It’s been a promising start to Hansi Flick’s tenure as Barcelona manager. Pre-season usually has little bearing on the season to come, but the performances in the United States have been impressive – that continued with the Clasico victory over Real Madrid in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Ig Raphinha: "How good it is to wear this shirt again 😍🔵🔴 @FCBarcelona" pic.twitter.com/anj5O3yEcY
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) August 4, 2024
Pau Victor was the hero for Barcelona, as he scored both goals in the 2-1 success. As per MD, Flick spoke glowingly on the 22-year-old, who only re-joined from Girona last week.
“Two games, three goals, not bad. He knows how to score and that’s good for a striker. The door is always open for the first team.”
There’s been doubt about whether Victor would remain at Barcelona for the remainder of the season – he would be loaned out if deemed not good enough for the first team, although he’s surely done more than enough already to remain with Flick’s squad for the 2024-25 campaign.
On the match itself, Flick was pleased with the improvement shown by his side from the match against Manchester City earlier this week. He specifically referred to the defence, whom he also admitted would need to improve further.
“I knew it was the Clasico and it’s very big to play against Real Madrid. Again, when we defend too deep, it’s a problem, but we press well and the objective is to do it all over the field.
“The team did improve. In addition to the good defensive work and apart from the problem of defending too far back, it’s very nice to see what we do when we have the ball.”
Barcelona face AC Milan in their final match of the US tour next week, before returning to Catalonia for the Joan Gamper Trophy against AS Monaco on the 12th of August – their final match before the start of the new La Liga season.
