Barcelona’s Hansi Flick on Real Madrid fights: “I was a bit surprised, but these things happen everywhere”

“I don’t know how to answer this question. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry,” Flick responded when asked about the spirit of Juanito, something often invoked by Real Madrid often to conjure up a comeback.

‘It’s true, egos kill a team’ – Hansi Flick

One of Flick’s quotes from earlier in the season was that ‘ego kills the team’, when trying to encourage his side into their defensive work. That quote was thrown back at him, and he was asked if he felt Real Madrid had suffered from the same thing.

“I don’t want to talk about Real Madrid because it’s not my team. But it’s true, the important thing is to work as a team, that we always think with the ‘we’, not about the me. Not about the ego, but always for the team. Everything that’s going on, has to be positive for the team, and in my view, it’s positive for the team..”

“I think the most important thing in this is that we’re all going the same way. We’re talking on the same wavelength. These things can happen, it could happen, I will not say it’s normal, but these things could happen. It’s better to communicate. This is the number one. And this is normally how me manage it here. When something happens like this, I will think about that.”

Barcelona host Real Madrid on Sunday night at 21:00 CEST, knowing anything but a loss will secure their second straight La Liga title under Hansi Flick. They go in as heavy favourites following the strife at the Bernabeu.