Barcelona must ´work hard´ to achieve Champions League glory, says Flick

Hansi Flick tempered expectations of Barcelona’s chances of silverware in his first season in charge ahead of facing Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.

Flick has led Barca to 13 wins from 15 games in all competitions, scoring 50 goals in those games while conceding just 14 times.

Some standout matches have seen Barca thrash Clasico rivals Real Madrid 4-0 while also brushing aside Bayern Munich 4-1 in the Champions League in their last match in the competition.

While Flick understood the fans’ excitement after those results, he urged his side to keep their feet on the ground with a long season still in front of them.

“We have to work hard. There are many teams who dream of the same thing, of winning (the Champions League),” Flick said.

“For the moment, we’re going to focus on working hard and grinding out, so then we’ll see what happens. We have to focus on our goal which is to keep improving.

“A team’s form fluctuates a lot over a long season. The important thing is to focus on winning the next match. Sure, after the match against Bayern everything changed.

“But we are just starting. The important thing is how we finish the season. We could say that our goal is to be in the top eight.”

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Flick, however, insisted he was not surprised by his side’s impressive start to the campaign despite enduring a trophyless season last term.

Barca are nine points clear at the top of LaLiga and 11th in the Champions League table ahead of facing Red Star, who are without a win from their three games so far.

“Before we came here we analysed the whole team, every player. We realised that there was very good quality overall,” Flick said.

“Another thing to point out is that we wanted to improve how we defend and did small changes in the way we play. The players liked it and they are happy working on it.

“The players play a big role, they are helping us a lot.

“The start was already good on the pre-season in North American and the players are very happy, although there are still many things to improve.”

And Barca will be confident of keeping their fine form going against a side that has lost 81% of their matches in the Champions League (P21 W2 D2 L17).

This is the first European meeting between the two sides since October 1996 in the Cup Winners’ Cup, a 1-1 draw with Giovanni cancelling out a Zoran Jovicic’s opener for the Serbians.