Hansi Flick picks his favourite to win the Champions League
Hansi Flick picks his favourite to win the Champions League. Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has revealed the club he considers amongst the favourites to win the Champions League this season, and it’s Barcelona.
Europe’s premier club competition has returned for matchday seven of the league phase this week, with only one more round of fixtures left as teams jostle for positions to finish as high as possible.
Barcelona overcame a disappointing start following defeat to Monaco in their opening game, stringing together five successive wins since over Young Boys, Bayern Munich, Red Star Belgrade, Brest and Borussia Dortmund to sit second in the table behind leaders Liverpool.
The Premier League side have won six from six, the sole team with a 100% record, and Flick admitted that Arne Slot’s men are the ones to beat.
Barca face Benfica in Lisbon on Tuesday night, with coach Bruno Lage naming the Catalans as favourites to lift the trophy come May. Flick pushed back on that prediction, commenting on the difficulty of going all the way and name-dropping Liverpool instead.
“We’ll see in the future if [Lage] is right. It’s one of the most difficult competitions to win. Liverpool is one of my favourites,” Flick explained to reporters.
“Winning the Champions League is one of the most difficult things in the world. We’re doing well, but there are some very good teams that are also doing well.
“We’re in three competitions. If you look at the results in La Liga, we’re not doing a good job, but if you look at the [Getafe] game [on Saturday], we’re doing very well. It’s difficult to play against Getafe.”
Barcelona’s domestic form has been in stark contrast to their European results. Having dropped only three points through their opening 12 La Liga games to lead the way, Flick’s side have collected just one further win from eight league fixtures since to fall seven points off the pace set by Real Madrid.
They did, however, collect the Supercopa de Espana earlier this month, thrashing Madrid for the second time this season in the final in Saudi Arabia, scoring four times in the first half alone.
