'Young, thrilling and unpredictable' Barcelona look to edge ahead in La Liga title race

Barcelona will be the first major European team to play a competitive game after the international break.

The Catalans host Osasuna this Thursday in a rearranged encounter after their club doctor Carles Minarro Garcia, 53, passed away just hours before the original fixture scheduled for last month.

Neither club is happy. Both appealed against a date so soon after the international break, both failed. As well as the European players, Barcelona’s Raphinha and Ronald Araujo have international call-ups for Brazil and Uruguay.

"They will not play, they are not in the team, they have a long flight and it's not the best way, because they have to recover," Flick said of the South American pair on Wednesday.

"Always, no excuses, we go for it," added the German. "Tomorrow we will go for it, I think we have big, big quality in this team.

"We can win against everyone, even if some players are not in the team ... we're looking forward and are very positive."

La Liga is witnessing its closest title race in years, so this game is key. Real Madrid won the title by 10 points last season, Barca by the same amount the season before. In 2021-22, Madrid triumphed by 13 points.

Now, Barcelona and Real Madrid are equal on 60 points, though the Catalans have Thursday’s game in hand as the season enters a final turn. Atletico Madrid are only four points behind in third.

La Liga is proving to be an outlier. England’s Premier League sees Liverpool 12 points clear with nine games to play, while in France, unbeaten PSG are 19 points ahead as they close in on an 11th title in 13 years.

In Germany, serial champions Bayern Munich lead by six points, while Ajax also enjoy a six-point gap in the Netherlands.

Celtic are 13 in front of Rangers in Scotland, Galatasaray nine points clear in Turkey, although Italy’s Serie A is closer, with six points separating the top three.

It has been an exceptional season for Barcelona so far. Hansi Flick’s side are poised to edge ahead in the title race, although Thursday's game, and Sunday’s home Catalan derby against Girona, are intriguing because Barca – easily the best team on the road – only boast the fifth best home record.

Osasuna are also one of the few teams who have already beaten them – 4-2 in Pamplona last September.

Barca are in top form, however, and progressed to the last eight of the Champions League where they’ll meet Borussia Dortmund. Flick’s side defeated Benfica 4-1 in the last 16 – a Benfica side they’d beaten 5-4 away in January with four goals in the last 30 minutes.

They’re young, thrilling and unpredictable, and sometimes in the same game, as they were against Benfica. "This“competition is the most difficult trophy to win - but–we can do it," ins”sted Flick after sealing their quarter-final spot.

In the Copa del Rey semi-final against Atletico Madrid, they were 2-0 down after six minutes before scoring four to lead 4-2 with goals from four of their best performers, Pedri, Pau Cubarsi, Inigo Martinez and Robert Lewandowski, but then conceded two in the last 10 minutes to draw 4-4.

The second leg is next week and a packed fixture schedule is another reason the Osasuna game had to be crowbarred in this week.

Barcelona’s last outing before the international break was also against Atletico – and was even more dramatic than the cup tie.

Losing 2-0 after 70 minutes, Barca scored four times before the end to win 4-2 in a spectacular finish. Again, there were four different goalscorers, showing that Spain’s highest scoring team can provide goals from all over the pitch.

“After the second goal, the reaction was unbelievable,” said Flick after the match. “In 20 minutes, to score four goals here, against this Atletico team, is really good … We have huge confidence in how we want to play.”

They play Atletico again – and for the fifth time this season – in the cup, but while Barca have not got to the semi-finals the easy way, they’ve put five past fellow top-flight teams Real Betis and Valencia en route.

This is a side full of goals. They defeated Madrid 5-2 in January to win the Spanish Super Cup in Jeddah and their 28 goals in the Champions League group was easily the highest.

Dortmund, with 22, were the second top scorers. The pair met in the group stage – a 3-2 away win after Raphinha, who has been a revelation, opened the scoring.

Raphinha, who was criticised as not being good enough at the start of this season, has scored 27 goals and described himself as being “in the best moment of my career” this season.

Lewandowski is the leading scorer in Spain with 35 goals so far, 22 in the league. “It’s always good to have a striker who scores so many goals and the team gives him that chance,” Flick said of the Polish veteran.

Lamine Yamal and Ferran Torres both have 13 in all competitions. Seven different midfielders have scored, seven defenders too.

Predictably, this young team makes mistakes and isn’t always consistent. Having surprised all by winning 11 of their opening 12 league games, including a 4-0 win at European champions Madrid in the Bernabeu, what followed was equally perplexing: no wins in six games before Christmas and four of them defeats.

Yet all along they excited, even if their temporary home high on the hill of Montjuic is cold and not ideal for football given it was built to stage the Olympic Games with the pitch surrounded by an athletics track.

Yamal, 17, is the most exciting player in world football, but he’s not alone among the youngsters. The Catalan defender Cubarsi is just 18 and has enjoyed a stellar breakthrough season.

Fellow Catalan Marc Casado, 21, is adept against the best in midfield but Barcelona have also been hit with serious injuries this term.

Long-time goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen has been out since the end of September. His replacement in recent months is Wojciech Szczesny, a 34-year-old retiree after leaving Juventus last term before he was lured back to play football in Spain for the first time in his career.

Araujo, Gavi, Andreas Christensen and Frenkie de Jong have all been sidelined with hefty injuries.

It’s an exciting time for the club, who had hoped to play a first game in the redeveloped Camp Nou in May against Real Madrid – one which could be a title decider – but it’s now likely to be next season after season ticket holders received a letter stating as much last week.

The new Camp Nou, rising slowly in the south-west of the city, still has a long way to go before it’s finished and up to a final capacity of 105,000, but an interim capacity of 65,000 is likely when the team begin playing there in August.

Using the Olympic Stadium with 55,000 seats costs Barcelona every week – the club had 80,000 season ticket holders before the move, yet average attendances are half that and tickets for Thursday’s game start at just €29, with discounts for residents.

That’s a surprise since Barca are still on for a quadruple of the Champions League, Copa del Rey, Spanish Super Cup and La Liga – an incredible position to be in for what is Flick’s first season.