Back to back quarter-finals – Flick has returned Barcelona to the Champions League top table

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Barcelona 3-1 Benfica 

©IMAGO

Barcelona fans will always celebrate another victory for their team in the Champions League, but Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over Benfica to confirm the LaLiga club’s spot in the quarter-finals of the competition felt more significant than most. After beating their Portuguese opponents over the two legs, Barcelona made it back-to-back quarter-finals in Europe’s premier competition for the first time in eight seasons. The Catalan giants looked like their old selves and they had their German head coach to thank for it.  

Since making the move to the Spanish club in July of last year, Hansi Flick has quickly asserted an authority over Barcelona that has been sorely lacking in the club’s modern history. After 42 games in all competitions, the former Bayern Munich boss enjoys a points per game average of 2.33, which is the best return for any Barcelona manager since Luis Enrique was calling the shots at the Camp Nou eight years ago. And that record is even more impressive when we consider his form in Europe. 

Indeed, after 10 games in the competition, Flick has lost just one game in the Champions League with Barcelona. That gives the 60-year-old tactician a record of 2.50 points per game in the competition and as we can see in the graph above, that’s better than any of Barcelona’s last five head coaches. Not only is it a 67% increase on Xavi’s record in the competition, but it’s also notably higher than what Ronald Koeman achieved and even bests the aforementioned Enrique’s record even though the Spaniard went on to win the competition in 2015. 

Of course, Flick is still in his first season with Barcelona, while Enrique had three full seasons of Champions League football to contend with. So a direct comparison is perhaps slightly unfair. But for now Barcelona fans won’t care and will instead celebrate their return to the latter stages of the competition and a manager that certainly means business when it comes to competing against the very best in the Champions League.