There is a line from legendary Spanish manager Vicente del Bosque that many fans in Barcelona will remember with fondness: “You watch (former Barca midfielder Sergio) Busquets, you see the whole game.”
Keep a close eye on one of the club’s current stars, high-flying winger Raphinha, and there’s more of a chance you’ll start to feel dizzy.
The Brazilian has hardly stood still since Hansi Flick arrived as Barcelona’s new head coach this summer, and although his hard running and high-intensity approach is nothing we haven’t seen from him before, channelling those efforts into more dangerous areas of the pitch has fuelled a prolific start to the new season.
Despite Raphinha’s nominal starting position being left-winger, no La Liga player has taken more than his 172 attacking touches in the central third this season, as he enjoys his newfound freedom to drift inside and attack the lucrative spaces behind opposition centre-backs.
The first hat-trick of the 27-year-old’s senior career, against Real Valladolid last month, was built on a collection of piercing runs through the heart of the visitors’ defence, while the second of his two goals at Villarreal last weekend saw him drift between into the centre-forward position on the transition before streaking clear of the chasing pack.
“The key has been to be direct,” team-mate Lamine Yamal said to reporters after the latter game, having provided the outrageous assist for that counter-attacking finish. “When we recover (possession), we only think about scoring.”
A player at the peak of his physical powers, Raphinha has been the prime beneficiary of those fresh attacking ideas brought to the club by Flick and his coaching staff.
Perhaps because of his relatively unheralded route to La Liga, or the luxurious attacking quality of some of those around him, Raphinha has never quite felt like a superstar at the top of the Barcelona team. His confidence fluctuated throughout an inconsistent first season (2022-23) as he struggled to nail down a starting spot ahead of Ousmane Dembele, a favourite of then-manager Xavi when injuries permitted him to play.
The emergence of Yamal late in that season even saw Raphinha moved to the opposite wing to accommodate the prodigious teenager, but his head-down approach did not go unnoticed throughout the squad despite a series of ego-bruising setbacks in 2023-24. This summer, he was voted in as one of four club captains by his team-mates.
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Hansi Flick has supercharged Barcelona with intensity and intelligence
Raphinha has risen to the responsibility, sticking up for Yamal after a heavy tackle in the dying moments of that Villarreal win, beckoning a group of young substitutes to celebrate with the team against Girona, forming close bonds with Fermin Lopez, Alejandro Balde and Gavi and finding his voice in the dressing room behind the scenes.
“He’s funny, people laugh with him; for me, it’s very important,” Flick said in a press conference before Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Getafe. “He’s giving his best for the team on the pitch and he’s also started the dynamic — the welcoming atmosphere — that we need.”
Raphinha celebrates scoring against Villarreal last weekend (Jose Jordan/AFP via Getty Images)
Projecting positivity and self-assurance is one thing, but Raphinha clearly possesses the athletic capabilities to flourish in Flick’s system — the energy to both defend from the front and lead fast-paced attacks with incisive bursts of speed. During his two years under Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds United, he received the ultimate seal of approval from the pressing-obsessed manager, who in a 2021 press conference praised his “explosiveness” and “quick physical responses”, underlining his ability to “sustain” those efforts again and again.
That fitness is reflected emphatically in tracking data from SkillCorner, using their runs-in-behind metric to capture how often Raphinha is darting into space behind the opponents’ defensive line. Across the first seven matchdays this season, he has completed 118 such runs — 36 more than Kylian Mbappe of Real Madrid in second place, and over double that of any other player in the Spanish top flight.
He also comes out on top for high-intensity sprints — runs where the player is moving at over 20kmh (12mph) for at least 0.7 seconds — with only team-mate Jules Kounde close to challenging his physical output in that regard.
On the pitch, such relentless movement has been difficult to track, and harder still to chase.
It was a sharp run to get Raphinha in behind against Valladolid that carved open their defence for the first time in what became a 7-0 thrashing on August 31, drifting from his wider position to attack the space between the two centre-backs, before latching onto Pau Cubarsi’s pass and poking past the goalkeeper at full tilt.
Notice in frame one of the GIF that striker Robert Lewandowski is looking at Raphinha and pointing towards the area he himself has just vacated, a hint of the blossoming understanding between the pair.
But even at times when the more threatening pass isn’t on, Raphinha’s restlessness helps to move opposition defenders around and create uncertainty within the overall defensive shape. In the eight-second flurry against Villarreal below, we see him make four purposeful runs.
First, drifting into an awkward position between the midfield and defensive lines, Raphinha offers himself for the potential line-breaking pass from his centre-back. Villarreal defender Eric Bailly is concerned by his positioning, pointing to his midfielders to pick him up in frame one.
As the play progresses, he drifts out towards opposition right-back Sergi Cardona in the next frame, himself wary of Barcelona full-back Gerard Martin out wide. Barely a second later, Raphinha darts towards the ball to offer himself for the short pass, before spinning and dashing in-behind in the GIF’s final two frames, clearing a path for Martin to advance into.
Without touching the ball, he occupies three opposition players, and drags a central midfielder and a full-back away from the play.
Undeterred by not receiving the pass on this occasion, he keeps moving as the build-up continues, and finds himself charging towards goal 20 seconds later, swapping positions with Lewandowski and flicking a header towards goal from Pedri’s lofted pass.
Such selfless running, combined with his athleticism and growing willingness to drift inside makes Raphinha a real handful — and not just for his opposing full-back.
Beyond his direct running, Raphinha has shown extra technical responsibility this season, being happy to drop into deeper areas to help with build-up across the pitch. Nobody in La Liga has been involved in more than his 58 possession sequences leading to shots so far this season, pointing to his growing influence on Barcelona’s play.
In the GIF below from the Valladolid game, he has the confidence to demand a pass out of defence from Marc Casado, receiving on the half-turn with two opposition players close by. As both defenders converge, Raphinha feigns to clip the ball out to the right, before chopping inside and carrying it confidently into the final third, where he lays it off to Alejandro Balde out wide.
Not content with that, he continues his run and attacks the space behind the full-back, opening up a passing lane for Balde to pick out Pedri in space.
With defenders dragged into their penalty area by Raphinha’s run, Pedri combines with Lewandowski, who sends a dangerous shot towards goal.
It’s another illustration of how Raphinha’s constant movement brings positives across the team, not least to Lewandowski, who cut a lonely figure up front at times under Xavi last season. Though he’s the less mobile of the two, the 36-year-old’s appreciation of space dovetails nicely with Raphinha’s ability to create it.
The most encouraging thing for Barcelona is that Raphinha is setting standards he has proven in the past he can sustain.
There is no freak over-performance in front of goal behind this resurgence — he has scored five times from an expected goals (xG) figure of exactly 5.0 this season — while he is running and shooting about as frequently as he always has. Flick’s tactical tinkering holds the key, moving his energy closer to goal and giving him the freedom to interchange with team-mates rather than stick to the touchline.
While it’s still early in the season, the difference can be seen in his shot map, where his xG per shot has rocketed up to 0.19 from the 0.12 for each of his first two seasons at Barca, suggesting the average quality of his shots — the likelihood they will be goals — is much higher.
That has a lot to do with his more-central positioning. Some 19 of his 26 efforts on goal have come from within the width of the six-yard box — that’s around 73 per cent, up from just over 50 per cent in his first season in Catalonia, where most of his attempts came as he cut inside off the right flank.
It’s a purple patch powered by determination and a fresh role, rather than the kind of good fortune that comes around once a career. Little wonder his popularity at Barca continues to rise with players and fans alike.
(Top photo: Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
