Hansi Flick under fire: Barcelona boss feeling the heat as 'kamikaze' high defensive line threatens to derail Blaugrana's title bids

Barcelona are a television executive's dream. Their games guarantee goals. They've not been involved in a single scoreless draw since Flick replaced Xavi as coach during the summer of 2024. Their last Champions League outing illustrated why.

Barca played some lovely passing football against Club Brugge, had 23 shots and scored three goals, including a superb strike from Lamine Yamal. However, the Blaugrana were also forced to come from behind three times just to claim a share of the spoils. Brugge may have been restricted to 23.7 percent possession, but they were full value for their point. Indeed, the hosts had as many shots on target as Barca (six) and actually created more big chances (five) - three of which they took thanks to perfectly-timed runs in behind the visitors' high line by Carlos Forbs, who teed up fellow forward Nicolo Tresoldi for the opener before netting twice himself.

So, while neutrals were enjoying another wonderfully entertaining encounter involving Barcelona, former forward Thierry Henry was being driven to distraction.

"You cannot play in the Champions League with that high line, I'm sorry," the Frenchman said on CBS Sports. "When you play against good teams, you're going to get exposed, and that's exactly what happened tonight. When opponents attack down the flanks, the defence collapses. Football is not all about pressing. You also have to know how to protect your goal. It’s not normal for defenders to constantly be outnumbered or for the goalkeeper to be so exposed. With the talent Barca has, this makes no sense. How much longer are we going to keep repeating the same thing?.."

The obvious counter-argument to the critics of Flick's high line is that it was integral to last season's success - and that was in spite of some initial reservations among the players.

"The first impression was shocking," former Barca defender Sergio Dominguez told SPORT. "[The coaches] told us, 'When the winger has the ball, the full-back has to press hard and the centre-backs have to move up with the full-back.' I had never seen that in football before. But when the first match comes and you catch the opposition offside nine times, and then seven times in the second, everyone followed the idea because it got results." Spectacular results, too.

Barca defeated Real Madrid four times on their way to winning a domestic treble, and it's worth remembering that Flick's bold footballing philosophy was widely lauded after the first Clasico of the 2025-26 campaign: a stunning 4-0 win at Santiago Bernabeu in which Kylian Mbappe was infamously flagged offside eight times. 

However, when Henry said after the 3-3 draw with Brugge that we're "seeing the same mistakes as last season", he definitely had a point. Barca were the best team in Spain last season, but they were far from flawless. Opponents were very open about the fact that in the days leading up to games against the Catalans they would work on beating the initial press with clever movement and precise passing, before then trying to exploit the space in behind the Blaugrana backline with well-timed through balls for pacey widemen to chase.

It didn't always work, of course. As Mallorca midfielder Sergi Darder told ESPN, "If Barca play with that line, there's a reason for it. It's difficult [to break down]. So, it's easy to know what you have to do against a defence like that, but hard to actually do it."

This season, though, fewer teams are falling into Barca's offside trap.

In Rayo Vallecano's 1-1 draw with Barca in Madrid on August 31, Inigo Perez deliberately stationed his striker in a central position 10 to 15 metres behind the Blaugrana defence, because the forward would suddenly become 'onside if the offside trap was breached by a runner out wide and, thus, have a healthy head start on the chasing defenders.

Not every rival coach is being quite so creative - although mainly because they don't need to be. The chink in Barca's armour is obvious: they leave acres of space in behind their full-backs, so while the outcome can be different, the opponent's strategy is nearly always the same.

"All the goals [conceded] are identical!" Dutch legend Ruud Gullit said on beIN Sports after the 3-3 draw with Brugge. "So, as a player, you have to ask yourself, 'Why should we continue using such a high line and why should we use the same method?' I think after a while, also the players themselves are concerned that is a kamikaze tactic. This is suicide because against any clever team... I think everybody is studying Barcelona right now."

Teams are certainly enjoying more success against Barca than they were last season. Sevilla tore the Catalans to shreds just four days after Paris Saint-Germain picked them off on the break in the Champions League, while the 2-1 scoreline in October's Clasico loss at the Bernabeu flattered Flick's side, who, in complete contrast to last year, couldn't keep Mbappe in check.

So, what's going wrong? Well, Inigo Martinez is being sorely missed after being allowed to join Al-Nassr on a free. The veteran centre-back was, by Flick's own admission, a "key player" for Barca, "an absolute leader on and off the pitch" who marshalled the defence, telling the likes of Pau Cubarsi when - and when not to - step out.

It's also been argued that certain individuals are underperforming this season, with the usually reliable right-back Jules Kounde coming in for some criticism in recent weeks. As a result, France coach Didier Deschamps felt compelled to defend his compatriot and effectively pointed the finger of blame at Flick in the process.

"Barca plays with a very high line, regardless of the moment in the match. That leaves defenders in impossible situations," Deschamps argued.

In fairness to Flick, he's never hung his defenders out to try. The German has always acknowledged that Barca's pressing game breaks down if not every member of the team is working in sync. When there's a "disconnect", as he calls it, between the attack and the defence, there's a downturn in results - just like last winter, when the Blaugrana won just one match in La Liga between November 10 and January 18.  

The hope is, then, that when Barca have a fully fit panel of players to choose from (the absence of Raphinha through injury is considered another issue given the Brazilian attacker presses so well from the front), they'll recover the cohesion and confidence that saw them storm to the Spanish title last season with an undefeated run of 15 wins from 16 games.

Dominguez, for one, is not worried by his former club's poor defensive record. "I think it's a natural evolution," said the centre-back, who joined Dinamo Zagreb during the summer. "In the first five months [of last season], the teams weren't expecting [the high line]. Then, they watched more video clips and learned how to hurt the team. But I still believe it works; maybe not as effectively as before, but with fixing some details, it'll return to how it was."

Tellingly, Flick and his team are reportedly working hard on making tactical tweaks to address their defensive issues. However, there is an undeniable fear that there is a fundamental flaw in Flick's footballing philosophy.

"The number of goals they concede is excessive, and many are far too easy," Henry said. "They don't want to change it and I understand that coaches can be stubborn about how they play, but it will be costly in big games."

Flick has absolutely no intention of abandoning his high line, though. "We are Barca, and we play with our DNA," he declared in Bruges. "I won't change our style out of fear of losing. I'm not going to sit back and defend a 1-0 lead. This isn’t about the philosophy. We can do things better. Everyone has to play in their correct position and press. It's not the team’s best moment. But we can play at another level."

They'll certainly have to if they're to win the Champions League, having conceded seven times in last season's semi-final loss to Inter and failed to keep a clean sheet in a single game so far this time around. Such generosity won't prevent them from making the knockout stage, of course, but, with just seven points on the board after four rounds, their hopes of a top-eight finish would take a massive hit if they were to lose at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday.

There is, thus, a feeling around Barcelona right now that they're making life more difficult for themselves than it should be. "Why insist on a plan doomed to fail?" Gullit asked on beIN Sports. "Every turnover is an open invitation to a counter-attack. You can't win European titles playing like that." Flick believes otherwise, though, and why wouldn't he? He won the Champions League playing the same way with Bayern Munich in 2020.

He also insists that the high line isn't as "dangerous" as it looks. But even the players that enjoy adopting such an adventurous approach have referred to it as a "risk"; it's just one that they and their coach are willing to take. 

For how much longer is up for the debate. World Cup winner Frank Leboeuf says he'd refuse to play in a defence operating such a high line ("I wouldn't want to look like a fool!"), while former Barca midfielder Gerard Lopez feels it's time for a change. "It's one thing to push forward and do it well, as Flick's done on many occasions, and another to be... suicidal," he said. "He's been here for a year and a half now, and we have to be critical of this Barca in terms of the way they defend."

Flick clearly won't be swayed by experts like Gerard and Henry, though. The Barca boss is going to keep doing the same thing in the Champions League this season in the hope that this season yields different results. Whether that's insane or inspired remains to be seen, but either way, Barca will remain a TV executive's dream.