Hansi Flick's Barcelona Doubling Down on Short Distances and High Mobility. FC Barcelona after the arrival of Hansi Flick has gone from being a typical team with large distances and low mobility towards a team that plays with very short distances and high mobility. The change from Lewandowski to players like Gordon and Gabriel Jesus makes this evolution towards high mobility even clearer. It is increasingly common to see teams moving away from traditional, rigid positional play, with large distances and low mobility, towards a style based on shorter distances. Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen was one of the first teams to reduce distances significantly, successfully winning the Bundesliga in 2024. Francesco Farioli said in an interview that one of the things he took from relationism was shorter distances. His Porto played with much narrower fullbacks in 2025 than before, successfully winning the Portuguese league very comfortably. Porto and Leverkusen didn't play with the same mobility as Barcelona, but simply reducing distances helped them defensively, allowing them to avoid transitions more often and concede very few goals. Hansi Flick wants to reduce distances to increase mobility. But Barcelona is focused on attacking centrally, which is quite different from Arsenal or PSG, who also use a lot of mobility but tend to do so through wide triangles rather than by looking to do it centrally. By mobility, I mean that players are continuously moving, offering a double threat: running in behind or asking for the ball to feet, while exchanging positions between them. For example, you can suddenly see Gordon, as a left winger, moving into the striker position while Gabriel Jesus moves to the left, the left fullback stays between the lines and the attacking midfielder gives support deeper. In the next situation, their positions can be mixed again. Barcelona basically does this in the left half-space and centrally. If we divide the pitch into five lanes, starting from the left, the main movements take place in lanes two and three. On the right, Lamine Yamal stays in position. Barcelona looks to overload the ball area on the left half-space or centrally, attract opponents there and then isolate Lamine Yamal on the right, allowing him to receive with less traffic. Spain used a similar idea with Baena moving inside and a striker like Oyarzabal supporting those overloads. The interesting thing about Yamal's position is that he doesn't need to provide the full width. He applies a concept called optimal width, which means staying as wide as necessary to remain a threat and force the opposing fullback to respect the possibility of a run in behind. With this idea, Yamal stays closer to the box, attracts the fullback's attention and prevents him from closing inside. It also reduces the distance he needs to cover to counter-press. If you look at the fullbacks, their positioning is also very narrow. Attacking centrally carries a risk. Losing the ball in these areas can expose the team more than losing it in wide areas. This is one of the reasons why teams like Arsenal or PSG, who use a lot of mobility try do it more through wider combinations than centrally. Flick keeps insisting on reducing distances because he knows that the only way to play with this level of mobility is to have players close enough to each other to counter-press immediately after losing the ball. In a press conference, he said: “When we analyzed the game against Girona, I always speak about positioning, the right distance between the players and the opponent. It's very important, and if you're far from that, you lose, you have to run too much, give the opponents a little bit more time to play out and this is also what kills us in the defense.” His point is clear: if Barcelona wants to play with high mobility, it needs very short distances. Otherwise, players have to run too much, giving opponents more time to escape the pressure. There is another important benefit to reducing distances. Players feel more comfortable taking risks with short combinations in congested spaces. They know that if they lose the ball, they have teammates nearby who can recover it quickly. The second attack can then be even more dangerous than the first because the opposition is more disorganized. FC Barcelona is doubling down on short distances and very high mobility, and this season's signings reflect that direction. More teams will likely adopt similar ideas in the coming seasons.