Hansi Flick turned Barcelona into a family – and runaway La Liga champions

After learning of his father’s death on the morning of the clásico, the manager watched his players respond with devotion that underlined the culture he has built

Early on Sunday morning Hansi Flick got a call from his mum telling him that his father had died overnight. Hansi Sr was 82 and he had been ill for some time. The day that Barcelona were going to win the league again, the first clásico back at the Camp Nou, had just begun and their coach was not sure what to do, yet he also knew. “I [thought]: ‘should I hide it or should I speak with my team, because for me it is like a family?’,” he said. “I said ‘OK, I want to get the information to my players, and what they did is unbelievable. I will never forget this moment.”

None of them would. Barcelona’s players had arrived at the Torre Melina hotel on the Diagonal at midday, where the man many of them consider a father told them about his. Now it was close to midnight and together they celebrated a title that was his too. For the first time in 94 years, the clásico had decided La Liga, if decided is really the word when it was done a while ago. Barcelona’s superiority in the 2-0 victory that finally ended it was incontestable as it had been virtually all season, Real Madrid’s players withdrawing swiftly, relieved that at least it was over now and leaving the stadium to them, the first round of fireworks exploding into the sky and a sardana forming in the centre circle.

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