Two defeats and one lead

Barça did the hard part on Sunday and still lost. They fell behind when a clearance dropped to Kylian Mbappé in the centre of the box, then equalised through Raphinha from a corner routine that Pedri set up. They were pushing for a winner when Eduardo Camavinga, the Madrid substitute, broke down the right and set up Mbappé on a fast break three minutes from time.

That was the shape of the week, because Paris went the same way. Barça found an equaliser there too, and Paris scored twice within minutes of it. On Sunday the winner arrived with Barça committed forward, the price of chasing a game with a stretched back line.

The cause is no mystery. Koundé, Eric García and Andreas Christensen were already out, Xavi Espart, the 19-year-old La Masia full-back, went off after half an hour with an ankle problem, and the back four that finished the match was Cancelo, Cubarsí, Gerard Martín and Balde. Flick said before the match that Barça had to defend much better than in Paris. They conceded fewer and lost anyway. Six goals in two matches is the judgment on a line that is half absent and half improvised.

Madrid took their moments well and deserve the credit. Flick's record puts the week in proportion, since he has lost only two of eight Clásicos, both in October. A coach with that record has earned patience, and what he needs now is a fit back line to spend it on.

The comforting version of Tuesday says Barça were level late on and then ran out of road. Flick supplied a little of it himself, saying the recovery after the win at Betis was not the best and adding that it was no excuse. He also supplied the less comforting version, which happens to be the accurate one, when he said Paris Saint-Germain had shown they were a better team.

The first half settles it. Paris put 10 shots on target before the break, the most Barça have faced in a first half in the Champions League since at least 2003-04. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia hit the post early on, and Joan García kept the night from getting out of hand. Barça went in a goal down at the break, which was generous.

They had moments of their own. Fermín López was denied one-on-one by the Paris goalkeeper, and goals from Xavi Espart, the La Masia full-back, and Yamal kept the match alive, Espart's being his first European goal for the first team. Vitinha then put Paris back in front from the edge of the box two minutes after Yamal's equaliser, and Fabián Ruiz added a fourth from a cross by Achraf Hakimi.

Flick is right that titles are not won in October, and the table still agrees with him. Sunday then showed the same sequence against Madrid, with Barça equalising and conceding again, which makes the first half in Paris look less like an accident.

Xavi Espart's injury completes the defensive crisis, and it matters far more than Dani Olmo's month out. The case is about squad-building, since no tactical adjustment from Flick can replace a defender who is not there.

The right side shows it most clearly. With Espart and Koundé both out, everything there depends on João Cancelo, and there is no other established senior right-back behind him. Sunday's bench held only one senior defender, Alejandro Balde, and Flick needed him within half an hour.

Olmo is a different case. His left adductor injury, picked up in Paris, rules him out for about a month, and that is a real loss. It is also one Barça can cover in attack, because Fermín López started in his place on Sunday and the team scored in both matches this week, while the defence has no such cover.

Whatever money the club can find in January should go on the back line before anywhere else, and nobody should call that panic buying for a side still top of the table. A centre-back or a full-back would both help, since the shortage runs through both positions, and either would add more than another attacker. Eric García is out for three to four weeks from 18 October and Espart has no announced timescale, so the shortage is unlikely to ease before Alavés visit Camp Nou on Saturday.

The Femení beat Granada 3–0 at the Estadi Johan Cruyff on Saturday, but only after the match changed. It was 0–0 at half-time, with Granada's goalkeeper Laura Sánchez making save after save. The double change of Clàudia Pina and Caroline Graham Hansen after 54 minutes brought goals from the Dutch forward Esmee Brugts, Graham Hansen and a late Granada own goal from a corner, while Pina hit the crossbar twice and Graham Hansen was player of the match.

On 19 March the FIFA Council approved regulations for every team in its women's competitions. Each must have a woman as head coach or at least one female assistant, at least one woman on the medical staff and at least two women among the officials on the bench. The rule covers the FIFA Women's Champions Cup.

Pere Romeu, the Femení's head coach, said on Friday that he hoped to add a woman to the staff before January, and that the club was working little by little to find the most suitable person. Taking care over a hire is reasonable, though seven months is a long time to take care over a rule that was public in March.

Saturday showed how much a bench can change a game that has stalled. A staff that can turn a goalless first half into a win against a goalkeeper in that form has room for another voice on it, with time before January to find one.

Barça's Under-19s did what their method asks in Paris, and it cost them a goal. Max Bonfill, the goalkeeper, made two early saves in the UEFA Youth League match at Paris Saint-Germain, and Barça then took control of it. They went in at 0–0 with the better of the match and nothing to show for it.

The goal came from the habit that had given Barça that control. They lost the ball playing out from the back, and Maoula Niakaté, who had come on for Paris at half-time, scored after 61 minutes. Plenty of coaches would answer a goal like that by ordering clearances, and Barça's teenagers are in the Youth League to learn the other way.

The reply came from the bench as well. Nuhu Fofana, a forward, came on in the 72nd minute and won a penalty a minute later, which Pedro Rodríguez converted for Barça in the 74th. The substitute Adri Guerrero then failed by inches to reach a cross at the far post in the 89th, and with it went the chance of a winner.

A draw at Paris Saint-Germain, on the night the first team lost 4–2, is a decent return for a side that keeps trusting the ball. Nobody learns to play out from the back against that opposition without occasionally handing them the ball. Pol Planas, the Under-19 coach, should keep accepting the odd goal as the fee.