Raphinha polishes the stripes given to her by Flick.

Rafinha Diaz He has made no secret of his public dissatisfaction with not being included in FIFA 2025’s best eleven for several weeks now, but speaking well about yourself is always subject to negative interpretations, even if they are true. Therefore, his coach at Barça hansi flickwill change his old general discourse on ego and, in the case of the Brazilian national team player, emphasize the value of the individual as an act of football justice, and above all in the eyes of the world. “It’s a joke that he’s not in the best 11 all year. His influence on the team, his goals, his games, his assists were incredible,” insisted Flick on the eve of Villarreal’s game against Barça.

This realization was yet another proof that a good coach is not one who conveys the same message to everyone, but one who gives a speech that is appropriate for each situation and each football player. The stripes that Flick wanted Rafinha to show were on full display 24 hours later at La Ceramica.

From the moment Rafinha gave a motivational talk to his team-mates in the pre-match huddle in the league’s top flight, despite not wearing Barça’s captain’s armband, to the start of the match, when the Brazilian immediately pointed out the importance of points to complete the winter championship, challenging with cuts and forcing penalties. Santi Comesaña He himself converted it to 0-1 with confidence that his statistics from early in his career supported it. Of the 15 goals he has scored in his career, 14 have come with four of them as a player. And that torpedo, by sheer miracle, reached a team that was not on a 0-2 score. OPTA statistics on Sunday confirmed Rafinha’s dominance in soccer. He had four shots, two chances created, six crosses into the area, 28 completed passes in the final third of the field and a total of 73 interventions during the match.

There are others, but Rafinha is probably the player who has improved the most with Flick on the bench. This is evidenced by what the manager described as an “incredible” season on Saturday: 34 goals and 26 assists in 57 games in 2024-25. In the 2025-26 season, which included injuries, he had seven points and three points in 14 games. Both soccer players and coaches believe that the best is yet to come.