Barcelona ended their league phase campaign with a 2-2 draw at home to Atalanta on Wednesday, and that meant a second place finish in the standings. A victory would have seen them finish above Liverpool, but it was not to be for the Catalans.
Nevertheless, it was a very good first eight matches for Barcelona, and Flick recognised this. As per Diario AS, he spoke on the league phase, and also the match against Atalanta, during his post-match press conference.
“I’m happy with the second position in the league phase. I think it’s a great success for the team. Today was a difficult game. I think we could have done a bit better, but overall we’re satisfied with the result and qualifying as second. It was definitely a great football match because Atalanta defended well one-on-one and we learned a lot from this game with a view to the future.
“That’s what we have to improve, the defensive work. We are happy to finish in this position, but we have to work on many things. We have the potential to do something more and now we will have an extra week (because of no play-offs) to be able to do more training.”
Barcelona go straight through to the last 16 of the Champions League, and on Friday, they will be drawn against one of AS Monaco, Brest, Paris Saint-Germain or Benfica. Flick was asked about the topic, although he did not seem overly interested.
“It is too early to talk about rivals. We’ll see what happens.”
It is now six wins and two draws for Barcelona in all competitions in 2024, so it is clear that Flick’s side are back to their best. However, they will have been disappointed to have not won against Atalanta, and their poor defensive record is something that will need to be improved as the season goes on.
