Club Identity: Does Hansi Flick’s team feel like a true Barcelona side?

Barcelona’s recent past has been turbulent, but under Hansi Flick the club believes it has rediscovered a competitive edge. The German’s appointment broke a long-standing habit of turning to former players steeped in the club’s fabled “Barça DNA,” the Cruyff-inspired philosophy that prizes possession, positional play and home-grown talent. Instead, Flick arrived with a reputation for high-octane, transition-based football and immediately set about implementing a more vertical, counter-attacking style.

The early returns were impossible to ignore: trophies, statement victories and a glut of goals at both ends of the pitch. Supporters have been treated to some of the most exhilarating football the Camp Nou has seen in years, a welcome antidote to the stuttering campaigns that preceded his reign. Yet the thrill has come with volatility; the same aggression that fuels rapid attacks also leaves space for opponents to exploit, raising questions about balance and long-term sustainability.

Results have dipped of late, prompting the club’s official fan platform to pose a pointed question to its global audience: does this iteration of Barça actually feel like a “true” Barcelona side? The query strikes at the heart of an identity debate that has raged since Pep Guardiola’s departure. Traditionalists argue that anything deviating from patient, positional domination betrays the model refined by Cruyff and perpetuated through La Masia. Others counter that evolution is essential, and that Flick’s intensity has merely replaced tiki-taka with a different, equally valid, expression of dominance.

For now, the answer remains subjective. What is objective is that Flick has re-energised a squad that looked bereft of direction, restoring belief that Barcelona can again contend for the biggest prizes. Whether that revival is enough to satisfy purists—or to deliver European glory—will define the narrative of the season’s final chapters.