Hansi Flick abandons Xavi’s ways of rewarding the Barcelona team | OneFootball

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For FC Barcelona, the objective every season is to ensure victory in all competitions and win titles. Despite their clear financial struggles and internal issues, La Blaugrana continue to have big aspirations. Fortunately for Barcelona, their new campaign has gotten off to the best start possible as well.

With the recent victory over Valencia at the Mestalla, Barcelona now have three points in the bag and they will welcome Athletic Club to the Montjuic Stadium for their next league game. Before the match, however, it appears that the team will not get much of a break to enjoy.

Under this new leadership of Hansi Flick, according to AS, Barcelona are leaving behind many of the practices that were common during the time of Xavi Hernandez. One of the main changes will be a lack of days off or the players being ‘rewarded’ for achieving specific objectives such as getting wins in games.

Previously, Xavi used to reward his players with days off whenever they would accomplish specific objectives set by him. These could range from anywhere such as getting a win or keeping a clean sheet, and even managing to score in the opening 20 minutes of any game. Flick, however, wants to take things in a much more professional direction.

For the German coach, professionalism is to be expected of these players at all times. He wants his Barcelona players to be treated like athletes, not like children in school. Thus, there are no more additional days off and only the planned rest days to let the team reactivate and refresh.

Moreover, the Barcelona head coach has also gotten rid of some of the more recreational exercises that Xavi’s coaching staff made the team do to make training sessions more fun and interactive. Flick’s schedules and routines are much more demanding and more physically imposing.

So far, the results of these training sessions with much more focus and attention to detail have proven to be useful. Against Valencia, for instance, the energy and relentlessness of the Barcelona squad was much more apparent to see and it definitely helped them get the victory.