Hansi Flick can be happy with the performance shown by his team in the second matchday of the 2024-2025 LaLiga season against Athletic Bilbao. With goals from Lamine Yamal and Robert Lewandowski, the Barcelona team once again added three in a 2-1 victory, marked by boos from the Barça fans for what could have been their star signing of the summer, Nico Williams.
After the match, the German coach gave his impressions and was happy with what he saw on the Montjuïc pitch: "There is a good atmosphere in the squad, I like the attitude in training and the two victories in the League help a lot. They are not easy to achieve, but we are doing very well." Flick has kept a similar eleven in the first two league games, making only one change. On August 24, he opted for Pedri González instead of Marc Casadó, although he explained that things could change soon: "For now, it has been like that, but we have more games ahead and we will see how the players feel. There may be changes in the next games," said the German.
Flick praises Pedri and Lewandowski
When asked about the performance of the Canary midfielder, who played every minute of the match, Flick acknowledged that the player "has given the balance that the team was looking for," commenting that last week he was almost 100% and that is why he started from the beginning in this match. "He knows how to protect the ball, he has the passion and a good combination. It's great to have him on the field," he detailed. Pedri played in midfield alongside Marc Bernal, who was a starter again at 17 years old, as well as Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí.
"I don't line up players based on age, but on how they perform. In Bernal's case, he had a good pre-season and today, without it being easy against Bilbao, he knew how to defend and attack," said the German coach. For his part, he only had good things to say about Lewandowski: "I've always known him like that, he's at his best. He presses well with the team beyond the goals and he's receiving the ball very high, that's good for us. At the moment he has three goals, which is always good for a striker, and on top of that today's goal gave us the 3 points."
The German opens up about Olmo
As expected, the Barcelona manager was asked about the situation of midfielder Dani Olmo, who for the second consecutive match was unable to play due to not being registered. The Barça board has not yet been able to reach the financial fair play zone, which made it impossible for the Spaniard to be on the pitch. Even so, he hopes to be able to count on Olmo for the match against Rayo Vallecano in Valencia: "I hope so, I have hopes, these are things that have to be accepted because we cannot change them, I already knew that it would not be an easy task but what is needed is to focus on what we want and today what we wanted was to win three points," he concluded.