Flick, with Pep Guardiola and Johan Cruyff in his sights

The German coach of FC Barcelona, ​​Hansi Flick, faces his third season at the helm of the Blaugrana team with the challenge of achieving their third consecutive League title, something that only the Dutchman Johan Cruyff and the Catalan Pep Guardiola have achieved in ‘culer’ history.

It has been two summers since Flick landed in Spanish football to lead a FC Barcelona immersed in a post-Messi reconstruction. The German was the man chosen by Joan Laporta to replace Xavi Hernández on the Camp Nou bench with the aim of giving a leap in quality to a young squad full of emerging talent. And the bet couldn’t have gone better.

In its first two seasons, Flick’s FC Barcelona has dominated national football at will, leaving just one Copa del Rey in the way of the six national titles it has contested – two leagues, two Spanish Super Cups and one Copa del Rey -. A hegemony that wants to extend one more season in the present, which will start next weekend.

It won’t be easy, with José Mourinho’s Real Madrid 2.0 as their rival. The whites have been reinforced in one of the most active summers in recent years for the entity with the aim of putting an end to the ‘culer’ streak of triumph and achievements. However, the ambition of the Catalan team does not seem to have dropped one bit, seeing on the horizon the possibility of matching themselves with some of the most dominant Barça teams in history.

Only Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have managed to win three or more League titles throughout the competition’s almost 100-year history, with the Blaugrana being the last to do so more than a decade ago. The Madrid team achieved it up to four times – from 1961 to 1965 (5), from 1967 to 1969 (3), from 1978 to 1980 (3) and from 1986 to 1990 (5) -, while the Catalan team achieved it twice – from 1991 to 1994 (4) and from 2009 to 2011 (3)–.

Thus, if Barça is able to lift the League for the third consecutive season, it would join this select list of teams, while in terms of the bench, Hansi Flick would become the club’s second most successful coach in league championships with three titles, equal with Pep Guardiola and one with Johan Cruyff. In addition, it would equal Sampedor as the only ones to have won the league title in their first three seasons.

And the list of coaches who have managed to win three consecutive leagues, beyond FC Barcelona, ​​is also reserved for a small group of privileged people. To the two previously mentioned, only the names of Miguel Muñoz (5) and Leo Beenhakker (3) are added, who did it with Real Madrid, elevating the name of Hansi Flick as one of the most important coaches in the history of the League. In addition, he would become the third foreign coach with the most titles, behind the aforementioned Cruyff (4) and Helenio Herrera (4).