ST Robert Lewandowski
This isn’t Robert Lewandowski’s first time working with Hansi Flick, as he was the centerpiece goal-scorer of the 2019/20 Flick-led Bayern Munich side that rampaged through European football and won the treble.
Lewandowski came into the 2024/25 LaLiga season with a bevy of critics despite being by far Barca’s best attacking player in the 2023/24 season, and that’s largely because he earns more than 30 million euros per season with options that escalate.
Now 36 years old, Lewandowski has undoubtedly heard the cries that he is “finished”, and the Polish No. 9 has answered them accordingly, scoring 10 goals through the first 9 league games while providing the kind of all-around quality that a lot Barcelona fans unfairly doubted.
Remember, Lewandowski has a combined 42 goals and 15 assists through his first two full LaLiga seasons, and now in 2024/25, he is averaging more than a goal a game in what is, by far, the most difficult league for a striker to thrive in.
Lewandowski is taking the ball and running with it, shining in a more expansive attacking system that allows the Bayern icon to be both a focal point and a roving superstar in the attack, bringing out the best in his qualities that we saw nearly a decade ago for both Dortmund and his early career in Bavaria.
RW Raphinha
Nobody has outpaced expectations more for Barcelona in the 2024/25 season than Raphinha, who has put together the flashes of stardom from his first two seasons in Blaugrana to become one of the three best LaLiga players so far in the current campaign.
Raphinha has five goals and four assists in nine appearances (eight starts), and really only Lamine Yamal, world football’s biggest phenom, can definitively say he is outperforming the Brazilian out of all the players in LaLiga.
A fiery competitor who brings out his best in crunch time, Raphinha is a highly underrated creator and needs to be regarded as one of the best left-footed scoring wingers in world football.
Electrifying off the ball and intelligent on it, Raphinha has been able to express himself more under Flick, who, just as he did at Bayern with players like Leon Goretzka, has maximized the 27-year-old’s athletic skill-set in his prime.
AM Dani Olmo
Barcelona caused quite the stir when they decided to splash 55 million euros up-front in order to sign Euro 2024 hero Dani Olmo from RB Leipzig, because the signing meant that 1) Barcelona could not sign any other player, such as LaLiga winger Nico Williams and 2) would have to sell world-class midfielder Ilkay Gundogan to facilitate the deal.
Already, Olmo has raised one pre-transfer concern regarding his injury history, but even then, there are many Culers who will correctly assert that what they have seen on the pitch from Olmo justifies the transfer fee.
Even though he’s only been able to play three games, those three games from Olmo have been the best three matches of arguably any player in the league. He has looked exactly like the player who elevated his game on the world stage, and you wonder if having to accommodate others in Leipzig on a more central attacking side hid the full range of his skill set.
Olmo has scored 3 goals in just 189 minutes for the Blaugrana, producing goals like a 9 in the 10 position. The Spanish international has been averaging 3.3 successful dribbles per 90 compared to just 1.4 unsuccessful, which is a ratio that would make world-class dribbling wingers jealous.
Hansi Flick has seen how hard-working and intelligent Olmo is, and he has put him in positions where he can be around the goal to score goals and create chances. Whereas others glossed over Olmo for not being the fastest, Flick has found a way to use Olmo where he wins in tight areas in and around the box.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.