu Fati has chosen. Fight to have a space. For this reason, the youth player is rejecting all the proposals he receives. His environment has helped him take all possible measures. Among them, going to therapy weekly with a coach of the NBA.

Will continue talking to Flick to find out his progress

Flick agreed to continue talking with Ansu Fati in these two weeks left until the transfer market ends. But the club doubts that the player will change his mind. In the remote case that he bets on a loan, they also know that he will have to assume a large part of the money. It was renewed until 2027. And its record reaches 10 million gross annually. That contract was negotiated by Laporta with Jorge Mendes, who also represents a Lamine Yamal who hopes to improve his conditions this year. One is the heir of the past and has the 10. The other is the heir of the present.

Looking for a direct pass to the second round of the Champions League

In Lisbon, at the Estadio da Luz, Hansi Flick won the Champions League with Bayern in 2020. It was the same stage in which he eliminated Barça in the quarterfinals in a match that the Germans won 8-2. And it is here where the now Barcelona coach hopes that his Barça will win to ensure a direct pass to the round of 16 of the new Champions League. Quite a challenge and, at the same time, a good thermometer to know the state of the Blaugrana team, hesitant in the League and exuberant in Europe, a competition in which they are second after Liverpool with five wins and one loss. “It would be a big step to achieve the pass,” said Flick, who did not want to assess whether his team can win the Champions League as his counterpart at Benfica, coach Bruno Lage, believes. “Winning it is one of the most difficult things in the world. For me, Liverpool is the favorite,” said the German. Today Flick is considering rotating in goal, betting on Szczesny. “It’s a great signing. The best we could do. Because of his experience and his ancestry. We’ll see,” he said.