Barcelona have not had a settled, successful era of management for the best part of a decade, and they are in no hurry to disturb the one they have now. Even so, a report on Thursday suggests the club have already sketched out who might follow Hansi Flick — and the name at the top of that list is a familiar one.
According to reporting from Graeme Bailey, relayed by Barca Universal, Mikel Arteta is viewed inside the club as a coach Barcelona could one day bring back to the Spotify Camp Nou. The framing matters: this is succession planning for a distant future, not a countdown on the current head coach.
Why this is not a warning shot at Flick
Any suggestion that Flick’s job is in question would be difficult to square with his record. The 61-year-old delivered a domestic treble in his first season in charge — La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de España — and followed it with another league title and another Supercopa, with only a Copa semi-final defeat to Atlético Madrid interrupting the run.
The club also backed him in writing, extending his contract from 2027 through to 2028 earlier this year. And the start of 2026/27 has done nothing to soften that support: Barcelona opened their Champions League league phase with a 5-1 win over Feyenoord, a night on which Raphinha scored twice and Lamine Yamal captained the side for the first time.
The one gap in the CV is the obvious one. Flick has not yet taken Barcelona to a Champions League final, and that is the trophy the entire project is now pointed at. It is a reason to keep pushing, not a reason to look elsewhere.
The Arteta connection Barcelona have never forgotten
What makes the link plausible rather than fanciful is history. Arteta came through La Masia as a teenager in the late 1990s, a midfielder in the same academy intake as Andrés Iniesta, before leaving for Paris Saint-Germain and building an entire career elsewhere. To Barcelona, hiring him would be a homecoming rather than an appointment.
His coaching credentials have since caught up with the sentiment. Arteta guided Arsenal to the 2025/26 Premier League title after years of near misses, and the report indicates he is closing on a new contract in north London, where the club regard him as one of the elite coaches in the game. Prising him away, whenever Barcelona might want to, would be anything but simple.
The counterweight is Arteta’s own stated openness to the idea. He has previously acknowledged that a major job back in Spain could appeal at some point in his career — the kind of remark that clubs file away and revisit years later.
What it actually tells us
Read plainly, this is a club doing the unglamorous part of its job. Barcelona spent years reacting to managerial change rather than planning for it, and the cost of that improvisation was obvious. Keeping a shortlist warm while the incumbent is winning is how well-run clubs avoid the panic hire.
It is also worth being honest about the shelf life of a story like this. Arteta is under contract at Arsenal, is about to sign a longer one, and Flick’s deal runs to 2028 with the club openly delighted with him. Nothing here is imminent, and nothing here is agreed.
For now the Blaugrana have a coach who has won five trophies in two seasons and a squad that has just put five past Dutch champions Feyenoord. The Arteta file can stay in the drawer. That Barcelona have one at all, though, is a small sign of a club that has learned something.
