Barcelona have gone from a nine-match winning run to back-to-back defeats, and the chain reaction has been traced back to a single night on the Seville tarmac. According to reporting by Spanish journalist Sique Rodríguez, Hansi Flick is unhappy with how the squad’s senior figures handled the stranded return from Andalusia, a frustration aimed inside the dressing room rather than at Joan Laporta’s board.
The trip began well. Barcelona beat Real Betis 5-2 on 17 October, equalling the best start to a La Liga season in the club’s history. Everything after the final whistle went sideways.
A thunderstorm pounded Catalonia overnight and made landing at El Prat impossible. The squad still boarded the plane and sat there for roughly three hours before being told to head back to a hotel for the night. They only flew home around midday on Sunday, a delay that cost the team the full training day Flick had scheduled before the Champions League trip to Paris.
Rodríguez: It is the captains, not Laporta
The specific claim in Rodríguez’s reporting is unusual: Flick’s irritation is pointed at the squad’s senior figures, the dressing-room voices, not at the club’s executives. In that version of events, the players who speak for the group did not handle the decision well as the delay stretched out, with a return home that evening still preferred by most of the squad. The club has not confirmed the account, and no player has publicly addressed it.
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Barcelona had wanted to leave immediately after the match, Rodríguez said. The weather in Barcelona took the choice away from them.
Flick himself raised Seville, carefully
Flick did bring the trip up after El Clásico, though he was reluctant to lean on it as an excuse.
“In Seville, we spent three hours on the plane, then we stayed there to sleep. But I don’t want to talk about that now if we’ve lost,” he told reporters, according to OneFootball.
He was more direct about the physical fallout.
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“Today showed that we’re not fully fresh. Normally, we would have been fresher,” the German said in the same setting.
PSG and Real Madrid: The recovery that never came
The schedule after Seville left no room. Barcelona lost 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League league phase on the Tuesday after the Betis win, with a storm-shortened preparation blamed in Spain for the fatigue in Paris. Eight days after the Betis match, they went down 2-1 at home to Real Madrid in El Clásico, ending a nine-game La Liga winning streak.
Flick has an injury list that makes the squeeze worse. Jules Koundé and Eric García are already out, and Xavi Espart picked up a problem in the Clásico, leaving the manager short of options in defence before Saturday’s home match against Alavés.
Flick has sent the players away for two days of rest before the squad reconvenes on Wednesday.
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