Hansi Flick eyeing Champions League top eight with Barcelona in ‘fantastic’ form

Barcelona boss Hansi Flick is looking to ride his team’s “fantastic” form to a top-eight spot in the Champions League as his side prepare for a meeting with Red Star Belgrade on Wednesday.

So far this season, Barca have picked up six points in the competition after following up their opening loss to Monaco with back-to-back wins against Young Boys and Bayern Munich.

They come into the game against Red Star in sparkling form, having won six straight games in all competitions and extended their lead at the top of LaLiga on Sunday with a 3-1 victory over city rivals Espanyol.

After they took a 3-0 lead at the weekend, Espanyol’s improved second-half display caused some problems for Barcelona but Flick is hopeful his team can put in a solid performance in Wednesday’s Champions League clash.

“I know we performed really fantastic the last month or two. Also in the first half against Espanyol, this is normally the quality the team has,” Flick told a pre-match press conference.

“The second half – I also played football, I know what happens when you’re 3-0 in front and everything seems easy. We have to accept it, for then it was okay, but now it’s a new competition, it’s the Champions League.”

Under the new Champions League format, a place in the top eight ensures automatic qualification for the last-16 knockout phase.

The remaining spots are then decided by a two-legged play-off round involving the clubs finishing from ninth to 24th and Flick highlighted the importance of sealing qualification directly.

He added: “I think everyone knows how important it is to win. Our goal, and maybe also for a lot of other clubs, is to end this competition in the final eight so that you have less matches in January and February.

“This is our goal. I think the team is doing good and we focus on that, we show them about the things that we did not so well, but we think always positive.”

Red Star have had a difficult start to their Champions League campaign with three straight losses so far, including a 5-1 thrashing to Monaco in their last game, but Flick warned of the challenges they can pose.

“In this new Champions League tournament it’s very important to win,” he said.

“We know it will be a tough match tomorrow because they are a good team, they like to play football, they have fast strikers so we have to think about that, but our goal is to win.”