Hansi Flick MASTERCLASS
Let me tell you a story of how a German football manager’s tactic led a French club to domestic glory. Ok, maybe led to glory it’s a stretch too far looking at the league table. But this tactic is insane.
Hans-Dieter Flick or Hansi Flick is a German professional football manager and former player who is the current manager of La Liga club FC Barcelona.
During his playing career he played for SV Sandhausen, Bayern Munich and 1. FC Köln. He began his managerial career at fourth-division club Victoria Bammental as a player-manager.
In 2000, he was appointed manager of fellow fourth-division side 1899 Hoffenheim, with whom he gained promotion to the Regionalliga Süd, before departing in 2005. Between 2006 and 2014, he was the assistant coach of Germany under manager Joachim Löw as they won the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and subsequently served as sporting director of the German Football Association until 2017.
As a manager, recently, he is well-known for managing Bayern Munich and the German national football team before joining FC Barcelona.
Immediately after he took over FC Barcelona, he revolutionized the club. Before him, the appointed managers were of Barcelona’s mold. Which meant that they were attempting to achieve different results using the same methods.
Hansi Flick on the other hand, came in with his own tactical principles and applied them regardless of what was done before him.
He turned FC Barcelona’s attack into the most dangerous in the league. With results like 5-2, 4-0, 5-1 or even 7-0.
On paper, the formations used by the German manager fluctuate between a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1. But they are largely meaningless.
The goalkeeper becomes a passing option when the team is in possession and Barcelona start baiting the opposition into a press.
Here is where Hansi Flick’s tactical philosophy differs from the former Barcelona managers. At this point, they would have gone for a long possession of the ball. Instead, Hansi Flick encourages direct football.
By attracting the opposition’s press, his team is able to create space behind the opposition’s defensive line. And that space becomes the objective for the direct football approach.
In an ideal situation, Barcelona would be able to get out of the pressing game by playing a pass to the defensive midfielder – Casado or Bernal. But any team knowing what its doing would already mark that position.
So Hansi Flick implemented a passing pattern to go around it. The defenders would usually pass the ball to a dropping central midfielder and the midfielder would bounce the pass to the advancing wing back.
This way, the team would get out of the initial pressing phase and advance up the pitch.
There might be instances in which Barcelona would face a two midfielders’ team. In which case those midfielder would man mark the ones from Barca.
Often, this would turn the space into a 3 vs 2, if we count the attacking midfielder. And with a ball plying defender like Cubarsi, we must do that. As he can find a pass to the attacking midfielder, thus unlocking the play.
Against a three-man midfield, Hansi Flick seems to be asking the left wing back to go higher up the pitch, providing an overlap. Allowing Raphinha to drift inside and create an overload in the midfield space.
With this we can understand Hansi Flick’s tactical flexibility. And Barcelona’s players’, too.
That is why it’s important to have players able to interpret different roles in your team.
In my save with Olympique Lyon, his tactical setup helped us to almost win the league title. If it weren’t for that…
But we won the Coupe de France and were knocked out of the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League by Inter Milan.
As stats, we had by far the most goals scored in the league – 89 and conceded 28.
But we had the highest tally for possession won by far in the league, which indicates that our players were aggressive and effective in recovering the ball from the opposition.
In the game, the 4-2-3-1 formation looks like this.
The goalkeeper is a sweeper keeper one on support duty. Of course, there is one Manuel Neuer whom Hansi Flick managed. But to be able to play the way FC Barcelona currently plays, you need your goalkeeper to be on his toes, ready to participate in the passing game or recover the ball.
The back four is made of a full back on support duty, a central defender on defend, a ball playing defender on defend and a complete wing back on attack.
FC Barcelona’s defence is rigid, but this is mainly due to the players used. The system asks them to be as aggressive as possible in possession, taking positions up the pitch, being in the face of the opposition and help their teammates recycle the ball possession.
The full back is asked to take more risks, get further forward and tackle harder. The central defender to take fewer risks.
The ball playing one to dribble more and stay wider. He must stay wider, as his left back teammate is going to join the attack quite often. And the left back is told to dribble more.
The two midfielders are a defensive one on defend duty and a deep lying playmaker on support.
With the players available at FC Barcelona, the roles can be combined differently, depending on your squad.
No player instructions for the defensive midfielder. But a lot for the deep lying playmaker – more direct passes, dribble more, tackle harder and mark tighter.
The front four are one inverted winger on support duty – Lamine Yamal. An attacking midfielder on attack – Pedri or Fermin Lopez. An inside forward on support – Raphinha most of the times. And an advanced forward, the legendary Robert Lewandowski.
As long as you try to emulate FC Barcelona’s attacking formation and patterns, the assigned roles don’t really matter.
The inverted winger is told to take more risks, cross from deep and more often. The attacking midfielder is told to take more risks and roam from position. The inside forward to sit narrower. And the striker to take more risks.
The tactic works mostly based on the player instructions. The roles are there to give general guidelines to the players for how they should setup on the pitch.
The chosen mentality is attacking. As we need a high tempo for our gameplay.
In possession, fairly narrow attacking width and overlap on both flanks. Shorter passing directness and slightly higher tempo.
Play for set pieces and run at defence.
In transition counter-press, counter and distribute the ball to the center backs through short kicks.
And out of possession a high press and a higher defensive line. Trigger press much more often and prevent the goalkeeper short distribution.
The tactic, if used properly, should press the opposition when they are on the ball, recover the ball as fast as possible and have fast counterattacks. Easy, right?
It has the potential to dominate massively, and, in my save, we did dominate the league for a while, before PSG came knocking.
Hansi Flick had a rough time managing the German national team. But managing a national team is different than managing a club one.
He showed us his masterclass at every club he managed, and FC Barcelona is no different.
His tactical style is different than what we are used to and I think there are more good results to come.
