{"id":74168,"date":"2026-08-22T11:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T11:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74168\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T11:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T11:04:15","slug":"fc-barcelona-boss-flick-speaks-on-who-will-be-9-versus-elche-and-exits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74168\/","title":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona Boss Flick Speaks On Who Will Be 9 Versus Elche And Exits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FC<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick has spoken about who will play as his 9 against Elche on Sunday, as well as his plans for new signing Rodri.<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick<\/a> has spoken about who will play as his 9 against Elche on Sunday, as well as his plans for new signing Rodri<\/a> at a prematch press conference to preview the Catalans\u2019 La Liga season opener.<\/p>\n

With Ferran Torres<\/a> and Robert Lewandowski both leaving the club, Flick is without a seasoned 9 as things stand.<\/p>\n

Egypt World Cup star Hamza Abdelkarim has impressed with a string of goals in preseason, however, including one against his former club Al-Ahly in the Joan Gamper Trophy match won by Barca 2-1 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The pursuit of Julian Alvarez<\/a> or another striker continues in the meantime, with the transfer window closing on in just over a week.<\/p>\n

As Flick has to make do with what he has, though, he was asked who his frontman will be in Elche. Tight-lipped as always, he gave little away yet praised Hamza.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course I know who will play. We have a lot of options within the team. Maybe there will be a surprise tomorrow,\u201d Flick teased.<\/p>\n

More specifically on his teenage sensation, Flick said that Hamza is \u201chaving a very good pre-season\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a ‘9\u2019, a young player, with a lot of potential and has scored goals. He has done a fantastic job. And about Juli\u00e1n I already said before that I don\u2019t talk about other players from other teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flick isn\u2019t worried about losing Lewandowski and Ferran\u2019s goals either – which were some 30 between them (16 for Ferran, 14 for Lewandowski) in La Liga alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have signed top level players and the quality is higher. There have been a lot of changes, but sometimes it\u2019s also very good to change things in the dressing room because then everyone is aware of it,\u201d Flick said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a competition and everyone is competing to play. This makes the players stronger, they improve and the team grows. This is how titles are won. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a privilege to be able to train with this enormous quality and healthy competition everyday. I told the players that the quality is very good, but tomorrow the important thing starts. We have to start well and with a victory,\u201d Flick stressed.<\/p>\n

Rodri no, Cancelo (maybe) yes for FC Barcelona<\/p>\n

Training individually away from the group on Saturday, new signing from Manchester City, Rodri, had his availability pretty much ruled out by Flick.<\/p>\n

“Rodri trained a little on the pitch. I\u2019m glad he\u2019s here, he\u2019s a fantastic player. He\u2019s a leader and his personality is fantastic. Our plan is for him to join the group on Monday,” Flick remarked.<\/p>\n

As for fellow acquisition Joao Cancelo<\/a>, however, he has more chances of getting the nod at Elche or at least coming off the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s ready to play and yes, he could play tomorrow. In my opinion, he has a fantastic technique,\u201d Flick said about the Portuguese. <\/p>\n

“He\u2019s a player with a lot of passion and last season he gave us a lot. He was always in the right position at his best level. Offensively he gave us more options, he helped us win LaLiga,” Flick added.<\/p>\n

FC Barcelona vs. Elche kicks off at 21.30 local time in Spain on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona head coach Hansi Flick has spoken about who will play as his 9 against Elche on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8642,92,871,934,9303,930,937,674,301,935,1102],"class_list":["post-74168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-al-ahly","tag-barcelona","tag-elche","tag-ferran-torres","tag-hamza-abdelkarim","tag-hansi-flick","tag-joao-cancelo","tag-julian-alvarez","tag-la-liga","tag-robert-lewandowski","tag-rodri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}