Gullit made sharp comments on Flick s high defense

"The entire Barcelona team feels this is a suicide tactic!" Gullit commented sharply on Flick's high defense

In the fourth round of the UEFA Champions League group stage in the 2025/26 season, Barcelona's away game against Bruges was far more difficult than expected. Despite their superiority on paper, Barcelona ended up drawing 3-3 with their opponents at the Jan Bredel Stadium and only scored 1 point.

According to the new Champions League competition system this season, only the top eight teams in the standings can directly advance to the top 16 without participating in the play-offs. Currently, Barcelona is as much as 6 points behind some of its competitors, making it more difficult to compete for pass-through spots.

The three goals scored by Bruges in this campaign exposed the same fatal problem: Barcelona's overly aggressive high defense line was repeatedly exploited by opponents. Tresoldi and Forbes scored through quick counterattacks and defensive leaks - the Belgian team took advantage of the excessive pressure of Barcelona's defense and penetrated the goal three times. This is not the first time a similar situation has occurred this season. The high pressure that was once regarded as the magic weapon to win last season has now become the team's weakness.

This high-risk tactic is arousing more and more doubts, including many heavyweight voices. The legendary Dutch star Ruud Gullit spoke out after the game and left a shocking comment: "All Barcelona players believe that this high defensive line is a suicide tactic!"

Gullit's criticism seemed to be particularly true in the second half of the game. At that time, Lamin Yamal once equalized the score for Barcelona. The fans just breathed a sigh of relief, but the defense tripped on the same stone for the third time - Forbes once again used the space after the offside trap failed to score a single goal to rewrite the score to 3-2.

Although Barcelona eventually tied the score to 3-3 with its tenacious performance and barely saved one point, the two VAR interventions at the end of the game were also impressive: in the 70th minute, Balde's suspected foul on Forbes was not ruled Penalty kick; in the 1st minute of stoppage time, Bruges player Vermant seemed to have scored a go-ahead goal, but VAR reviewed and determined that he had committed a foul on goalkeeper Szczesny before the attack - Szczesny was completely out of position at the time and looked embarrassed.

There are various signs that the radical system that Frick insisted on is transforming from a "sharp weapon" into a "time bomb." When the whole team begins to doubt the rationality of the tactics, perhaps the real crisis is not as simple as conceding the ball.