{"id":91069,"date":"2025-11-28T21:18:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/flick-asks-yamal-to-forget-cucurella-and-focus-on-barca\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T21:18:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:18:46","slug":"flick-asks-yamal-to-forget-cucurella-and-focus-on-barca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/flick-asks-yamal-to-forget-cucurella-and-focus-on-barca\/","title":{"rendered":"Flick asks Yamal to forget Cucurella and focus on Bar\u00e7a"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Flick urges Lamine Yamal to focus on upcoming matches after Barcelona&#8217;s defeat<\/h2>\n\nBarcelona coach Hansi Flick has urged Lamine Yamal to put his duel with Marc Cucurella in Tuesday&#8217;s defeat to Chelsea behind him and focus on the upcoming home matches against Alav\u00e9s and Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid.\n\nYamal, 18 years old, couldn&#8217;t stand out during Bar\u00e7a&#8217;s 3-0 defeat in the Champions League at Stamford Bridge, which led Chelsea goalkeeper Robert S\u00e1nchez to declare that Cucurella had &#8220;nullified&#8221; his national team teammate.\n\nFlick finally substituted Yamal in the 80th minute, and the youngster seemed annoyed at being replaced, but the Bar\u00e7a coach downplayed his reaction and urged him to respond in the coming weeks.\n\n&#8220;Lamine&#8217;s mood is good,&#8221; Flick said at a press conference before Saturday&#8217;s LaLiga match at Spotify Camp Nou against Alav\u00e9s.\n\n&#8220;Many players, when we change them, are not happy. I was also a player and maybe sometimes I didn&#8217;t show the correct reaction, but that&#8217;s how it is. It&#8217;s emotion.\n\nFor me, Cucurella is one of the best left-backs in the world. It&#8217;s not easy to play against him, he&#8217;s very intelligent, very intelligent in defense.\n\nThe next step for Lamine is to prove again that it&#8217;s not about this match, forget about it. Alav\u00e9s is now what matters and he has to show his best performance, his best level.&#8221;\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1128%2Fr1581894_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Lamine Yamal\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Lamine Yamal tuvo una noche dif\u00edcil contra su compa\u00f1ero de selecci\u00f3n espa\u00f1ol, Marc Cucurella.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nYamal, who has six goals and seven assists in 13 games this season, was not the only Bar\u00e7a player who struggled against Chelsea midweek.\n\nThe way it defended itself in the defeat, which left Bar\u00e7a in 18th place in the Champions League standings, was also criticized, as Chelsea scored three goals and had another three disallowed.\n\nFlick acknowledged that the result was difficult to accept for him and his players, but remains positive about the future and told the &#8220;experts&#8221; who continue to question his team&#8217;s tactics that &#8220;they have no idea.&#8221;\n\n&#8220;Of course, we are all in a bad mood after the defeat against Chelsea,&#8221; added the Bar\u00e7a coach. &#8220;We were very disappointed about that because we thought we could win there, but it&#8217;s done.&#8221;\n\n\n<p>When we lose and when we concede three goals, it&#8217;s very easy to say that it wasn&#8217;t a good match. But, for me, also to make it clear to all the experts outside, they have no idea how we want to play and what is necessary to play, I won&#8217;t say with the high line, but how we want to press.<\/p>\n\n\nIt&#8217;s not just about the four defenders. It&#8217;s about the midfielders, the forwards, who initiate the press. This is what I need from every player on the field, to press. It always falls on the defenders and it&#8217;s not fair.\n\n&#8220;I said I think positively. We did many positive things, but we have to do better when we start the dynamic, when we start the pressure.&#8221;\n\nFlick is confident of seeing a different Bar\u00e7a in the future. Pedri will return from his injury against Alav\u00e9s and Raphinha is in line to start for the first time since September after coming off the bench in the last two games.\n\nFerm\u00edn L\u00f3pez has been ruled out for two weeks due to a calf injury, while Ronald Ara\u00fajo will also miss the match against Alav\u00e9s due to a stomach problem.\n\n&#8220;I appreciate the things I see in training, we are focused, we have a lot of quality and players who are returning now,&#8221; Flick said.\n\n&#8220;Pedri is back, so it&#8217;s another situation, it increases the quality, Rapha, Marcus [Rashford] after having the flu&#8230; I&#8217;ve really missed Rapha.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1128%2Fr1581897_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Pedri\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Pedri est\u00e1 de vuelta en los entrenamientos del Barcelona.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nI see him as one of the most important players on the team, with the philosophy we have and how we want to play. He is very positive in our game when we defend, when we start the pressure, but also in transition he is incredibly good.\n\nIt&#8217;s no wonder he scored so many goals last season. He&#8217;s hungry to prove how good he is again this season after a fantastic year last season.&#8221;\n\nBar\u00e7a can, at least temporarily, go top of LaLiga with a win against Alav\u00e9s before current leaders Real Madrid travel to Girona on Sunday.\n\nFlick&#8217;s team will then focus its attention on Tuesday&#8217;s huge league match at home against Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid, who have won six games in a row in all competitions after beating Inter Milan 2-1 in the middle of the week in Europe.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flick urges Lamine Yamal to focus on upcoming matches after Barcelona&#8217;s defeat Barcelona coach Hansi Flick has urged Lamine Yamal to put his duel with Marc Cucurella in Tuesday&#8217;s defeat to Chelsea behind him and focus on the upcoming home matches against Alav\u00e9s and Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid. Yamal, 18 years old, couldn&#8217;t stand out during [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[10844,156,2022,1426],"class_list":{"0":"post-91069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-alaves","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-hansi-flick","11":"tag-lamine-yamal"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}