Flick did not reveal his plans to replace the injured duo, but he hinted at deploying centrebacks Ronald Araujo and Eric Garcia or relying on youngsters Hector Fort or Gerard Martin in their natural positions.
Kounde and Balde absences will pose a huge challenge for Flick with Barca struggling to stop Inter's counterattacks in the first leg, mainly with Denzel Dumfries who was a constant menace from the right, scoring two goals and handing one assist.
“As a coaching staff, we analyse everything. We see how a player performed in each situation and after Wednesday maybe we will have to make some changes because we need to defend much better,” Flick said.
“Football is really complex, so it has to do with everything. It has to with the player but we have to find the right idea of how we want to play, the match plan. Of course, the changes have to be good, but also the players have to show on the pitch who they are and what they are made of.”
Despite these challenges, Barcelona are chasing a treble, unbeaten domestically since late December and leading LaLiga with 79 points, four ahead of Real Madrid.
After Tuesday's Champions League tie against Inter, they host Real in a crucial LaLiga clash that could effectively decide the league title on Sunday.
Inter defender Alessandro Bastoni has called on his team to pull out all the stops in their bid to contain Barcelona's Lamine Yamal in the second leg.
Prodigious 17-year-old Yamal wowed the crowd at Montjuic with a sublime goal and a bold performance, helping Barcelona twice fight back to secure a gripping 3-3 draw in the first leg.
Bastoni, the 25-year-old centreback, who faced Yamal during last year's European Championship, where Spain beat Italy 1-0, expressed admiration for the teenager's rapid progression.
“I had already faced him with Spain and he was not yet at this level,” Bastoni said.
“I was impressed by the level he reached, for his age and ability to create incredible things on the pitch, I think he is among the best in the world right now.
“We'll have to double, maybe triple \[mark\] him like we did at times in the first leg, but without exaggerating, otherwise we would create too many spaces. Barcelona is not just Yamal.”
The electrifying first leg, filled with early drama, late chaos and Yamal's history-making feats, has set the stage for what Bastoni likened to “game seven of the NBA finals”.
“It's 50-50, all open, and I think it will be a similar game from the first-leg so I'm glad that we will play in front of our fans.
“I can only be proud of how far we have come. We are two games away from winning the Champions League, it is our goal, we really want to make a good impression, to make the people who follow us happy.
“We are sure that our fans will give us a big hand at the San Siro, we live for moments like this.”
Inter manager Simone Inzaghi agreed with Bastoni, stating that their defensive strategy would primarily focus on neutralising Yamal.
"\[Defending Yamal\] is very difficult, we'll have to try not to let him get the ball, but that's impossible in modern football,” he said.
Inzaghi revealed that the availability of injured defender Benjamin Pavard and captain Lautaro Martinez remained uncertain.
**Reuters**