Raphinha admits: Flick's call stopped me leaving Barcelona

Raphinha was all but gone. The Brazilian felt undervalued at Barcelona, had lost faith in himself, and in his own head the move away was already done.

Two years on, he is one of the leaders in the Catalan dressing room, and he has revisited that episode to show how much a few supportive words can shift a person's outlook.

Sport newspaper carried some of Raphinha's words from an interview with the Guardian, in which he said: "I knew deep down that I was going to leave. I had already made up my mind."

Everything turned on one phone call. Hansi Flick, newly installed as Barcelona boss, asked him not to decide anything until the pair had spoken.

Raphinha explained: "He told me that he trusted me, and that I would be an important player. In a moment like that, a few words can change you."

That conversation handed back the one thing he had lost: self-belief. He added: "I have always said that Flick changed my mentality, and changed me on a personal level."

The numbers back up the mood. In eight matches this season, Raphinha has scored 14 goals and provided 3 assists for the Catalan side.

His team-mates played their part too. When the squad voted him captain, he found that others saw qualities in him he had not even known were there.

He admitted: "It was like flicking a switch. Others saw something in me that I had not discovered myself. That is what changed me."

So the armband came to mean far more than fabric. "You feel that you are an important person, and it is an honour. It is not simply about wearing the armband," he said.

All of that shapes how he handles the youngsters. In a dressing room mixing teenagers with hardened professionals, the Brazilian reckons listening, backing people up and picking the right moment to step in matter enormously.

Lamine Yamal gets particular attention. Raphinha steps in when he spots the teenager losing focus or drifting out of the game mentally, and he works on keeping team-mates such as Jordan calm.

Young players, he believes, need role models close by, people who will pull them up on their mistakes without ever losing their empathy.

He explained: "Sometimes you have to act in a fatherly way, because they are children. But they understand that. And if you tell them off, they know you are doing it for their own good."