When Hansi Flick replaced Xavi in 2024, Barcelona needed order as much as trophies.
In two seasons, he has won five of a possible eight: two league titles, two Spanish Super Cups and a Copa del Rey. He won 88 of his first 116 matches, and 13 La Masia players have made their debuts under him.
He also runs a strict dressing room, where lateness typically brings a fine and a benching.
Everything in that record points to a coach who controls his surroundings. That makes the rare moments when his control slips worth studying, and Pau Cubarsi has just described one.
Cubarsi told DAZN España that Flick speaks German or English when he is angry. The players, he said, “don’t understand what he’s saying”, yet they know from Flick’s face and tone that it is serious.
🚨🎙️| Cubarsi: “When Hansi Flick gets really UPSET, he starts speaking German” 😅 https://t.co/O0oj6Q4RYM
— Kalshi FC (@KalshiFC) November 10, 2026
The detail is significant because most of what Flick says arrives second-hand.
Catalunya Ràdio’s Barça Reservat programme, broadcast on 29 October, said he still struggles with Spanish and leans on assistant Arnau Blanco, whom it described as an interpreter within the squad.
The relay runs through players too.
Deportivo reported that Wojciech Szczesny used Robert Lewandowski to pass messages to Spanish-speaking teammates.
Anger is the one part of Flick that skips that chain. His calm instructions go through an interpreter.
After the 4-1 win over Bayern Munich in October 2024, Football España reported that Blanco translated Flick’s special advice for Lamine Yamal and Alejandro Balde.
A reprimand needs no interpreter, because volume, expression and timing travel without help.
The squad therefore gets two channels from one manager: a translated one for what he wants done, and a raw one for how he feels about it.
Dani Olmo’s earlier account, that Flick turns to English when mad and keeps German mostly for his staff, points the same way. The exact language varies, but the message always lands.
There is a human side to this too.
Research on bilingual speakers suggests that strong emotion weakens language control and can push people back towards their native tongue.
That would fit a German coach who works in English every day and reaches for German when his patience goes, though the players’ accounts differ, so it isn’t a rule. Anger also has a cost.
An angry person’s judgment is probably impaired at that moment. The switch of language marks the moment Flick’s careful, controlled self steps aside.
What happens next matters for his Champions League hopes. Flick has said he aims to win more trophies. The language gap is likely to be tested hardest on big European nights, when instructions must land fast, and tempers run short.
Three things to watch are whether Blanco and the other assistants carry more of the in-game messaging, whether Flick’s half-time videos do more of the explaining, and how new signings cope with the squad’s mix of languages.
