Frenkie de Jong has one last ally left: Hansi Flick. He also has his football left, of course, if at some point he manages to wake up at Barcelona.
This Tuesday, in the run-up to the duel against Young Boys (9:00 p.m., Movistar Champions League), for the second day of the new Champions League, De Jong will receive the medical discharge after 177 days, as confirmed by the Barcelona coach. In this way, he overcomes his third injury to his right ankle in the last year. The first, a sprain in September 2023, left him in the infirmary for 63 days. It broke again in March 2024 and he was out for another 35 days. A month later, he forced himself to return when Barça was playing for the season. It was then that his ankle said enough and the debate began in the Ciudad Deportiva: there were those who advised De Jong to undergo surgery to clean the area and those who warned him that the best solution was conservative treatment. The Dutchman chose to avoid surgery. His head, however, played tricks on him. “He is fine, but he is a little afraid of falling again,” they warned from the sports area at the beginning of the season.
A lack of optimism that the Barcelona doctors shared. “Even though he is clinically healthy, he still feels pain. If you are not confident, you can get injured again. And a new injury in that area can compromise the rest of your career,” they warned. So, at 27 years old, De Jong chose to take maximum care of himself. I didn’t want to take any kind of risk. Even when that decision conditioned him to be relegated in the squad now led by Hansi Flick.
When the German took charge of Barça, De Jong’s name was under suspicion. Nothing new for the Dutchman, who bears the burden of having one of the highest salaries in the squad. And it doesn’t have it just because. In 2020, during the pandemic, De Jong, Lenglet, Piqué and Ter Stegen negotiated the renewals of their contracts without taking into account the rest of their teammates who were fighting for a solution together with the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu. In this new contract, the media forgave most of his salary in exchange for recovering it with a salary increase in the successive years until 2026.
“I love Frenkie as a footballer,” they warned in Joan Laporta’s sports area after the lawyer regained the presidency of Barcelona in March 2021. “But,” the same sources assured, “what I don’t like are his numbers. We don’t like them on the field, he is not a player who scores many goals or gives many assists; We don’t like them in the offices either, they charge a lot of money.” With that premise in the air, the sports management led by Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff sought to open the exit door for De Jong. There was no case. The Dutchman wanted to stay at Barcelona.
Deco replaced Mateu Alemany and Frenkie seemed to regain the confidence of the coaches. A confidence that he had not had since Bartomeu had paid 86 million euros in 2019, when the 21st promised to become a vintage midfielder. One of Deco’s first decisions was, precisely, to meet with the player’s representative from the Netherlands to try to renew his contract. The negotiations came to nothing, at the same time that injuries extinguished De Jong’s football under the leadership of Xavi Hernández. The team’s football also went out. In fact, he rarely shined. And Laporta got fed up with Xavi to bet on Flick.
“Frenkie’s recovery is very good news,” said Flick before hosting Young Boys, a key match for the Blaugrana after losing in the Champions League opener against Monaco. The German coach wants to achieve what was impossible for Valverde, Setién, Koeman and
According to sources in the sports area, Flick views Frenkie as an important player, decisive in the double pivot. It has happened, in any case, that in De Jong’s absence footballers like Casadó and the reinvented Eric García have grown, at the same time that Pedri is approaching his best version, while the recovery of Gavi and Olmo is awaited. We are happy when the players return. Frenkie will do well to return to the team to help the younger players. I don’t know if he will play 45, 20 or 10 minutes,” said Flick, De Jong’s new ally. At Barça they assure that it is the last, especially since it is not known what will happen to his contract.
