Accordingly SPORTCiting anonymous sources, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta still has “absolute confidence” in his head coach Hansi Flick, despite the Catalans’ first team suffering their third La Liga home defeat in a row against Atlético Madrid in Montjuic on Saturday had to accept.

Barca and Atleti went into the mammoth duel tied at the top of the Spanish top league.

But while the Blaugrana suffered two consecutive defeats against relatively weak teams Las Palmas and Leganes, Diego Simeone’s men were on a winning streak of 12 and also had a game in hand.

After a 0-4 win against Real Madrid in the El Clasico at the end of October, Barca are already six points ahead, but in the title race itself there is now a risk that the team will be as many points behind after a 1-0 lead, Pedri had to However, they conceded to second-half goals from Rodrigo de Paul and Alexander Sorloth and lost 2-1, a stinging defeat for which Raphinha took the blame.

“It was really unbelievable how we played,” said Flick at his press conference after the game.

“That’s how I want to see my team. I am proud. It also shows that Atletico are an experienced team and they are just waiting and for them it is enough.”

“I think our style of how we want to play has been really great – fantastic. It’s really disappointing that we don’t have anything in our hands (of the game), that’s the big disappointment.”

“I told the team that I really appreciated the way we played. Maybe we need to play smarter. We may have been punished for two mistakes, we need to learn about these things, but for me this is the right way.”

“The quality we played, the way we played… I think everyone in this room can see that. That’s also the style with which Barca want to play, how they want to dominate, but in the end it’s the football and the team that can do it.” “Score more goals,” Flick continued.

SPORT reported that Laporta “finished the game against Atlético very upset,” but that was more about the end result than how the team played.

Despite the five defeats so far in the 2024/25 season, i.e. the same number of losses as Flick’s fired predecessor Xavi Hernandez in the entire 2023/2024 year, trust in the German remains “absolute”.

“The club exudes calm and is convinced that the situation will be reversed in January, when titles are already at stake,” the newspaper adds, alluding to the Spanish Super Cup.

By perhaps getting past Athletic Club in the semi-finals and then beating Real Madrid or Mallorca in the final, Flick and his men can restore faith in the Barca project among Culers and the press.