{"id":74607,"date":"2026-08-23T14:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74607\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T14:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:37:12","slug":"al-ahly-experience-inspires-flick-unexpected-return-for-barcelona-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/74607\/","title":{"rendered":"Al-Ahly experience inspires Flick: unexpected return for Barcelona star"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jules Kound\u00e9 returned to familiar territory during the Joan Gamper Trophy. The Frenchman lined up in the heart of the defence against Egypt’s Al-Ahly, in Hansi Flick’s final test before the start of the Spanish league.<\/p>\n

Having settled at right-back over several seasons, the Barcelona player reclaimed his natural role in the centre of the back line. The decision opens a new path for the German coach in preparation for the 2026-2027 season.<\/p>\n

Timing makes the experiment all the more significant. Barcelona begin their Spanish league campaign today, Sunday, against Elche, and Flick still needs to settle some components of his defensive line.<\/p>\n

Against the Egyptian side, Kound\u00e9 played centre-back alongside Gerard Mart\u00edn, while Eric Garc\u00eda occupied the right-back position.<\/p>\n

According to a report by the Catalan newspaper Sport<\/a>, “This arrangement does not appear to be random, and may provide indications about the coach’s plans for the current season.”<\/p>\n

Kound\u00e9 was not at his best on the only goal Barcelona conceded. Ahmed Sayed Zizo punished him after the Frenchman looked overly lax in one of the one-on-one duels. Even so, he left good impressions overall on his return to the heart of the defence.<\/p>\n

That level of performance may push Flick to turn the experiment from a mere pre-season test into a genuine option, opening the door for Kound\u00e9 to take on a more regular role in the heart of the defence throughout the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jules Kound\u00e9 returned to familiar territory during the Joan Gamper Trophy. The Frenchman lined up in the heart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18165,92,26942,23952,871,24139,186,27094,85],"class_list":["post-74607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-al-ahly-sc","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-vs-al-ahly-sc","tag-club-friendlies","tag-elche","tag-elche-vs-barcelona","tag-h-flick","tag-j-kounde","tag-laliga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74607","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=74607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}