Five years after he led Bayern Munich to an improbable treble in a season almost forgotten because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hansi Flick is potentially 15 games away from emulating Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique by winning a treble for Barcelona. They play Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinal on April 9, and will face off against Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final at the Estadio La Cartuja in Sevilla on April 26. More importantly, Barcelona, who began the season uncertain even of the funds to sign players, hold a three-point edge over Real in the tussle to win La Liga.
Wednesday night’s Copa del Rey semi-final second leg win at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium effectively ended their rivals’ trophy hopes, just over two weeks after Barcelona had gone there and won 4-2 in La Liga. With Atletico now nine points behind with just nine matches to play, it’s safe to assume that both La Liga and Copa del Rey trophies will end up with the two big clubs that contest El Clasico.
Flick has now won 35 of his 46 games as Barcelona coach, losing only six. With Real Madrid, the defending champions, and Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain in the other half of the draw, Barcelona also undoubtedly have an easier path to the Champions League final, a game that has eluded them since they last won the trophy in 2015.
Flick was UEFA’s first Men’s Coach of the Year in 2020, after taking over from Niko Kovac mid-season and leading Bayern to a treble that included an 8-2 romp over Lionel Messi’s Barca in the Champions League. But when he succeeded Jogi Low as Germany’s manager in the summer of 2021, things went downhill rapidly. The Germans didn’t make it past the opening round at the World Cup in Qatar in 2022, after losing to Japan 2-1 in their first game.
A 4-1 thrashing at the hands of the Japanese in a friendly less than a year later sealed Flick’s fate, as he became the first German national team boss to be sacked. So low had his stock fallen that his appointment by cash-strapped Barcelona was seen as a big gamble. Instead, with Robert Lewandowski, once his goal-scoring talisman at Bayern, still finding the net and Lamine Yamal showing glimpses of genius, Barcelona and Flick are on course for the most memorable of Mays.