No one expected what Flick said about Marc Bernal, the surprise at Barça is total

Marc Bernal was seen as a pivotal footballer for Hansi Flick's project at Barça. We all remember his extremely high level at the start of last season 2024/25 and how, unfortunately, a serious knee injury left him completely out of the culé squad. He missed almost the entire season, but he had good replacements in midfield.

Frenkie de Jong stepped up—completely unexpected, by the way—and secured his place in the starting eleven alongside Pedri. In contrast, Casadó took a step back and Hansi Flick stopped trusting him, relegating him to almost a kind of ostracism in the second part of the season. For this reason, although his position was being well covered, there was a strong desire among Barcelona fans to see Marc Bernal return.

Marc Bernal, little by little

The player from Berga has been training normally since preseason and was supposed to be one of Barça's main players. However, that hasn't been the case. Marc Bernal has not only failed to regain his place in the starting eleven, but he has barely played a few scattered minutes.

He came on in the 81st minute, under a flood of ovations and chants, in the fourth LaLiga match, which was also his first official draft of the year. In the next two matches he didn't play, then he barely participated for a few seconds at Carlos Tartiere. He was left without minutes again in the following match, the win against Real Sociedad, and we saw him again against PSG in the Champions League, although only for 11 minutes.

After that, another two matches without stepping onto the field for even a single millisecond. He did get another ten minutes in Barça's overwhelming victory the other day against Olympiacos. In total, Marc Bernal hasn't even played 32 minutes at the start of this campaign. This is causing a lot of surprise at Barça. But there is an explanation for everything.

Flick asks for patience with Marc Bernal

Flick made it clear at a press conference: "We have to take care of him. We're not convinced that he's one hundred percent ready to play these matches. They're always very tough matches, and when you look at the games against Sevilla or others, it's not the best time for him to return because of the intensity," he said.

In fact, we already saw last year how he followed a similar strategy with Gavi, who was also coming back from a very serious injury. It was in November when he began to have much more prominence. We'll see if the same happens with Marc Bernal.

What is undeniable is that Flick has high hopes for Marc Bernal. That's why he doesn't want to risk losing him again and, therefore, wants to respect the timings of his recovery. The vast majority of Barça's matches so far have been very close, and the situation hasn't been right for Marc Bernal to test himself.