A lethal striker without any signings: Flick engineers Barcelona's big surprise!
Who is he?
Barcelona have their back-up plan ready if the move for Julian Alvarez collapses, and it doesn't involve chasing another striker. The alternative is Raphinha, deployed as an out-and-out forward. Hansi Flick has been laying the groundwork for months, so this is no last-minute scramble.
Spanish newspaper "Sport" report that, barring a major surprise, Barcelona will not sign an out-and-out striker before the window shuts, even though the position was the club's absolute priority at the start of the summer.
Deco's sporting management want to keep the Alvarez file open until the very end, reluctant to abandon the deal they placed at the top of their list.
Six players have already bolstered Flick's ranks: Anthony Gordon, Karim Adeyemi, Rodri, Joao Cancelo, Dominik Livakovic and Bezio. Yet the striker position remained the most glaring need, especially after Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres departed.
The decision not to chase a replacement isn't only about Barcelona's insistence on Alvarez. It rests on a firm technical conviction from Flick that Raphinha can fill the role, the German having spent recent weeks developing the Brazilian winger's game and handing him more varied attacking duties.
Flick believes Raphinha has the tools to play as an advanced forward. His dynamism, his relentless pressing and his constant movement fit the German's philosophy perfectly, and Flick has drawn on similar experiments before with the likes of Lionel Messi at Barcelona and Ousmane Dembele at Paris Saint-Germain.
The start of the season has backed his thinking. Raphinha has scored 3 goals, proof that leaning on him up front is more than a theory. It's an option capable of handing Barcelona genuine attacking solutions.
Raphinha is not the only card in this plan. The squad boasts several players capable of finding the net, chief among them Fermin Lopez, who has also scored 3 goals, alongside Gordon and Adeyemi, who can chip in from the front line.
The numbers under Flick explain the faith placed in him. Raphinha scored 34 goals in his first season with the German coach, then 21 the following campaign, a haul of 55 across two seasons, before adding 3 more at the start of the current one.
So Barcelona have put the Alvarez plan and the Raphinha plan on the same track. Land the Argentine and Flick gets a world-class spearhead. Miss out and the German already has the answer inside his squad, having primed Raphinha for a new role that could turn the number 11 into the striker Barcelona never signed.
