It’s time to address Barcelona’s defensive fragility — even club legend Thierry Henry is sounding the alarm

Compared to some of the other teams in this edition of the UEFA Champions League, Club Brugge are not necessarily a slouch, especially so after journeying to the round of 16 last season. A clash against Belgium’s second best team is never one that stands out on a long list of league phase fixtures, though, especially when a Lamine Yamal-led Barcelona are scheduled for a visit to the port city. It was destined to be a routine away game for Hansi Flick’s side, likely to offer few takeaways on a day where other European titans were theoretically playing much more competitive games. Barcelona, though, had as much fun as Colin Farrell’s Ray did in “In Bruges,” a film famously focused on how much Ray hates his forced work trip to the city.

Barcelona were not quite as miserable as Ray, in large part because Yamal makes that impossible. The 18-year-old was once again the star of his side’s show, forcing an own goal and notching another otherworldly goal to his already impressive tally. His run through traffic and strike from a tight angle may be the highlight-reel worthy moment with the most longevity on an entertaining day at the Jan Breydel Stadium. Leave it to Flick’s Barcelona, though, to ensure Yamal’s individual brilliance would not be enough to come out with all three points on Wednesday – the visitors instead had to settle for a 3-3 draw, their vulnerabilities fully exposed by Club Brugge.

One of the defining features of Flick’s Barcelona is their steadfast commitment to a high line, all while making the bet that their attacking might would be enough to overpower the deficit in defense. It is not an irrational calculation, but it comes with its drawbacks; it may only be slightly surprising that a Paris Saint-Germain team missing its stars can pick that lock, but as it turns out, Club Brugge can also wreak havoc over Barcelona’s back line.

Carlos Forbs had an outing he will likely remember for the rest of his life with two goals and an assist against Barcelona, almost completely at ease as he contributed to each of his side’s goals. There was a sense of repetition as he inched close to goal – whether Brugge were in possession or Barcelona sent numbers forward, the prospect of dropping back way down on the list of priorities. Time after time, all Brugge needed was a quick little play – finding the space was easy, it was all about making small adjustments in the moment. Forbs contorted his body to receive the ball and evaded the offside flag as he received a pass and made a run before Nicolo Tresoldi had the chance for a tap-in on the first. Forbs made a run that resembled Tresoldi’s for the second and did it one final time for the third, an example in how practice makes perfect.

“i don’t want to talk about my old club like that, but you’ve got to call a spade a spade,” Thierry Henry said on the UEFA Champions League post-match show, not mincing his words. “You can’t carry on defending like this.”

Barcelona have given their opponents a lot of practice in the last year and change, as well as examples for them to pull from. Brugge became the latest team to execute a tried-and-true game plan – 24.8% possession and 10 shots were no issue for Nicky Hayen’s side. Barcelona provided the perfect pathway to generate 2.06 expected goals, nearly equal to their tally of 2.10 expected goals from 22 shots. Even on days where Barcelona win, it is a counterproductive strategy, creating nervier game states than need be.

“I can’t bypass the fact that you keep on letting people go and run at your goal,” Henry said. “If you’re a team now, if you didn’t do your due diligence that Barcelona play a high line and you don’t make the late run … Late runs. You can go and do it every single time! Why would you put yourself in a situation when you’re going to make yourself suffer alone? No disrespect to what Brugge did, but you defend the ball and you defend your goal. You don’t just defend the ball when there is no pressure on it, and you let people run left and right, and then they have chances left and right every single time. That’s not really something that you want to do. You’re supposed to erase mistakes, not create them yourself.”

The game plan is flawed on its own but the issues are exacerbated by Barcelona’s personnel, who are ill-equipped for a very specific tactical approach. A lot of terrific defenders may not fit Flick’s strategy but Barcelona do not boast a single world-class defender, boasting neither the speed to balance the demands of a possession-oriented, attack-minded team nor the strong defensive skill to withstand an opponent’s quick attack. The problem, as always, is rooted in the club’s financial mismanagement – when they find a new loophole in LaLiga’s rules to spend money, they do so on attackers and when that fails, they boast an academy that generates incredible offensive players like Yamal. There is never really enough money at Barcelona to sign one world-class defender, let alone several.

Wojciech Szczesny, meanwhile, may be an upgrade on Inaki Pena but the once-retired goalkeeper only offers so much upside in goal. He is equally responsible for defensive lapses as Barcelona’s back line is, VAR coming to his rescue late in the game against Brugge and ensuring the hosts would not actually take all three points. As long as Barcelona remain in financial ruin – which feels like their reality for the foreseeable future – there may be no obvious personnel fix to these problems.

It may not be all his fault but the problems are perhaps Flick’s alone to solve, though how willing the manager is to change his approach is a different story. As managers like Arne Slot, Xabi Alonso, Vincent Kompany and Luis Enrique find success with genuine defensive resolve, Flick appears to be their ideological foil, perhaps unsurprising for someone who is a generation older than most of them. He will have his justifications – not only can Barcelona get away with it more often than not, they won a domestic double last season with the same exact approach. If he makes wholesale changes to his tactics, it would come as a genuine shock, even if it feels more and more like an imperfect strategy.

When “In Bruges“ Ray asks, “Do you think this is good?” it almost feels like he is asking about Barcelona’s unsustainable approach to winning the Champions League, but as Brendan Gleeson’s Ken retorts, “Yes, I do. It’s called sightseeing.” There’s only one champion at the end of the season, and though it’s too early to make a final judgment, it really might not be Barcelona’s year. They make for a much more entertaining spectacle than the landmarks Ray sulks around over the course of “In Bruges,” though, like a film one cannot help but rewatch over and over again. There’s always entertainment value in a Barcelona game, even if they make the same mistakes time and time again.