Despite being involved in the sport for many years, Hansi Flick has spent only a handful of seasons as a head coach. His most illustrious stint came at Bayern Munich, where he won everything possible in his first season.
The German coach then had a disastrous spell in charge of the national team before taking the FC Barcelona job. At the Catalan club, he transformed a struggling side in his first season and led them to the domestic treble.
However, with the number of injuries Barcelona have suffered since the start of this season, results have not matched last year’s level. This has led to comparisons with Flick’s second season at Bayern, which did not hit the heights of the first.
Ahead of the game against Celta Vigo, when asked about it, Flick played down the comparisons between Barcelona’s current predicament and his second season in Bavaria. As quoted by [Mundo Deportivo](https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/fc-barcelona/20251108/1002565469/rueda-prensa-flick-directo-previa-celta-fc-barcelona-laliga-ea-sports-futbol.html), he said:
**“I know it’s easy to compare, but in the end, you have to look at everything. I don’t want to talk about Bayern. We also won the Bundesliga in the second year. Here we have injured players—they’re important. We manage it as best we can. In Bruges, we took a point. Now we’re five behind Madrid, but we’re second. There’s a long way to go until May. When everyone’s back, after two or three games, they’ll be at their best. What we need to do is keep fighting. We didn’t see that in Bruges. I hope we see it tomorrow.”**
This comparison is baseless because of how different Bayern’s and Barcelona’s projects were when Flick took over. Without these injury issues, Flick’s Barcelona could find themselves in a very different narrative this campaign.
For Flick’s sake, the return of the injured players cannot come soon enough. The upcoming international break should provide relief and the perfect chance to recover some of those players. Let us wait and see how it plays out.