Raphinha’s Barcelona revival began with one call from Hansi Flick | OneFootball

Raphinha has told The Guardian that he had mentally accepted leaving Barcelona in 2024, only for a phone call from Hansi Flick to change his mind. The Brazilian says that decision now looks like the pivot point of his career: he has since extended his contract to 2030 and been installed as both club captain and the club’s most productive No 9.

By 2024, Raphinha believed his time at Barcelona was up. He had produced 10 goals and 12 assists in his debut season, then 10 goals and 13 assists in his second, but he completed 90 minutes just seven times in 60 games under Xavi Hernández and felt unwanted. Barcelona had explored selling him while publicly chasing Nico Williams as a replacement, failing twice, and a photoshopped image of Williams in Raphinha’s shirt circulating online only sharpened the sense that he was surplus to plans, a period covered in earlier reporting on his uncertain Barcelona future.

Flick’s Call Changes Everything

Raphinha says he had already settled the matter in his own head and was in Brazil when Flick rang, asking to meet before any final decision was made. According to Raphinha, the coach told him he was trusted, that he would be important to the side, and that the team’s style of play would suit him. That conversation, he says, restored the confidence he needed to play his own football again.

A separate moment reinforced the shift: when the Barcelona dressing room voted him in as a club captain, third in line, Raphinha says it felt like a switch flipping in his mindset, evidence that teammates saw something in him he had not recognised himself.

From Unwanted Winger to Barcelona’s No 9

Flick has since made Raphinha his first-choice captain and, this season, his first-choice centre-forward, a shift detailed in coverage of his conversion into the No 9 role. The change was forced by circumstance: Robert Lewandowski, Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford departed in the summer having combined for 38 league goals the previous season, and when a move for Julián Álvarez collapsed, Barcelona were left without a natural striker.

Raphinha filled in against Basel in pre-season and never gave the position back. Seven games into this La Liga campaign he had scored 12 goals, adding two more in the Champions League, as Barcelona won their opening eight league fixtures, scoring five, two, five, five, five, four, seven and three goals in turn. He has scored in every match bar one, and against Levante he created the opening two goals before handing a penalty to Lamine Yamal.

That run follows 34 goals and 26 assists in 57 games during Barcelona’s 2024-25 title-winning campaign, then 21 goals and eight assists in 33 appearances last season despite injuries. Both ESPN and analysts covering his growth into a senior leadership figure have framed the trajectory as a rare case of a player nearly discarded who became indispensable within two years.