"It's fun": There's one team Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola particularly enjoys watching at the moment

The former Blaugrana player and coach raved in an interview with TV3: "When Flick’s Barça are playing and I’ve got time, I sit down and watch – because it’s fun. Sometimes we overthink things and come up with all sorts of stories. But at the end of the day, it’s like this: when you go to the cinema or a good restaurant, you want to enjoy it. And name one situation where you don’t enjoy watching Barça play!”

Former Germany manager Flick took over at FC Barcelona from Xavi in the summer of 2024 and imposed a risky, spectacular style of play on the team, featuring an extremely high defensive line and uncompromising attacking football. This culminated in the club winning the double in his first year.

Barca are also on course for domestic honours this season and currently sit top of LaLiga. The Blaugrana are also still in the Champions League.

Flick’s approach also drew criticism following a run of poor results in the autumn. Among others, former Real Madrid strategist Toni Kroos suggested that Barca would not win the Champions League with this style of play. Guardiola’s former protégé Thierry Henry made similar comments.

However, the Frenchman backtracked last week following the 7-2 thrashing in the Champions League round of 16 second leg against Newcastle United, praising them on CBS Sports: “Congratulations, Barcelona. Europe is beginning to feel the threat. When a team is on such a roll, nothing is certain. That wasn’t just a triumph, it was a global earthquake.”

What particularly impressed Henry was how Barca shaped the second 45 minutes after their shaky 3-2 half-time lead. “What a second half was that?” he asked. “It was a total transformation; the team played with a different personality. That was the real Barcelona. If they want to, they can do anything. That’s an incredible team.”
Henry was even reminded of Johan Cruyff’s legendary Dream Team from the early 1990s by the attacking whirlwind of Lamine Yamal, Robert Lewandowski and their teammates, and felt sorry for opponents Newcastle: “Newcastle collapsed against this attacking force. When Barcelona play like that, it’s almost impossible to stop them.”