{"id":78053,"date":"2026-08-30T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78053\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T22:00:11","slug":"lamine-yamal-getting-back-to-top-level-barcelona-coach-flick-says-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/78053\/","title":{"rendered":"Lamine Yamal getting back to \u2018top level\u2019, Barcelona coach Flick says | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Teenager struggled in Barca\u2019s La Liga start at Elche but improves against Athletic Bilbao, according to Hansi Flick.<\/p>\n<p>Published On 30 Aug 202630 Aug 2026<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona coach Hansi Flick has indicated that teenage star Lamine Yamal is finding his way back to his \u201ctop level\u201d before Monday\u2019s La Liga clash against Rayo Vallecano.<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old struggled in Barca\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2026\/8\/27\/raphinha-scores-again-as-barcelona-ease-past-athletic-club-in-la-liga\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first match of the season<\/a> at Elche but improved against Athletic Bilbao in the second, Flick said, although he did not find the net.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know everyone is worried about how is Lamine, how is he doing. And of course, look at his situation \u2013 he played a World Cup after a huge injury,\u201d Flick told reporters on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Flick said the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2026\/7\/20\/world-cup-champions-spain-return-to-royal-welcome-parade-through-madrid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Spanish World Cup winner<\/a> is returning to his best, which Yamal has not hit since suffering a hamstring injury in April.<\/p>\n<p>The winger returned at the World Cup but, despite Spain\u2019s success, had limited individual impact at the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow he\u2019s coming back after three weeks holiday, and also the first game maybe was not his best game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I said this, I was very happy that he starts the game and he worked for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yamal disappointed in the first half against Athletic on Thursday but stepped up a gear after the break.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe played 90 minutes against Bilbao. And for him at the moment, it\u2019s also good to [have] 90 minutes on the pitch,\u201d Flick continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw him in some situations really on this top level. And now, you couldn\u2019t see this in the training today, but I saw it, and it was excellent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone loves Lamine, and he\u2019s in a good way. And we have to support him, and we do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yamal seemed in a bad mood after the game against Elche but happier in training before the Rayo clash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, it\u2019s always good when the players are smiling, but it\u2019s not every day the same way,\u201d Flick added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m also not smiling every day. It\u2019s like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barca won both of their opening fixtures with Raphinha playing as a makeshift number nine after the champions were unable to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/sports\/2026\/8\/30\/alvarez-returns-to-atletico-training-amid-barcelona-arsenal-transfer-links\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">land top target Julian Alvarez<\/a> from Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, I\u2019m happy with my team. [Sporting director] Deco is working on that to strengthen the team. We don\u2019t have pressure,\u201d Flick said, reiterating he is content with the players available to him if Barca don\u2019t sign a new striker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenager struggled in Barca\u2019s La Liga start at Elche but improves against Athletic Bilbao, according to Hansi Flick.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,66,313,273,17,314],"class_list":["post-78053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-europe","tag-football","tag-news","tag-spain","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78053","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=78053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}