Barcelona continue to suffer from the lack of a key specialist in their team | OneFootball

Since the arrival of Hansi Flick on the FC Barcelona bench, there has been a clear uptick in the offensive performances of the Blaugrana team.

Scoring more than 3 goals on average, the Catalans are currently on course to beat their historic scoring records. Up to now, they have scored 120 goals in total this season.

Of these 120 goals, 21 have come from set-pieces, 8 from penalties, 7 from corner kicks, and 5 from free-kick situations.

However, as Mundo Deportivo has noted, the team continues to lack in the free-kick aspect, as there has been no specialist in the team since the departure of Lionel Messi.

The absence of such a specialist was felt quite keenly in the last match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid when the Blaugranes got a free-kick only 17 metres away from goal with the score still at 4-2 in their favour.

Despite the small distance to the goal, the Catalans did not take a direct shot, as Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski tried a rehearsed play that ended in nothing.

This trend has been noticeable throughout the entirety of this season, as from 23 attempts, Barcelona have scored only once from a direct free-kick, and that too from a player who rarely gets on the pitch, i.e., Pablo Torre.

Meanwhile, Raphinha has been the most frequent free-kick taker for the Blaugranes, but his record is not really praiseworthy. Since his debut with the Catalans, he has taken 42 free-kicks without scoring a goal. 18 of these have come only in Hansi Flick’s tenure.

The Brazilian might end up scoring a few from these situations down the road, but Barcelona cannot continue to rely on him for this purpose. Pedri shows his skills in this aspect in training, but he does not often take free-kicks in matches.

There is no doubt that scoring from free-kicks can provide the Catalans with another source of goals and can prove to be handy when the defences are proving difficult to break from open play. Hopefully, Hansi Flick will be able to address this problem in the coming weeks.