There will be a new face-off between Clásico coaches this weekend, as Hansi Flick is set to come up against Xabi Alonso. Sunday 26 October at 4.15pm CEST will see the ball start rolling as FC Barcelona visit Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in the hunt for three points. Both coaches won the Bundesliga, and both won trophies with Bayern Munich as coach and player respectively. 

For now, however, neither coach will be able to greet the other in the technical area before the game. Flick is serving a one-match suspension after receiving two yellow cards in Barça’s win over Girona. That handshake will have to wait for the decision on the club’s appeal against the ban.

Both won the Bundesliga...

Flick and Xabi can point to similar pasts ahead of this LaLiga matchday 10 Real Madrid v Barça fixture given they both lifted the league trophy in Germany. The blaugranes' coach was the first to do so with Bayern Munich during the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons. The Real Madrid coach also achieved the same feat in the 2024/25 season when he was in charge of Bayer Leverkusen, having joined in the 2022/23 season from Real Sociedad B. Curiously enough Josip Stanišić won the Bundesliga under Hansi Flick before doing the same under Xabi. The Basque coach is used to matches against Barça, having played against the blaugranes thirty times himself, including twenty Clásicos.

... and spent time at Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich are another link between both Clásico coaches. The German coached them, while the Basque played for them, doing so before the FC Barcelona coach joined the German giants. As a player, the current Real Madrid coach won the Bundesliga in the three seasons he spent in the Bundesliga. Two of those were under Guardiola (2014/15 and 2015/16), followed by 2016/17 under Ancelotti, who Flick defeated in four Clásicos last season. Alonso's final season there saw him share a dressing room with current blaugranes Robert Lewandowski and Thiago Alcántara. In fact, the Pole was there all three seasons he spent at Bayern Munich, while the current blaugrana coach was there in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

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Both now in LaLiga

Links to the past that converge in the upcoming Clásico. This will be the first time both coaches face off in a Real Madrid v FC Barcelona. Xabi Alonso has faced the blaugranes many times, but as a player. After winning the German league, he is now the present incumbent of the all-whites' bench, taking over from Carlo Ancelotti. He has eight wins and one loss in this LaLiga 2025/26 so far. An almost perfect run that Flick and Barça will be wanting to blemish further to take over the lead in the league.

It won't be easy, but there are precedents that give cause for optimism. Seven of the last eight Real Madrid coaches have lost their first domestic league Clásicos. What's more, Flick has won the four games he has coached against Real Madrid in all competitions. Four out of four that he will want to make five from five at the Santiago Bernabéu, equalling Josep Guardiola, who achieved an amazing five from five in his first matches against Real Madrid as coach from 2008 to 2010.

The links between Flick and Xabi Alonso are clear, so it's time for the coaches to go head-to-head and to see what happens.

Força Barça