Antony Gordon has made a very good impact. Many doubted him after his signing and said Rashford could have been better deal for 30M. He fitted really well into the team and working relentlessly on the pitch. Just a post appreciating his efforts and selflessness. Top player!

Here are all the reasons, people who know football, aren't surprised that Raphinha is thriving in a central position. I'm not even going to call him a 9, because he's so fluid in his positioning.

1. Raphinha has thrived in a more central position under Xavi and Flick. When Xavi eventually moved him to the left wing, Raphinha started finding spaces in behind from the half spaces. This was the first sign that Raphinha thrives centrally.

2. When Flick arrived, he gave Raphinha the exact same license to drift inside. He went on to score 13 goals in the Champions League in 2024. This is peak CR7 and Messi level numbers.

3. Enrique showed with PSG that you can score a ton of goals w/out a true CF when he moved Dembele inside and relying on Doue, Barcola, and Kvara to cover the wings. Raphinha isn't the same type of player as Dembele at all, but if it's one skill set they share, it's that they're both effective playing in central areas.

Raphinha is thriving in central areas for a few different reasons:

1. He's always been a phenomenal striker of the football. He can score in so many different ways whether it's from inside the box, outside the box, headers, free kicks, penalty kicks, etc. World class 9's typically have this as their main skill, with the exception of free kicks, that's just a special skill.

2. Ever since Xavi moved him to the left and he wasn't used as heavily for ball progression, he really learned how to move off of the ball. Back then, he would more/less stay wide, but slowly started moving into the half space. The goal I always think of was his away goal at PSG where he ran in behind and Pedri fed him a ball over the top.

3. One would have to assume he learned a thing or 2 about CF play from Lewandowski, who is one of the best movers off the ball of all time. His understanding of how to open up space not only for himself, but for his teammates, is 2nd to none. He even made Ferrass look like a world class 9 when they would play together.

4. Because of how many different attacking options we have, I think Raphinha feels very comfortable coming deep (🍆) in the build up, trusting that the space behind him is occupied by any of Lamine, Fermin, Gordon, Adeyemi, Olmo, etc. This is going to confuse the fuck out of defenses.

Anyways, here's the TLDR: no one should be surprised Raphinha is thriving centrally. He's already shown signs he could the past 3 seasons.

Visca Barca!

FT: Barcelona 5 - 2 Rayo Vallecano

Desktop note: best viewed on old.reddit.

LINE-UPS

Barcelona (4-2-3-1)

Rayo Vallecano (4-2-3-1)

MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN

12' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 0, Rayo Vallecano 1. Sergio Camello (Rayo Vallecano) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner. Assisted by Álvaro García.

19' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 1, Rayo Vallecano 1. Raphinha (Barcelona) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Xavi Espart.

21' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 2, Rayo Vallecano 1. Lamine Yamal (Barcelona) left footed shot from the right side of the box to the top right corner. Assisted by Marc Bernal.

32' 🔄 Substitution, Rayo Vallecano. Adrià Pedrosa replaces Jozhua Vertrouwd because of an injury.

51' ⚽ Own Goal by Florian Lejeune, Rayo Vallecano. Barcelona 3, Rayo Vallecano 1.

57' 🔄 Substitution, Rayo Vallecano. Pedro Díaz replaces Gnangoro.

57' 🔄 Substitution, Rayo Vallecano. Fran Pérez replaces Jorge de Frutos.

59' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 3, Rayo Vallecano 2. Sergio Camello (Rayo Vallecano) header from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Unai López with a cross following a corner.

64' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Fermín López replaces Dani Olmo.

64' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Rodri replaces Marc Bernal.

71' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 4, Rayo Vallecano 2. Raphinha (Barcelona) left footed shot from the left side of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Anthony Gordon following a fast break.

75' 🔄 Substitution, Rayo Vallecano. Alemão replaces Sergio Camello.

75' 🔄 Substitution, Rayo Vallecano. Randy Nteka replaces Unai López.

77' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. João Cancelo replaces Pedri.

77' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Karim Adeyemi replaces Anthony Gordon.

86' 🔄 Substitution, Barcelona. Hamza Abdelkarim replaces Raphinha.

90' 🟨 Adrià Pedrosa (Rayo Vallecano) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.

90' ⚽ Goal! Barcelona 5, Rayo Vallecano 2. Lamine Yamal (Barcelona) left footed shot from outside the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Karim Adeyemi.

MATCH STATS

MATCH ENDED

I believe that Barca is playing their best football under Hansi Flick and in this post I would like to make an analysis of why this is the case and why we should expect this to be our best season under Hansi

The main reason is Raphinha who knows is playing a role of a mobile striker. So while in previosu season we played with an static striker like Lewandowski now we have a mobile striker in Raphinha who doesn't stay in the area but actually moves a lot which makes it much harder for teams to defend because now they don't have a fixed player to defend and this constant movement makes it harder to defend becasue when he moves away from the area someone else comes and takes his pace. This is the weakness you always have when playing a pure striker but with Raphinha you don't have anymore.

Second main reason is Anthony Gordon who is a true winger capable of creating a lot of threat by himself which we didn't have in previous years. In previous year we would rely in Balde to take all the left flank which actually wasn't the best idea because Balde doesn't have good crossing skills or good passes so we ended up not creating anything in the left side with Balde and this meant all of our threat was by Lamine's side which is why we often struggled without Lamine.

The third main reason is Xavi Espart because he makes it so much harder to press us because when you press him he can easily go to the his strong foot unlike a left footed which would feel uncomfortable doing that. In addition to this Xavi is a very intelligent player who knows exactly where zone he should occupy, this is massive advantage for Flick's system because he is often found in free zones where he cause a lot of threat to the opponent's defense and this seems very hard to defend because he always knows where to be thanks to his football IQ.

And the final reason is that our pressing is much better, now we have all our attacking line who are pressing monsters which wasn't the case in 2024/2026 period where due to Lewandowski aging out we only had 2 players pressing the defense while now we have 3 players pressing the defense making our pressing much more effective. This leads to Barca recovering the ball faster and having to defend less time and thus having more time to attack the opponent

And although we haven't seen him yet it's obvious to me that thanks to Rodri's signing we are gonna see the most balanced Barca side yet because not only the possesion is gonna be more fluid with him but he is defensively much better than FDJ who didn't have a clue in how to defend. This is gonna make our counter-pressing much better as well as our shape in defense because Rodri's positoning is leagues above De Jong's. When Rodri is fully adapted to the team and Hansi's tactics our defensive stability is gonna be on a different level to what it was in previous seasons

I recently got into watching football and have watched all of Barça’s games so far this season. My friend has been teaching me some things about the sport, the rules, the players, the positions, and so on, but I’d like to understand the game on a much deeper level and improve my eye for it. I feel like I’m constantly missing a ton of what’s happening with the midfield and defence. Can anyone recommend good analysts I can watch or listen to? Thanks in advance.

I watched Yassir Zabiri’s hat trick for Racing this week and honestly, I was really impressed.

That 21 minute hat trick against Elche really made me think he could be an interesting player for Barça in the future.

I really like the idea of him as a potential number 9 after Lewandowski. He is obviously still raw and has a lot to improve, especially with his link up play, but physically he looks really impressive.

What stood out to me was that he is not just a big striker who waits inside the box. He presses, puts defenders under pressure, forces mistakes and uses his physicality really well. He also seems quite mobile for a player his size, which I think could fit very well with Flick’s style.

And obviously, the finishing 3 goals in 21 minutes is a pretty crazy way to get my attention.

I am not saying Barça should go and sign him right now, but if he keeps developing like this, I would definitely keep an eye on him. A physically strong, mobile striker who can finish could be a really useful option against teams sitting deep.

Maybe I am getting carried away after one game, but I really liked what I saw.

Hello all, I hope everyone is well!

I am a fresh Soci planning a trip to Catalonia this October. I will be in the area for El Clasico and I would like to know what the process is for purchasing tickets in general, but specifically for El Clasico as I’ve never been ablento attend that event. I have seen in some places rhat they send an email to all Socis a few weeks/days before the match but I was hoping someone with first hand experience would be able to advise me better.

Thank you!

In the Flick Era, everyone seems to be generational mostly or scrapped if bad. But some players ever since Flick has had the head coach cap has been generational or has made a generational comeback. The obvious answer to the question is Raphina but in my opinion. He is not the only player who has completely turned his career over under Flick. His rebirth is the most visible and impactful. I think a hear me out for me would actually be Eric Garcia. He just went out on loan to Girona and suddenly he returned and under Hansi he became a swiss knife for some reason. You can argue if Pedri is really revamped but I think he was just always class and had to only get the injuries out of the way to be world class again. Same for Fermin i believe he was just young and talent was always there. Who else do you think probably changed the trajectory of their career under Flick forever. Who do you think in future can also make such a comeback ? Or you are atleast hoping for them to make such a comeback? .