Bundesliga
Flick praise for Kompany's Bayern
Ex-Bayern Munich coach Hansi Flick has praised the "great football" of Vincent Kompany's Bundesliga leaders as the Bavarians' 2019/20 treble-winning boss prepares to face his former club with Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday.
Flick will welcome Bayern to the Camp Nou looking to boost the Spanish side's ambitions of claiming a sixth European Cup/Champions League crown before facing Real Madrid in a highly anticipated El Clásico on Saturday.
A Bayern player in the 1980s, Flick left the club as a coach in 2021 having won back-to-back Bundesliga titles and - in a deliriously successful 2019/20 campaign - becoming only the second coach of a German club to lift all three major trophies available: the Bundesliga, DFB Cup and Champions League
Watch: Bayern Munich's 2019/20 treble-winning season
Though he signed a two-year deal at Barcelona in the summer after a difficult spell as Germany coach, Flick has kept a close eye on developments at the Allianz Arena. He has been impressed by Kompany's work since the former Manchester City captain arrived in the Bayern dugout this summer.
"This season Bayern are playing great football under Kompany. They press very high and are brave with and without the ball. It's going to be a tough game. But we'll try to do our best and we're ready," said Flick ahead of Wednesday's European reunion with his former employers.
"They always play a dominant style. They try to put pressure on their opponents, they're brave, they keep the ball. They try to impose their style and their quality. That's their DNA."
En route to winning a COVID-affected Champions League in Lisbon in 2020, Flick's Bayern side inflicted an historic 8-2 defeat on Barcelona in the quarter-finals. With his team leading La Liga, three points ahead of Madrid, no one in Catalona is holding that against him now, and Flick is aware the past counts for nothing.
"I live in the here and now. We can't influence what happened, only what will happen. We want to win at Bayern," he said, insisting his team's focus will be fully on improving their tally of three points from two Champions League games so far, not the weekend's domestic clash.
"We're only thinking about Bayern, not Real Madrid. It helps us to go step by step and not think about what's coming up. Bayern play very well, they have extraordinary players. That's what you want: the measure yourself against the best. It's an extraordinary game."