For once, Raphael Dias Belloli puts the brakes on. The man who seems to be in perpetual motion, a footballer forever on fast forward, pauses, goes quiet for a moment and then, softly, utters something that says so much: “I think maybe people saw in me something I didn’t realise was there.” He did not know he was a leader, but he likes it. He did not know he was a captain, but according to his manager he is the “perfect captain”. And he did not know he was a No 9 either, but right now he is the best No 9 there is. In Barcelona or anywhere.

There was a time when Raphinha did not know whether he would be in Barcelona, when, feeling unwanted, he had accepted it was over, but this week he extended his contract to 2030. He will be 33 then: he would like to retire here and they would like him to retire here, too, a legend built on empathy and affection. “This is the best decision the club has made,” said Hansi Flick, the head coach Raphinha says changed his life. Sometimes you cannot get what you want so you have to settle for the best.

The first word Raphinha uses when training has finished and the tape starts rolling at Sant Joan Despí, when he is addressed as the world’s top No 9, is “false”. It comes with a smile; turns out there is nothing false about this 9. Seven games into the league season, the man filling in at centre-forward has scored 12 goals, plus two in the Champions League. The scorers leading the way in Europe’s other top leagues are five behind. No one in Barcelona’s history has started a season like this. And, no, Raphinha says, he has never played there before: “Even as a kid I wasn’t a 9.”

As if it is even about the goals. There may be no one as enjoyable to watch as Raphinha; no one as admirable or important either. The touch at speed is astonishing and there is a wild intensity about everything he does, only it is not wild, he says; it is worked upon, the entire system depending on him. The press defines Barcelona’s identity and it is, Raphinha says, “mechanised”. No, he is not going to reveal how but it begins with him. “As captain, he goes and everyone follows,” Flick says. “We always start with the No 9 and he has that incredible hunger and intensity, the mentality and attitude we need.”

Yet this is not what Raphinha or anyone expected. This summer Robert Lewandowski, Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford departed, having contributed 38 league goals between them last season. They were supposed to be replaced by Julián Álvarez but Atlético Madrid refused to sell, leaving Barcelona with no striker. “There was a moment of need,” Raphinha says. “There was no No 9 for the [friendly] against Basel, so I played there.”

It was not supposed to be permanent, although Flick suspected it might be and was warming to the idea: Barcelona had not given up on Álvarez yet and the coach considered other solutions, including Anthony Gordon. This was better. Raphinha did not score but Barça got five.

“In pre-season we did a few tests: the manager liked what he saw and after Basel he told me a bit about his idea,” Raphinha says. “The adaptation came over the last two years, getting used to coming inside, closer to goal. But we tested [me as] an actual No 9 and it went well. There’s the occasional detail that has to be explained, but I’m OK. Before Elche [on the opening day], he asked if I was comfortable there or wanted to go back to my position. I said it was fine, see how it goes, we can always change back.”

Raphinha scored two against Elche, one against Athletic, two against Rayo and another at Valencia. Against Racing there was a hat-trick and another against Sevilla: right foot, left foot, header. Raphinha showed his old qualities and new, less expected ones: the movement, timing and clinical finishing of a classic No 9, efficiency to go with the intensity. Only one La Liga player has a better shot conversion rate. Against Feyenoord came two more.

Nor is it just about him. The point of Raphinha is that it is not even about him. Only once this season has he not scored, and against Levante he created the first two, then handed over the penalty for Lamine Yamal to add the third. Barcelona have scored five, two, five, five, five, four, seven and three, respectively in winning their first eight games.

Flick had done it again. “I always have and always will say that he changed my mentality, changed me as a person,” Raphinha says.

By 2024, Raphinha was convinced he had no future at Barcelona. His numbers were good: 10 goals and 12 assists in his first season, 10 goals and 13 assists in his second. But Lamine Yamal was emerging and, more importantly, Raphinha did not feel backed, completing 90 minutes seven times in 60 games under Xavi Hernández. It had not escaped his attention that Barcelona thought about selling him; it had not escaped anyone’s attention that they wanted to buy Nico Williams, publicly keen to reunite the pair that tore up the Euros.

Barcelona failed twice, and were all the better for it. A Photoshopped image of Williams in his No 11 shirt on social media hurt, Raphinha admitted. But Flick had arrived and if there is something even more powerful than the desire to prove people wrong, it is the desire to prove people right.

“In my head, I knew I was leaving,” Raphinha says. “That was [mentally] done, that’s the truth. I was in Brazil and Flick called. He said come talk to him before taking a final decision. I met him and he said he trusted in me, that I was going to be important, that the team[’s play] would be good for me. In a moment like that, a few small words can change you. I felt a lot of faith in me. He gave me the confidence to play my football. I got an idea into my head: give everything, your life, regardless of the personal moment you’re in.”

Love won out, even if Raphinha is swift to add: “If you get results people are going to love you; if not, they’re not.” Feeling supported and valued changed everything. His success is a human story, his qualities human ones. He led Barcelona to the league. Flying in from the left, Raphinha scored 34 goals and provided 26 assists in 57 games. Another title followed in 2025-26 and although injuries reduced his contribution, there were 21 goals and eight assists in 33, Flick’s faith gratefully repaid.

His teammates’ faith, too. The dressing room had voted Raphinha as a club captain, third in line. He had not expected it and was genuinely touched. There was something in that moment, in the realisation of how they felt about him, how much they believed in him, that was transformative. Now Flick has named him his first choice.

That moment brings pause, thought. “When I saw people had voted for me, it was like a switch had been flipped, a shift in mindset,” he says. “People could see something in me I didn’t realise was there, and that’s changed me. Before being captain, I didn’t know how much I would like it. Having that responsibility has also changed my mentality, helped me. I never thought I’d like being Barcelona captain so much. You feel you matter. It’s an honour. It’s not just wearing the armband.”

He is a natural, as pure a captain as there has been since Carles Puyol – even if he did need to be told. It is there in the relentless example he sets: Raphinha has sprinted the second-furthest distance in La Liga and Gradient Sports has measured only three players with more final-third pressures per 30 minutes out of possession. Raphinha says: “I talk less than most captains but I know people are watching. They think: ‘If this guy’s running like an animal, I have to follow.’. If you talk too much and then don’t do what you have to, people aren’t going to listen.”

Yet what teammates saw in him went deeper, to his very being. Leadership is there in the empathy, kindness and understanding too, in Raphinha returning the support that was good for him, an approach at once collective and individual. He says he can see when Lamine Yamal is drifting from games and how to reconnect him, every celebration shared with the teenager. A clip went round recently in which he quietly tells Gordon not to be afraid. And no clip was more powerful, more eloquent, than the moment when Flick sat on the bench, alone, lost in his thoughts and Raphinha consoled him, drawing him out of his dark place, roles reversed.

“The coach-player relationship is the most important in football,” Raphinha says. “From the moment [Flick] arrived, we could talk to him about anything – and anything is anything. That time, I saw him, head down. At first, I didn’t really understand why. I asked what was wrong. He said he felt the team wasn’t playing well. From what I remember, I told him it was OK, we’d won and we would play well again. I prefer a thousand times to win playing badly than lose playing well. Win games, confidence and the football comes.

“What kind of leader [I am] depends on the moment. If I have to be slightly tougher, I can. But I prefer nicer moments, jokes. The last two years have been spectacular so I haven’t had to be the pesado [pain in the arse] often. I know that annoys people but someone has to do it sometimes.”

With a squad like this, especially? Four of Barcelona’s first team were born in 2007. “Buah!” Raphinha says, laughing. “That hurts: it shows I’m closer to the end than starting out at 18, 19, like them. But I’m in spectacular physical shape so [retirement] is some way off. It’s very easy with them. There are young players but they’re very responsible about their career, their lives. Once in a while, you have to [be paternal] because they’re kids. But they understand. If they get told off, they know it’s for their own good. I’ll tell them.”

Is there something of the father figure in him with Lamine Yamal in particular? “No, no,” Raphinha jumps in. “Big brother, that’s better.” And Lamine Yamal is the star who should win the Ballon d’Or, he says: for his “individual numbers, collective titles, and the magic on the pitch, charisma. There’s no doubt. For me, he has to take the prize, no matter what. Even if I wasn’t Lamine’s teammate, for what he does, the numbers, the titles – and I think titles are important – he’s the candidate. One of one. Of three trophies, he won two with Barcelona. He won the World Cup with Spain.”

Only the Champions League escaped them; for two years Barcelona have come close, and it is their obsession now. “The semi-final against Inter [in 2025] hurt the most,” Raphinha says. “Against Atlético [in the quarter-final in 2026] we could have gone through, we could talk about things that could have gone differently, decisions. But against Inter, we had one foot in the final and to lose that way was hard. We’re a young team – that’s not an excuse – and sometimes you lack the maturity to manage key moments. This season we’re more mature, better prepared. If we carry on like this, with this mentality, we can compete for it all. We have everything.”

Starting from the front with the captain, the leader and the No 9.