Barcelona beat Real Betis 5-2 on Saturday, exactly the kind of statement win that fits an 11-match winning streak and the best attack in Europe. Buried inside that scoreline, though, was a disaster. Eric García is out three to four weeks with a thigh injury. Jules Koundé sprained his ankle in the same match. Andreas Christensen is already sidelined. That leaves Hansi Flick with precisely two fit, natural centre-backs, Pau Cubarsí and Gerard Martín, for Tuesday’s Champions League trip to PSG and Sunday’s El Clásico at Camp Nou. Two games, two of the toughest attacks on the continent, one working centre-back pairing.

Barcelona’s Defense Just Collapsed: How Bad Is It, Really?

García’s absence is the bigger blow of the two. The Spaniard has started most of Barcelona’s league games and offers exactly the composure and positional discipline Flick’s high defensive line depends on. He’ll miss both PSG and the Clásico, confirmed directly in Barcelona’s own medical bulletin, which specified a rectus femoris strain in his right thigh. Koundé, who sprained his left ankle in the same game, definitely misses PSG but has a chance of being back for Real Madrid. Barcelona are monitoring him day to day. Gerard Martín himself limped off at halftime against Betis too, though he was notably left off that same Sunday medical update, which suggests his exit was precautionary rather than serious. Either way, Flick now has two players in the building who’ve played genuine centre-back minutes, and one of them is an 18-year-old.

It gets worse before it gets better. Both García and Koundé have also covered at right-back for Barcelona this season, meaning the crisis isn’t confined to the middle of the defense, it’s bleeding into the full-back areas too. João Cancelo and Xavi Espart are the likely answer there, with Alejandro Balde still mostly frozen out of the picture. Some reports have floated Rodri dropping into central defense if Martín isn’t fully recouped, a trick Luis Enrique once used with the Spanish national team, but asking a holding midfielder to do that against PSG’s pace is a genuinely uncomfortable plan B.

Why This Is the Real Test of Flick’s System

Flick’s Barcelona live and die by a high defensive line and relentless pressing. It’s the engine behind an attack that’s made them the most entertaining team on the continent, and it’s also the reason one mistimed step or one slow recovery run can turn into a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Paris Saint-Germain, with Ousmane Dembélé, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and a returning Achraf Hakimi, are built almost perfectly to exploit exactly that weakness, and Luis Enrique, who ran this same Barcelona project for years, knows precisely where the bodies are buried in Flick’s structure. He also knows how to stretch a high line with quick vertical passes and smart off-ball movement. Cubarsí and Martín will be asked to defend enormous spaces against elite attackers without the senior partner either of them is used to playing beside.

The Part That Should Really Worry Flick

The timing compounds everything. After PSG comes El Clásico at Camp Nou on October 25, with García already ruled out of that one too and Koundé genuinely uncertain. What started as routine knocks picked up in a 5-2 win over Betis has turned into a multi-week defensive emergency arriving right as the fixtures get hardest. Barcelona’s attack, the same one that just put five past Betis, will still terrify PSG. The real question is whether a patched-together back line built around a teenager can hold on long enough for the front four to decide the game, twice, in five days, against two of the best attacking units in world football.