It’s not just Gavi and Lamine Yamal. Hansi Flick’s Barcelona are now dealing with an injury crisis at the worst time possible. Starting winger Raphinha and starting keeper Joan Garcia will be absent for the next few weeks due to injuries that will push the Spanish Club’s depth to its limits. Just as teenage sensation Lamine Yamal returned to practice, Gavi went down with a knee injury, and surgery is likely to keep him out up to five months. Then to add insult, and injury, to injury, Raphinha picked up a hamstring injury that the team announced will sideline him up to three weeks and keeper Joan Garcia went down with his own knee injury, and is also expected to be out 4-6 weeks.
Barcelona’s starting XI is among the best in the world, but with a bench of academy players and players who fell out of favor at their former clubs, there are performance drop-offs when Barcelona are forced into wholesale changes. Those drops can be mitigated in matches like Barcelona’s defeat of Real Oviedo, but even then, the lack of depth in midfield showed.
Frenkie de Jong had to come on at half for Marc Casado for Barcelona’s attack to return to normal, while Robert Lewandowski’s introduction for Raphinha was the moment that things got out of reach for the newly promoted side. This chopping and changing is one of Barcelona’s strengths when their stars are healthy, but can become a weakness quite quickly in a competitive La Liga title race.
Current Barcelona injuries
|
Gavi |
Midfielder |
Knee surgery |
|
Marc-Andre ter Stegen |
Goalkeeper |
Back |
|
Alejandro Balde |
Defender |
Hamstring |
|
Joan Garcia |
Goalkeeper |
Meniscus tear |
|
Fermin Lopez |
Midfielder |
Muscular injury |
|
Raphinha |
Forward |
Hamstring |
Pedri and de Jong are great at linking up play to transition defense into good opportunities for the attack while keeping defenses honest with shots from outside of the box, but when one of them doesn’t play, the system gets off track. Marc Bernal and Casado will grow as players, but time isn’t on Barcelona’s side.
All of which is to say that Barcelona lack depth, and that manpower shortage couldn’t come at worse time. In the next 30 days Barcelona play six times, culminating in the first El Clasico of the season in Madrid on October 26. Between now and then they have tricky league matches against Real Sociedad and Sevilla, not to mention Wednesday’s Champions League showdown with defending champions Paris Saint-Germain. Even if Barca were at full strength, Flick would have to rotate his squad, and that’ll be an even bigger challenge with fewer bodies available.
Then there’s the little matter of their rivals for the LaLiga title.
Real Madrid are playing to their potential
Under Xabi Alonso, Los Blancos have already opened up a two point lead at the top of LaLiga. Currently, that’s manageable as just one victory over Real Madrid will see Barcelona go top of the pile. But that undersells just how strong Real Madrid have been this season. They are perfect so far, that’s without England superstar Jude Bellingham even starting a match as he recovers from injury.
When Kylian Mbappe joined Madrid ahead of last season from PSG, the expectation was that they would win everything in their path as the team’s depth and topline talent was too strong to cope with. Now with a shift in manager, that’s happening as Mbappe has settled and is already outdoing his inaugural Real Madrid season, which saw him score 31 goals in 34 LaLiga games. With seven goals in six league matches, he has been a focal point, but it has been far from a one man show. Vinicius Junior is finding his footing, and the defense which added two new starters in Trent Alexander-Arnold (currently injured) from Liverpool and Dean Huijsen from Bournemouth and keeping other attacks at bay. It’s still early, but this seems like a generational Real Madrid squad.
Pressure to perform
After winning the LaLiga title and making it to the Champions League quarterfinals last season in his first campaign in charge, expectations are high for what Flick can do. It was a quiet transfer window with Marcus Rashford being Barcelona’s biggest addition, along with adding Garcia to be the new starting keeper. Flick is reliant on improvement from last season, but when Barca doesn’t have the financial power to match their rivals and are still not able to return to Camp Nou due to renovations taking longer than expected, injuries could leave this team primed for disappointment.
Granted, disappointment at Barcelona could include a season where they only win the Copa Del Rey and crash out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals again, but that’s life at a super club. When these things happen, changes can come swiftly, which is why, despite Barcelona’s strong start to the season, Flick will need to figure out rotations quickly.
Lamine Yamal’s return to training will help, but if one of Casado or Bernal doesn’t step up in midfield, things like pushing defender Eric Garcia up the pitch could be next. The issue with that is it makes Barca more vulnerable to counterattacks than they already are. Without adjustments, the LaLiga race could be over by November. The combination of Real Madrid’s unrelenting pace and Barcelona’s injuries hitting at the worst time possible could see Real Madrid build an insurmountable leads before you blink.
