No, Barcelona have not mathematically clinched LaLiga just yet, but that 28th league title is a question of days after Sunday\u2019s Cla klsico victory pushed the Blaugrana\u2019s advantage atop the table to seven points with three rounds to go.<\/span><\/p>\n Sunday\u2019s 4-3 victory over Real Madrid clinched a sensational Cl\u00e1sico double in the league, in addition to Barcelona\u2019s two cup final wins at Madrid\u2019s expense this season. In total, Barca have racked up four victories and scored 16 goals against Madrid \u2013 results that played no small part in Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s departure for the Brazil job on Monday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ferran Torres was not particularly impressed with the decision not to award a penalty against Aurelien Tchouameni. #RealMadrid<\/a> #FCBarcelona<\/a> #ElClasico<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/yB69Fdo9xG<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Football Espa\u00f1a (@footballespana_) May 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Barca can finish the job Thursday in the Catalan derby against Espanyol \u2013 the site of the Blaugrana\u2019s previous title triumph two years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n There are several factors as to why Barcelona soon will be celebrating an unexpected title triumph. It\u2019s easy to forget that there were doubts surrounding Flick\u2019s appointment on a two-year contract; the first German to take to the touchline since Udo Lattek in 1981, Flick had taken a year off from football after an indifferent two years leading Die Mannschaft, as Barca struggled mentally and physically during the final year of Xavi Hernandez\u2019s rollercoaster managerial stint.<\/span><\/p>\n Flick took over a squad that added Dani Olmo in a \u20ac55m transfer, but few could have foreseen how La Masia products, holdovers from the \u201cpalancas\u201d insanity of 2022, and even arrivals from the Bartomeu era would reach new levels under the Heidelberg native. Flick has garnered both notoriety and plaudits for his unflinching commitment to a 4-2-3-1 formation, typified by a wildly-risky high line \u2013 one that nearly cost his team a place in the Copa del Rey final, and <\/span>did <\/span><\/i>cost them a berth in the Champions League final in Munich.<\/span><\/p>\n But to call this strategy \u201cstubborn\u201d or \u201cimpractical\u201d misses the point. Barcelona do not deal in pragmatism; the past two managers who even mildly embraced it, Xavi and Ernesto Valverde, did not complete three seasons at the club, amidst scorn from the <\/span>entorno <\/span><\/i>that made its displeasure visible in the pages of SPORT or on the radio waves of RAC1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Barcelona are not <\/span>Barcelona<\/span><\/i> without proactivity, idealism, or intensity, qualities that \u2013 for one reason or another \u2013 had gradually disappeared over the past decade. That Flick has rehabilitated this image in one season could be interpreted as bad news for everyone else.<\/span><\/p>\n Consider that at one point in Sunday\u2019s seven-goal thriller at Montjuic, Real Madrid did not leave its half of the pitch for <\/span>23 minutes and 53 seconds<\/span><\/a>. Granted, this figure points to Madrid\u2019s season-long inability to control the centre of the park amid the retirement of Toni Kroos. But it also speaks to Barcelona\u2019s resilience, a group of players young enough not to know any better. The Blaugrana did not care about falling two goals behind to two Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 strikes \u2013 just like they didn\u2019t care about going 2-0 down to Atletico Madrid in the Copa del Rey semifinals, or when they went 2-0 down to Inter Milan in both legs of the Champions League semis.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe team\u2019s mentality has improved a lot,\u201d Pedri said post-match.<\/span><\/p>\n Pedri and Frenkie de Jong represent Flick\u2019s preferred double pivot, the former playing injury-free, world-class football after three seasons of fitness struggles, the latter taking advantage of injuries to the two Marcs, Bernal then Casado, to look more like the <\/span>Ivan Rakitic successor<\/span><\/a> for whom Barcelona\u2019s previous regime had splashed all that cash.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But ahead of them are more success stories. Raphinha\u2019s brace against Real Madrid took his goal tally on the season to 18, five more than in his first two seasons in Spain combined; the confidence Flick instilled in Raphinha immediately upon getting the Barcelona job has changed the Brazilian\u2019s career. The coach\u2019s \u201ctime sharing\u201d agreement with Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres was a gamble that paid off; Torres led the line expertly as Barca won the Copa del Rey, and he provided three first-half assists in the Clasico while 36-year-old Lewandowski continued to recover from injury. It remains to be seen if Lewa adds to his 25 goals in the league, his personal best since arriving in Spain.<\/span><\/p>\n Lamine Yamal\u2026 Do you know how tough this is <\/span>for me, as an Atletico supporter<\/span><\/a>? I got an 18-month reprieve from Lionel Messi only for this menace to show up. He is literally the best dribbler in Europe, by quantity and quality; he oozes charisma, he has unshakable confidence, and he has a fear of nothing. Lamine Yamal\u2019s equalising goal on Sunday shows that he is improving as a finisher, too \u2013 what is stopping him from being the world\u2019s best player right as he turns 18?<\/span><\/p>\n Bar\u0107a should just send Raphinha’s wages for this week and the next to Lamine Yamal<\/p>\n denied us 2 trivela assists in el clasico<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/DtTwy1mWp2<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Trig (@Treeeg_) May 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even with the heroics of Barcelona\u2019s front three, Real Madrid really should have made it 4-4 on 90 minutes, but Castilla call-up Victor Munoz missed from close range, prompting heaps of online abuse from always-empathetic Madridistas. Culers meanwhile believe the match should have ended 5-3 after Fermin Lopez scored a cracking goal a few minutes after Munoz\u2019s miss, but a fresh controversy arose after a \u201cthank God\u201d was heard in the VAR room<\/a> in the process of disallowing the goal for a Fermin handball. I love this age of conspiracy theories and mass distrust in which we live.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 RFEF (@rfef) May 11, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Still, this Clasico had it all \u2013 multiple <\/span>VAR checks<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>another Mbappe hat trick in one of football\u2019s biggest games<\/span><\/a>, Pau Cubarsi playing nearly an hour through <\/span>intense pain prompted by a stomach bug<\/span>, Gavi absolutely <\/span>clattering<\/span><\/a> Raul Asencio in the final stages. But when Hernandez Hernandez\u2019s whistle blew for the final time, it served as confirmation that in LaLiga 2024\/25, nobody could figure out how to stop Hansi Flick\u2019s FC Barcelona.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jeremy Beren can be found on social media here,<\/a> and if you\u2019re hungry for more, find their excellent work here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The post COLUMN: El Clasico, Barcelona, Hansi Flick and the thing La Liga never quite figured out<\/a> appeared first on Football Espa\u00f1a<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the end, nobody could figure out how to stop Hansi Flick\u2019s FC Barcelona. No, Barcelona have not mathematically clinched LaLiga just yet,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"Flick](\"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Ferran-Flick.jpg\")
![\"Raphinha](\"http:\/\/yourphdbestie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Raphinha-1-scaled.jpg\")
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![\"\ud83d\udde3\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/13.0.0\/72x72\/1f5e3.png\")
AUDIO REVISI\u00d3N VAR <\/p>\n![\"\ud83d\uddd3\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/13.0.0\/72x72\/1f5d3.png\")
Jornada 35 | Primera Divisi\u00f3n<\/p>\n![\"\u26bd\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/13.0.0\/72x72\/26bd.png\")
@FCBarcelona_es<\/a> ![\"\ud83c\udd9a\"](\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/13.0.0\/72x72\/1f19a.png\")
@realmadrid<\/a> | 96′#ArbitrajeRFEF<\/a> | @CTARFEF<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/5SQztI5Apn<\/a><\/p>\n