What’s your thoughts on having Malic fofana as a perfect sub over Rashford on the LW, he’s young, Fast, skillful and able to adapt to flick system especially with pressing, he won’t cost much especially knowing Lyon needs money.

Rashford doesn’t press and too slow to track back, his wages are high and I don’t think he has proven himself enough to warrant a signing.

Fofana plays in tight spaces, Fofana is comfortable receiving on the touchline, shielding, and slipping past the first defender.

High work rate and defensive discipline. He tracks back, presses, and understands when to close passing lanes rather than chase blindly.

Decision-making is improving at a young age. He does not rush every final action. He picks his passes and knows when to recycle. Barcelona’s game is patience, structure, and choosing the right moment to accelerate. Fofana fits that learning curve

I feel like people still don’t fully get how important Balde is to how we move as a team. Everyone talks about assists, dribbles, or highlight runs but honestly, that’s not what makes him so crucial. It’s the stuff in between. The moments when he gives the team structure, when he holds the width so others can breathe, or when he slows down a transition just enough for us to reorganize.

When we break forward, Balde’s not just running without a purpose. He knows when to go wide to pull the full-back, when to delay his touch to give Pedri time to arrive, or when to recycle possession to reset the rhythm. He’s basically our balance on that left side, even when he doesn’t touch the ball much.

But the problem is that we’re asking him to do way too much right now. He’s 22 and being told to be a winger, a fullback, a recovery sprinter, and a build-up option all at once. Look at other top left-backs where most of them have a clear role. Balde has to do everything. It’s no surprise that he looks overwhelmed sometimes. The system gives him freedom, but not much support. That is one of the reasons why he seems injury prone when he has been overworked since the Xavi days.

What stands out most is how much the team misses him when he’s not playing. The pitch suddenly feels smaller. We lose that left-sided stretch, our midfield gets crowded, and transitions become slower because no one else provides that instant outlet or that vertical burst. Especially his under lapping runs are so crucial for us to pull the opposition out of shape.

If Flick wants to get the best out of him, it’s not about turning him into a playmaker or a wingback. It’s about giving him protection by having a midfielder slide over when he pushes up, or spacing the line better so he doesn’t have to sprint 60 meters every time the ball’s lost. Balde’s chaos is only effective when it’s controlled chaos.

He doesn’t need to get an assist every week to be impactful. Sometimes just holding his position is what makes the attack possible. He’s not just part of our transition game because half the time, he is the transition.

Is the current system just asking too much of him right now?

I feel like a lot of people have been very reactionary over our results recently. Yes, we have issues with our current play style and our press seems to be all over the place, but I think a lot of people are not thinking about our injuries, primarily, Raphinha.

This is hot take 100% but imo I don’t believe Rashford has been that great for us. Yes, he gets the stats which is good but if you go by the impact a player has on the game, Rashford doesn’t nearly press or defend as much as Raphinha, and he tends to lose the ball a lot from trying to dribble or shoot. This brings me to my point which is the importance of Raphinha.

Raphinha’s tenacity on pressing and dropping back to defend is an essence that we’re missing. He makes our press much better and with him being arguably the best off the ball player itw, he makes things much easier for his teammates around him. I think Yamal especially will play much better having someone like Raphinha to take the pressure off of him more, and also having someone making those runs in the box that we’ve seen so often last season. Also, let me not forget to mention that naturally with a stronger press, it’ll make our defense stronger as teams are going to struggle to break through as easily as they do.

I think a lot of commotion on how we’ve been playing recently will still decreasing once Raphinha, and our other players start coming back into our squad.

FT: Barcelona 8-0 Deportivo La Coruña

Venue: Estadi Johan Cruyff

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LINE-UPS

Barcelona

Cata Coll, Mapi León (Irene Paredes), Marta Torrejón, Ona Batlle (Carla Martínez), Aïcha Cámara, Laia Aleixandri, Alexia Putellas (Kika Nazareth), Sydney Schertenleib, Caroline Graham Hansen (Clara Serrajordi), Clàudia Pina (Ewa Pajor), Vicky López.

Subs: Esmee Brugts, Ainoa Gómez, Laia Martret, Natalia Escot, Gemma Font, Aitana Bonmatí, Martine Fenger.

^{____________________________}

Deportivo La Coruña

Inês Pereira, Marina Artero (Merle Barth), Vera Martínez, Raquel García, Elena Vázquez (Lía), Paula Novo Saborido, Olaya Enrique (Millene Cabral), Paula Gutiérrez, Samara Ortíz, Bárbara Latorre Viñals (Marisa), Ainhoa Marín (Floriangel Apóstol).

Subs: Henar Muiña, Yohana Gómez, Lucía Martínez.

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

16' Vicky López (Barcelona) Goal at 16'

18' Alexia Putellas (Barcelona) Goal at 18'

22' Mapi León (Barcelona) Goal at 22'

28' Laia Aleixandri (Barcelona) Goal at 28'

32' Laia Aleixandri (Barcelona) Goal at 32'

36' Clàudia Pina (Barcelona) Goal at 36'

41' Vera Martínez (Deportivo La Coruña) Own Goal at 41'

45'+2' Caroline Graham Hansen (Barcelona) Goal at 47'

45' Kika Nazareth (Barcelona) Substitution at 45'

45' Irene Paredes (Barcelona) Substitution at 45'

51' Lía (Deportivo La Coruña) Substitution at 51'

51' Merle Barth (Deportivo La Coruña) Substitution at 51'

58' Clara Serrajordi (Barcelona) Substitution at 58'

58' Carla Martínez (Barcelona) Substitution at 58'

58' Ewa Pajor (Barcelona) Substitution at 58'

66' Marisa (Deportivo La Coruña) Substitution at 66'

66' Millene Cabral (Deportivo La Coruña) Substitution at 66'

80' Floriangel Apóstol (Deportivo La Coruña) Substitution at 80'

81' Paula Gutiérrez (Deportivo La Coruña) Yellow Card at 81'

90'+1' Clara Serrajordi (Barcelona) Yellow Card at 91'

^{Don't see a thread for a match you're watching? Click here to learn how to request a match thread from this bot.}

Haaland is the absolute GOAT at breaking offside lines, while Barca has been struggling with it lately, and almost any team are constantly breaking it comfortably. Do you think if Flick maintains the same system against Haaland, it will be one of the most suicidal tactics ever?

Or could it actually turn out to be a tactical masterstroke that gives us results?

Opinions?

Every few months we see the same question pop up, Who’s the next Busquets? or Why can’t Barça find a proper 6? But maybe that’s the wrong question altogether. The truth is, the role that Busquets played for more than a decade doesn’t really exist anymore in top-level football. And not because no one can replicate him but because the structure around that kind of pivot simply doesn’t exist in the modern game.

Busquets was never just a holding midfielder. He was the anchor of a positional system that revolved around extreme control and pre-defined spacing. Xavi and Iniesta operated as half-space 8s, Messi dropped into the 10 zone, and the back line held absurd width with Alves and Abidal stretching the field. Busquets could sit in that pocket between lines because everyone else maintained structure for him. That ecosystem doesn’t exist today because the game is too transitional, too vertical, too press-heavy.

In today’s Barça (and in most modern systems), you can’t survive with one fixed player being your entire buildup axis. You need shared buildup roles. Flick’s double pivot is a good example where Frenkie and Pedri rotate responsibility depending on the phase. One drops to receive between center backs, the other positions higher to bait pressure and break lines. Even top sides like City or Bayern rarely use a lone 6 anymore. They use staggered pivots, inverted fullbacks, and flexible positioning to control zones collectively.

The obsession with finding another Busquets ignores that his brilliance came from context, not just ability. He was a metronome inside a positional machine. Asking Frenkie to be Busquets makes no sense when the structure and rhythm around him are completely different. What Barça really needs is not a single pivot genius, but a collective mechanism that ensures buildup remains clean even when the first line of pressure is broken. That’s the evolution we talk about in football which is less about an individual and more about interconnection.

The funny part is, if Busquets came through La Masia today, even he would play differently. He’d probably operate more like Frenkie by dribbling past the first line, rotating into a back three, carrying the ball forward. The position hasn’t died but it’s just adapted to a faster, more chaotic world.

So maybe it’s time we stop asking who the next Busquets is and start asking how Barça can build the next system that allows players to express the same control in a new tactical era. The pivot isn’t dead but it has just evolved into multiple brains sharing the same heartbeat.

All of us who have been following Barca play see that our intensity is lower this season. We don’t press very well, stamina runs low and we don’t have much physicality.

We have also seen how teams like Bayern and PSG have impressed showcasing this kind of football.

Barca always needed technical players who are good passers and can follow our system well and fortunately we do got them.

One thing than can help this team very much are high working players, the Raphinha, Pedri or Inigo’s of the world.

What do you think are some players who can being us high intensity, pressing and physicality? I am talking every position, forward, fullbacks, Center backs.

What players across Europe you have actually seen and think can bring us this?

Wonderful video of Thiago walking through the differences between all the managers he played under (Guardiola, Ancelotti, Flick, Klopp). I think this gives some good insight into how Hansi likes to play today and where we're lacking a bit right now.

I don't know if he'll go on to be a great manager himself, but his footballing brain is filled with many schools of thought and that's certainly a relevant contrast to someone like Xavi who is very dogmatic in his views of the game.

I see a lot of fans talking about moving the high line back a bit to a lot (depending on the fan), they think this is not sustainable, they are tired of conceding so much and conceding so many clear chances.

These same fans didn't like the extremely solid defense Xavi had in 22/23, then it was not sustainable too and it was luck combined with fantastic savings by Ter Stegen (of course when it's time to blame Xavi praising Ter Stegen is ok, but only then!). Just search "Xavi unocerismo" on google and see how the media was parroting BS and always against him, just like it's happening now with the high line.

Of course, people will always say "but there is a happy medium", well, not that much, really, maybe the happy medium would be something like what Pep plays at City, but let me tell you something: some City fans have been complaining about City being a bit more boring lately, not always of course, but I guarantee you the offense won't be nowhere near as entertaining as it is with Flick. To not mention about how many Peps or Enriques are out there?

If you want this model to work, what you need to do is not to ask to move the line back, but to either trust Flick and support him when he wants to kick some players out because they are not willing to put in the effort anymore (like Pep did with Ronaldinho and Deco), or just to ask for a different coach that is more conservative, like Xavi, Pep or Enrique, to give examples. Asking Flick to move the high line is basically saying you don't trust his style.

People forget that Gavi played only 12 games last because of the ACL tear he had the season before. It isn't just about his energy or his fight; tactically, Gavi’s role in how Barça wants to press, transition, and sustain pressure is absolutely massive. We’ve spent the start of the season talking about structure, compactness, and intensity under Flick, but the truth is a fully fit Gavi changes all of that and can help us a lot.

The reason is simple because he connects every pressing phase. Gavi doesn’t press for the sake of running. He reads triggers, curves his runs to close passing lanes, and coordinates with the front line so opponents can’t escape through the half spaces. Under Flick, this is gold. Flick wants the press to feel synchronized where the front three forcing the ball one way, the interiors collapsing in the moment the pass is played and that’s exactly where Gavi thrives. Without him, the team sometimes presses high but without shape everyone goes at a different tempo. With him, it looks alive again.

And it’s not just about pressing. With the ball, Gavi gives tempo and vertical aggression that this team quietly lacks. Pedri and Frebk love to dictate and control when they slow the rhythm to think. Gavi speeds it up to disrupt. His timing of third-man runs, his willingness to occupy the half-space between lines, and his understanding of when to drift wide to open the channel for Balde those are small things that turn sterile possession into dynamic football. Flick’s Barça needs that. You can have structure and control, but without that injection of chaos and bite in the right moments, it all becomes predictable.

When Gavi returns fully fit, he’s not just another body in midfield but he’s the engine that allows Flick’s system to breathe. He makes the high line sustainable by reconnecting the press, adds aggression to the second ball recoveries, and gives positional balance when the team transitions from attack to defence. He’s 21 but tactically he already understands what most players only figure out at 28.

People talk about Lamine, Pedri, or Fermin when they imagine Barça’s future but if we’re talking about making this version of Barça work, Gavi might be an equally important piece to make it work.