Espanyol 1-5 Barcelona: high line exploited
The starting line-ups
Barcelona scored five for the third time in their last four games.
Mauricio Pochettino played a variation of his usual 4-2-3-1 – Luis Garcia started out on the right and Jose Callejon switched to the left.
Pep Guardiola chose what seems to be his first choice XI, the same one that started the legendary 5-0 victory over Real Madrid.
The key feature of the game was two high defensive lines and lots of pressing. There were two inevitable outcomes from this – there were lots of bookings, and there were lots of opportunities to play balls over the top.
Espanyol approach
Why was Pochettino using this approach, then? We know from the way Barcelona thrashed Real that they love using the pace of their strikers in behind the defence, and we also know from the defeat to Hercules that they struggle when sides sit back behind the ball and park the bus.
The reason was because Espanyol have had success against their more illustrious neighbours in recent years by getting into Barcelona, closing down Xavi and Andres Iniesta, and not letting Guardiola’s men play. Their last three results against Barca had been a win, a draw and a defeat – and the defeat was a narrow 1-0 thanks to a Zlatan Ibrahimovic penalty.
Therefore, whilst it turned out to be counter productive, the offensive tactics from Pochettino made sense – his side had previously used them effectively, and given the atmosphere and the nature of the game, sitting back at home probably wouldn’t have been wise.
Barcelona tactics
The trouble, however, was that Guardiola knew what to expect, and therefore knew how to set out his side. In basic terms it wasn’t wildly different from the usual 4-3-3, but there were subtle changes which made Barcelona unstoppable.
First, Dani Alves played extraordinarily high up the right flank. To describe him as a right midfielder or even a right-wing-back would be misleading, because he still had a responsibility to fill in at right-back when Barcelona didn’t have the ball. However, his starting position was level with the Barcelona central midfielders and he pressed high up the pitch, sometimes being the furthest forward player.
Sometimes it’s hard to work out whether Alves has been instructed to play like this, or if he’s simply incredibly attack-minded naturally. Here, though, like in the game against Sevilla, it appeared he had been given a specific role. By way of evidence, Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique had switched positions – Puyol usually plays on the left of the centre-back pairing but today was playing on the right – he is more capable of covering full-back positions (he started his career there and played at full-back in last season’s Clasico) so Guardiola presumably used him there in the knowledge that Alves would be higher up the pitch than usual.
The result of Alves covering the right flank was that Pedro could play more centrally than he usually does, and more centrally than Villa, who remained wide and cut in from the left. From there, Barcelona cleverly used Messi’s false nine role to drag Espanyol’s defence out of shape, before pouncing in behind.
Pochettino’s instructions to press Barcelona resulted in Juan Forlin following Messi into deep positions, leaving Victor Ruiz on his own at centre-back with a huge hole alongside him. And, time and time again, Barcelona cut through Espanyol incredibly easily. Messi would move deep, Forlin would follow, the gap would become clear and Villa and Pedro would sprint into it to collect a through ball. The first, fourth and fifth goals all came from simple through balls to find either Pedro or Villa in behind.
It was as simple as that. Something similar happened at the other end, when Daniel Osvaldo outpaced the Barca defence to grab Espanyol’s only goal, but the home side were outclassed.
Conclusion
Pochettino stayed true to his side’s style – the style that brought a 100% home record before today. “Barcelona played almost perfectly, and what we did today was not enough”, he said. “Theirs is a great team both individually and collectively.”
Guardiola was equally complimentary on a night of good-natured rivalry in Barcelona. “We just had our most complicated game of the season so far. They are our city rivals, but more importantly we just beat a very good team.”
They did so by altering their tactics ever so slightly. Barcelona may be the most proficient passers around, one of the most attack-minded sides and also – put simply – the best side in Europe based upon this season’s form, but they’re not too proud to do things slightly differently to suit a particular game, and to exploit an opponent’s weaknesses.
Espanyol 1-5 Barcelona: high line exploited
Wouldn’t the answer to Messi dropping deep be playing a defensive midfielder in the hole you expect him to occupy with two midfielders ahead of him pressing Xavi + Iniesta and instructing the centerbacks to not follow Messi? This might leave Busquets free unless you have an attacking midfielder up there or a striker willing to drop deep but still, you have to pick your poison carefully.
Basicly, you are asking whether it wasn’t wiser to park a bus, and ZM said why he thinks Espanyol chose not to do that.
You know, I think that parking the bus is now one of the worst options against Barcelona. Hercules won partly because that game was after a FIFA schedule… and we know that most Barcelona players are on the initial XI of Spain.
problem with doing that is he’s just as adept at playing on the shoulder as an orthodox #9 as we’ve seen already this season (Racing and Atleti away, plus Panathinaikos at home, spring to mind) so if you set your DM out to mark him then he could spend the whole game in line with his CB’s, leaving a massive gap for one of Xaviesta to exploit.
I think that was Arsene Wenger’s intention last season when he played a 4-1-4-1 against Barca, but Song did a really poor job of picking up Messi.
I doubt anyone would have been able to pick up Messi by himself that match, fielding two defensive midfielder would have been a better way to go about it, with Eboue on the left flank (containing Alves somewhat) and Walcott on the right, tearing up the Barcalona defense. I think ZM mentioned in his article of the game.
I think a possible solution would be
Defensive system
composed of
Formation
4 people in defensive line. lb-cb-cb-rb
3 people just in front of that defensive line.
1 operating as an anchor who will never leave defensive line unprotected
The other two people in front of the defensive line would be dms. closing a
little bit further than the anchor and defensive line.
So far your defensive system would look like this
X-X-X
X-X-X-X
Instructions
You would need to have a defensive mentality
narrow your defense to restrict as much space down the middle as possible
no hard tackling you dont want to give up penalties.
dont press barca unless they are right in front of ur area
Let them have the ball wide. (if they cross you should be able
to deal with the aireal threat of a bunch of 5 ft 5 players)
Drop your defensive line deep into your penalty box.
You need to zonal mark
Cant use man to man marking with a team as fluid as barca.
(the aim is to restrict space dwn the middle not to mark out indivduals.)
Attking system instructions
Formation
Attk will be comprised of 3 players
There are several ways you could use these 3 players
T
LW RW
(T) is for target man. (should be big strong able to hold ball and wait for support)
(W) winger(should be extremly quick) (should have theo walcott like speed)
Only one of the wingers will drop back if nescary.Depending if barca is attacking from the left or right.
At all times you will have 2 people up front. Either
(T) and left winger- if barca is attacking dwn right
(T) and RW- if barca attaking dwn left.
Target man is always up front thats your outlet.
Counter attack Instructions
Get ball fw. So your target man can win it in the air. or one of your fast wingers can latch on to it.
Have players mix the crosses bewteen drilling it for a quick player to latch on
Or floating it for your target man.
You should try to get play through the flanks. There is space there since Barca’s fb like to push foward.
When not counter attacking
You are limited in the ways you can attk,(your only using 3 players to attk) when you the counter attack isnt on.
Get ball out wide. Get crosses in for your big target man.
There will be space available since you are tryning to keep your team very narrow to reduce space down the middle.
center at all times.
Basically
While defending
use 7&8 players
4 in the defensive line (reason i chose 4 because it is easier to compact middle with, Think about how effective it would be to reduce space down middle with back 5 and 2 defensive mids infront.)
3 in front of defensive line.
And one of the wngers if nesscary
keep it tight compact dwn middle
press at penalty box
No hard tackling
Drop defensive line to penalty box
Attl
3 man attk
target man
2 wingers both extremely fast
counter attking
Get crosses in to box for big target man when not countering
Srry for extremely long reply. That’s one way that i think you may be able to stop barcalona this way. If you have the right players, and if your lucky. I acknowledge there are other ways to stop barca this just may be one of them.
What about a three man defense? With Messi dropping deep, Villa and Pedro play as Strikers, you only need a three man defense. If you have a high quality defensive player who is commited and disciplined, you make him stick to Messi the whole game, no matter what. So if Messi does end up playing forward, the defensive player who follows will make it a 4 man defense.
You have six in midfield and one Striker. Abidal is Barca’s main starter, and we all know he doesn’t like to attack. With Alves playing more advanced then ever, Barca are playing with a three man defense when they are attacking. If you only play with one Striker, Barca will have two spare men, taking one of their defenders out of the game, making him useless.
With the 6 man midfield (5, if Messi is playing forward and the one player man-marking him followes), you get 4 players zonally pressuring Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets, because there will be a second man marker. The only player who pressures the defense is the Striker. But you maintain a deep line. You only pressure Barca’s midfield after they come forward a lot.
There will be two man-markers. One for Messi, and the second for Alves. This player will be responsible to pick up on all of Alves’ runs forward. This way, the three man defense doesn’t suffer, and with so many midfielders, you don’t get stretched. Like you said, the key is to play narrow. The 4 other midfielders will make sure Iniesta and Xavi won’t have time on the ball in a dangerous position.
Barca can oppose this by pushing Pique or Abidal/Maxwell forward. The midfield can respond because they will have 4 players marking Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets. The extra player will track the defender when the defender attacks.
You don’t allow Barca’s midfield to do anything special on the ball. When Iniesta or Busquets dribble past a player (which will be often), the extra midfielder will pick up on him.
When attacking, the winger that marks Alves will push up the wing, the Striker (hopefully a Llorente type player) will be in the box, one of the midfielders will push forward, but he won’t go into the box. He will be picked up by Busquets. Another midfielder will move into the box, alongside the Striker. The Striker and midfielder that are in the box should be very tall players. Hopefully around Pique’s size.
The Winger (the one tracking Alves) should have the ball, with Alves defending against him. The winger tries to put an early cross in. Barca will have Pique, Puyol and Abidal in the box, enough players to mark the two forwards in the box. But you leave it to chance. If you have two huge players in the box, they are going to win some headers, even with less numbers. The player outside the box, marked by Busquets, will try to get any pull backs or rebounds.
When Barca get the ball back and try to counter, the opponent will still have 4 midfielders marking against Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, three defenders marking Pedro and Villa, and hopefully if your Winger is discipled, he will still be tracking back to cover Alves. So, that’s a spare man in both defense and midfield.
Very defensive lineup, with the chances to score low, and hoping that your man markers are your most disciplined players. Also, the extra midfielder has arguably the most important job. Covering Barca’s defenders runs, and also having to be aware every time Iniesta or whoever gets the ball. He pretty much acts as a midfield sweeper. All in all, this won’t work unless you have high quality players willing to sacrifice for the team.
That’s probably how I would play against Barca too if I am playing the parking the bus method. However, I really want to know if there is a way to play against Barca which doesn’t involve parking the bus. Or how about when you are down a goal, what formation would you use? Continue to park the bus and prevent further damage? That seems counter-intuitive as you are down anyways, might as well go for it (unless you need the goal differential of course).
As for the poster above (Ritz), numerically, the formation he proposed makes sense. I actually want to see it in action to see if would work. However, I still think Barca’s movement is too fluid to negate the numerical advantage. Against Real, Barca’s first goal was a direct result of Messi dropping deep. Following the logic of the poster above, a player would be following Messi all the way. The problem is that Xavi, who sees that Messi dropping deep, actually decides to run forward and takes up the most advanced position. Thus, it becomes a 3 on 3 (Pedro, Villa and Xavi vs. a back 3) and now the backline is exposed and in danger.
Against Real, Xavi runs forward and Pepe failed to pick up Xavi. Messi passes to Iniesta, who in turn provides a killer pass to Xavi and Xavi scores.
When I see he starting line-ups, Barcas forwards are all in 1 on 1 situations. The only part of the pitch where Espanyol had an one man advantage was their left flank. But like ZM wrote you never know if Alves is a right back or a right winger.
Barcas opponents (if they don’t park the bus) have to play one on one in the defence (no cover up). And Barca can play this fluid defence with Alves moving forward, one of the centre backs covering for him and Busquets moving back (or Abidal moving inside).
the fact that all the strikers and midfielders are very good, even under pressure, and Dani Alves is an additional attacker, makes Barca very difficult to defend.
Either you defend with something like 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 (in a fluid way like Inter did), then you may have the spare man that you need. Or you put pressure on the the midfielders and centre backs (what is difficult), but then you have to push Alves to his defencive position. I would use a attacker on the left wing (like Ronaldo), this will give your left back some freedom to help the rest of the defenders (or you have an attacing player free on the left wing). If Alves moves forward, the Barca centre backs have to move wide and this may gives you space in the centre.
Of course it’s likely that you will go down with 4 or 5 goals, but I would try to score and not only to defend and lose 0-2. (and IF I’m 2-0 up/down, I can still park the bus.)
yup, play 1-3-3-3, play a sweeper and let every other player to press and man mark all the Barca player except Puyol & Valdes. Let Puyol have all the time he need with the ball. No need to chase the ball, just close down your man as close as possible and snap when he try to receive the pass. always keep close to your man, dont worry about the other player, it’s not your fault if they score. The sweeper job is to clear if anybody could pass his marker.
sweeper against Villa ?
no. take Bayern as an example. Badstuber as a sweeper. Breno/Tymo marking Messi, Lahm vs Villa, Contento vs Pedro, MVB/Tymo vs Xavi, Scwheini vs Iniesta, Kroos/Muller vs Busquets, Robben/Altintop vs Abidal/Maxwell, Ribery/Pranjic/Alaba vs Alves, Olic vs Pique. Let Puyol have the ball.
…and Barcelona is gonna move and move the ball, making infinite passes, and Bayern is gonna lose because they won’t have the concentration to follow the ball 100% of the match. Barcelona move the ball and waits the error or the opportunity to stuck the knife.
Please, I’m a bit tired to read comments like ‘If my team play like this, is gonna stop Barcelona’… assumed it, if Barcelona is 100% or if you have to win vs Barcelona, you are gonna lose… Inter with his 6-4-0 in Camp Nou lost 1-0…
Stop making hypotheses and enjoy this football, because nobody have played like Barcelona do.
no, they’re not supposed to chase the ball, let Puyol have it all the time. You stay close to your man so he cant receive the ball, and Puyol have to pass to Valdes.
of course it’s all hypothetic, but i’m enjoying the play too. I can write the RM or Arsenal player as an example, but of course the devil is on the pitch detail, and the matchday form and luck also.
“You stay close to your man so he cant receive the ball, and Puyol have to pass to Valdes.”
Wow… you have discovered the tactic that Mourinho, Fergie, Wenger couldn’t.
You have to watch more football…
man marking against such a fluid system is suicidal. either you defend deep or you press. but no man marking, your players will run like idiots and never see the ball.
it worked for Rehhagel
“man marking against such a fluid system is suicidal. either you defend deep or you press. but no man marking, your players will run like idiots and never see the ball.”
THANK YOU! This is some pretty hilarious discussion. Man mark Barcelona off the pitch? You mean the team with the best off the ball movement and positioning in the world? You’d be killed with one-twos, positional drift, and the sheer technical ability of La Masia players.
There are a few teams that play possession based football. But non like Barça. Other teams play longer passes to player not under that high pressure. Barça plays one-twos (or endless passes) in this compressed space in the final third. the pace of their game is based on the short and direct passes. the players are able to receive the ball under pressure, kepp possession and play a pass under pressure to the next player who’s under pressure, and move to a position to receive the next pass. this makes it very diffcult to gain possession in one on one situations. and when you start to man mark some Barça players, your centre backs will play in midfield or on the flanks, and so forth.
THANKS TOO! I see that there is people that knows that is impossible (and suicidal) to man mark Barcelona….
who need the ball anyway? your goal is to take your man out from the game. You dont want Barca to score the first goal, just to make you play a high defensive line. Who need to score a goal against Barca, when you have germans to take the penalty (but please, just dont let Podolski take one). i want they play like Vogts, Gentille, Kohler, Matthaus, or Buchwald. I want to see Schweini on Messi’s tail all the time or Vidal on Iniesta’s.
@scalia
okay, don’t know what Germans have to do with this. but even if you don’t want to have the ball. a good zonal marking system will be better than a men marking system.
of course your defenders will sometimes follow a Barça striker into deep positions, but not the whole game, and you need other defenders to drop deep and fill the holes. (I think Inter did it pretty well.)
But with men marking, your defenders will end up chasing for the ball (or the man) and Barça will find a lot of space to exploit.
man marking makes only sense if you want to win the ball at some point. If you don’t want Barca to score (and also yourself), you have to defend the space infront of your goal (keep the defensive shape).
as for parking the bus as a general tactic; that only really works if you have big physical players and a lenient ref. make it a close-quarters (i.e. only play in the final 30 yards) fight and then just beat up on the smaller Barca players with crunching blocks and tackles.
and you need a lenient ref to do that, because otherwise you’ll be getting carded all over the place. and even then, if Barca take their chances they’ll win the game anyway. they produced three sitters at the end of the Inter second leg, 2 went in (1 was wrongly disallowed) and the 3rd should have gone in. for all the success of Inter’s tactics, Barca still opened them up.
it seems a bit sour to point this out on a tactics website, but if Barca play to their potential then whatever tactics you deploy, you’re going to lose. they’re so good they defy tactics (although it’s always interesting to read about how they can be stopped in different tactical ways).
I agree completely. I would also point out that this season’s Barcelona is exponentially better than last year just because they swapped Villa and Ibra. Zlatan, for all his considerable talent, is a soloist, a diva, with Villa the orchestra is complete. Also, Pedro and Busquets are also better players than they were a year ago, they just keep growing. In fact, I have Pedro as the MOTM last night. Finally, the importance of Iniesta to break down parked buses cannot be overlooked. Against Inter in the CL having Bojan instead of Villa and Keita instead of Iniesta really downgraded Barça’s attack. I honestly believe that good teams have to take their chances against Barcelona rather than park the bus. They will probably lose, but at least they will go down swinging…
No, Zlatan is a better player than Villa in most ways. Villa is better than him at finishing and his movement is also better as well as his speed. In no other way is Villa better than Zlatan, either as a soloist or a team player. The thing is, Zlatan is not a player that just runs on through-balls and poaks them in. His body is heavy meaning he can’t move around too much before getting exhausted. He needs freedom, more like a false 9 than a striker. I used to call him a playmaker with a striker’s body and that’s basically what he is. Look at how creative he is, how good his shooting from range is, how he handles the ball better than most midfielders, how he plays gorgeous through balls and lobs. He’s probably one of the strongest players in the whole game, he can hold off any defender in the game.
The thing is, Barcelona didn’t use any of this. Instead they played Messi as a false 9, thinking Ibra is Villa or Eto’o, which he is not. If they had used him as a target-man, that’d be fine but they didn’t do that either. For him, moving like a striker is not natural, it’s something he has learned from Capello and Mourinho.
Look how he failed at Barca while Villa is succeeding.
Villa suits barca more than Zlatan for the exact reasons sam stated above. It is not like he wasn’t good enough for barca, its just that his style did not suit them. Zlatan likes to operate in the same area Messi currently does, so they did not need Zlatan occupying that space and making Messi less effective.
What an ignorant comment. Did you read his first sentence and then replied?
You are spot on with your description of Zlatan. He is such a wonderful player when a team is built to suit his strengths. Although he extremely frustrating sometimes and divides opinion due to his inconsistent finishing. However, he more than makes up for that with his some of his outrageous goals and the plentiful assists that he makes. As a milan fan I have accepted that he is a flawed genius and will support him even when he misses a sitter a game
Well, if you have a chance of winning trophies this season is basically for Zlatan who is scoring os asisting in almost every game
Barcelona needed an attacker on the left… and even when it is not Villa’s favorite position, he is doing fine at it (He still has some issues to solve, but most of them has to do with him totally assimilating Barcelona’s passing style) while Ibra wouldn’t have done that. Villa provides width for Barcelona, and now that Pedro has already become a very dangerous player on the right, there you have it… Barcelona is having everything as they want.
That’s not to say that Ibra couldn’t have provided more at Barcelona, he totally could… he has talent, strength and handles the ball better than Villa… but I wonder if he would be able to provide the width Barca needed… or better, if there’s a lineup, including Ibra, that could make Barcelona like it is playing right now.
Barca would be better if they had a Villa-Zlatan-Messi trident. That attack had all the options in the world. I think that would have made Barca even more amazing, and it would definitely have given them a better chance to win the CL. So disappointed that Ibra left
. Still, with Barca playing the way they are now, I have no regrets!
Yet again, people assume that Villa is Ibra’s replacement. On the balance sheet he may be, but not on the team sheet he’s not. He’s Henry’s replacement, playing almost exactly the same role.
word.
One wrongly disallowed? What about the one wrongly allowed? Selective memory.
What about the one wrongly allowed at San Siro ? selective memory
What about the pass too Eto’o that would’ve left him free with 40 yards of space ahead of him that was wrongly called for offside? Selective memory
What about the penalty for Barca in the 1st game ? Selective memory
This game reminded me of the game against Arsenal when Barca played Messi as the false nine and dragged defenders all over the place.
This is why i think Arsenal will lose come February. They won’t soak up pressure and hit Barca on the break because of Wenger’s philosophy, they don’t win the ball back as well as Barca do, and they don’t have the technical quality to break down Barca’s defence.
It is sad because we all know that Arsenal have the wildcard in that draw – Theo Walcott. If Arsenal learn to sit back, defend as a unit and compress space, they will be extremely dangerous on the counter with Walcott playing. No one in World Football is as fast as he is.
And yet, Wenger refuses to sacrifice his attacking philosophy for one game, even if it is the difference between success and failure. It is so sad considering the irony of this story. After all, the reason the ‘Invincibles’ were so dangerous was because they played on the counter incredibly well.
I think that with Arshavin playing so poorly lately, Walcott should play on the left of a front three in a Villa/Henry role.
He can cut inside or cross like Villa, and has the pace to get in behind defenses on counter attacks or even in open play, like Henry.
I find it funny when people say that. Walcott started against Barca in CL second leg. Exploited space with his speed and made a goal for Bendtner. Then what happened ?
You need defensive discipline to contain Barca attack. The only team that managed to stop Barca was Rubin Kazan. They were brilliant in defense. Don’t let Inter Milan games fool you. Barca will win 9 out of 10 games against them.
If you decide to play counter attach, then you are basically asking other team to attack you. I don’t think any defender will be confident when a fully functional Barca attack coming at you full throttle!
that’s the lesson from Madrid though isn’t it. it’s tough to park the bus without a true destroyer in midfield (Alonso and Khedira are not as destructive as say, De Jong, who brutalized Spain’s midfielders and gave his team a chance). Valencia, with a similar yet less talented team than Madrid, played Barca tight this year by pressing forward and driving Xavi and Iniesta into their own territory.
‘This is why i think Arsenal will lose come February. They won’t soak up pressure and hit Barca on the break because of Wenger’s philosophy, they don’t win the ball back as well as Barca do, and they don’t have the technical quality to break down Barca’s defence.’
They DID soak up pressure and hit barca on the counter and they DID break down Barca’s defence, within the last year. Not quite sure what distinction you’re trying to make though. Counter attacks are simply a method of breaking down a defence. Worse teams than Arsenal have scored goals against Barca you know.
Barca are most likely going to beat Arsenal because they have a much, much better, incredibly expensively assembled team that contains around half of the best ten players in the world, most of whom have been playing together for years.
Who says Guardiola as a ‘non-tactical’ manager? This guy’s a genius. Wenger doesn’t stand a chance.
when Guardiola achieves something big with a mediocre team, then you can say he is a genius….people were saying the same about rijkaard….
Incredibly expensively assembled team? Taking the first XI in this game as an example, only Daniel Alves and David Villa really cost any money, and even then it is much less than what other big clubs regularly spend. Except for Abidal, the rest, all 8 of them, came through Barcelona’s youth academy.
i think i wasn’t clear that arsenal should have played that way the entire game, because they absolutely did not.
in both games, barca exploited space in behind arsenal’s backline because they positioned it so high – just look at the goals from both legs (the backline was always higher than the edge of the box when the killer pass was unleashed). sure, this would not have been such a problem had their pressing been more intense, but it is difficult to keep up pressing for such a long time and some of arsenal’s players just didn’t have the discipline (bendtner).
if you look at the ZM analysis of Inter’s victory over Barcelona, Inter kept their backline very deep and played on the counter the whole time.
arsenal did not do this. they looked to press and compress space in the middle of the pitch like espanyol did and got exposed by two goals from Zlatan and 4 goals from messi because the backline played so close to the midfield.
had they played on the counter and parked the bus the whole game, i think they could have achieved something like Manchester United did when they beat Barcelona over 2 legs in 08.
otherwise, what Arsenal tried to do in imposing their passing game did not work, and will not work in the future. They just can’t win the ball back the way Barcelona press, and can’t break down Barcelona’s defense (especially if they can’t break down United’s defense).
edit:
kamikaze kontiki reminded me that pushing the backline up isn’t such a bad tactic after all.
tell me you didn’t compare Barca 08 to Barca 10. Guardiola instilled the pressing philosophy, and Messi has vastly improved his health and game since then. Every position (barring Pedro vs Eto’o) has improved over that old squad, especially at full back, keeper (same player, just much better nowadays), and attacking midfielder (Iniesta’s vastly improved).
lol, i didn’t. read carefully. i’m only saying that arsenal can win by parking the bus like united.
did you watch that game? united defended the entire game and played only on the counter. barca had something approaching 80% of the possession, yet united went on the win the tie.
sure, barca are the better team now but that means that arsenal will have to defend better lol.
‘Incredibly expensively assembled team? Taking the first XI in this game as an example, only Daniel Alves and David Villa really cost any money, and even then it is much less than what other big clubs regularly spend. Except for Abidal, the rest, all 8 of them, came through Barcelona’s youth academy.’
Alves and Villa didn’t just cost money they cost huge money, but that’s besides the point. As for the players through the youth team, you think they play simply for the love of the club and a slap up meal after matches? I hate to imagine how much Messi is on a week. Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol must surely all be on well over 100,000 a week. A few others must be getting close to that.
I’m not trying to downplay what Barca have done, the fact that they have produced so many top players is astonishing and they really have set the benchmark for what a football club should be. I was purely making a comparison between teams. The amount spent by a club on wages is by an enormously long way the key factor in whether or not they succeed. Barca’s wage bill will dwarf Arsenal’s. This is the main reason they are so much better than them. The identity of the team, the communal spirit and the fact that the players grow up playing together then gives them an extra edge over anyone else, even teams who may pay roughly the same in wages as them (if indeed anyone does.) This is what Arsenal are trying to emulate though, as Barca showed, the transition will take time.
When people use the word ‘expensively assembled,’ they usually mean the transfer fee, not the wages, but okay. I never said their players are simply playing for their love of the club and a meal, because that is impossible, but I truly doubt that Barcelona’s wage bill are much higher than the other big clubs (Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd, Milan, Real Madrid). Arsenal has always been the exception, rather than the rule.
Barcelona have by far the most expensive wage bill in the world.
Get real! If a team has the best player in the world. They are going to have the highest wages in the world. Thats the way the world works your the best, you get paid the most. So dont make it sound like barcalona are manchester city or something.
Plus Barcelona players are paid enough money to get the issue of money of the table.(money is the initial motivator for every one, but you just dont want people who play for money,(mercenaries) you want people who also care about who they play for. who they represent) Barca players dont just play for money they also play for the love of their club.
I’m pretty sure Manchester City have the highest wage bill as of now, with Barca, Real Madrid, and Chelsea the next three in some order.
@Gus
Do you have for a link for that? I doubt that Barcelona’s wage bill is ‘by far the most expensive’ when comparing to Chelsea, Man City, and Real Madrid.
I love how Guardiola said that this match was Barcelona’s most complicated game of the season thus far. I wonder what Mourinho’s retort will be.
Huh? Mourinho’s a retard?
The high line against Barça is not really a bad strategy. More teams have used it and come away with success than those that chose to defend deep.
Contracting the available space into a narrow zone in the centre of the pitch forces the midfielders to pass and receive balls with greater speed and accuracy. If the space is contracted sufficiently then this can be a problem even for Barça.
In a sense it levels the playing field somewhat because it asks the midfields of both teams to play at a level neither is capable of keeping up for long. The danger is that Barça with Pedro, Villa and Messi have the weapons to take advantage of this high line while Espanyol had a big slow forward in Osvaldo (who scored the one Espanyol goal by similarly taking advantage of Barça’s high line) and the support was usually late in coming. In fact, Callejon had a few chances but Verdu started to step up only late in the game while Luis Garcia was pretty much absent except during the free kicks.
Other teams such as Atletico Madrid have however had more success using this strategy against Barça. The 4-3 win by Abel Resino’s side in 2008-09 is the probably the perfect example. In any case, the very least that this does is prevent Barça from controlling the the pace of the game and the possession. I think they had no more than 58% possession at any stage in the game. Indeed it seems a much better strategy than sitting back and giving Barça the initiative though few coaches have the courage to attempt it.
I think that you are absolutely correct about this.
Arsenal can definitely do this if they keep their midfield very disciplined and use a very defensive 442, in which the midfield 4 sit close to the defense, the forwards are on the shoulder of Barca’s defense, and the entire team presses efficiently. Two banks of four is usually a very good defense against a 433 when used properly.
The only catch is that Wenger needs to accept tactical responsibility over the game and sacrifice total dominance of possession. They have to be VERY organized and need to allocate a lot of resources to defend.
Very good point.
However when you compress space like Barca do then it comes down to the player’s skill in tight spaces. I think Barca players are so good in tight spaces and they can pass really fast and accurate. Villareal did the same but got smoked in the end.
Dead on. The other aspect which is fundamental is you have to press like mad, just like Barça does in order to create your own chances when compressing space. Madrid completely forgot this in the first half of el Clásico. Cristiano, Di María and Ozil simply did not pressure and even Alonso and Khedira were slow to press. On the other hand, Villreal and Valencia did press and they had more success with this strategy.
May be you will lose against Barca when you press but at least it makes for an entertaining game. Barca – Villareal was one of the most entertaining games I have ever seen.
What about Arrigo Saachi’s proclamation that the perfect way to set up a team to congest the midfield and control the space of your opponents is to have roughly 25 meters between the defensive line and the forward line player. This could also work against Barca, because you would be congesting their midfield into such a small section of the pitch. It probably is not as good as it was in the late 80s or 90s even since the offside rule now makes exceptions for players not directly interfering with the play, but it would still be interesting to see a team try this.
Off topic, but I really like Bruno of Villarreal.
Exactly what Wenger lacks, by the way.
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Arsenal doesn’t have the players nor the discipline to ‘park the bus’.
Plus AW wouldn’t even consider it, he will try as ever to outplay the opposition but in this case we will end up with a bloody nose again.
I noticed that Pedro improved immensely compared to a year ago. He’s faster, better in the dribble and a deadly finisher. Perfect scoring winger.
He has definitely improved a great deal in all aspects, but I don’t think he’s physically faster, he’s just smarter about picking his runs. What impresses me most about Pedro is his incredible work rate.
As you can see, when Barca have a ball(minimum 60% of a match) they play with 3 in defence, Alves and Villa play very wide stretching the opponent, Busquets are DM and he is like a cushion in billiard. 4 other players are players who play the game.
The key is to stop them somehow. But that 4 players are Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and Pedro.
…every of that 4 players can play between the lines and that way is so hard to stop them.
“Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique had switched positions – Puyol usually plays on the left of the centre-back pairing but today was playing on the right – he is more capable of covering full-back positions”
=>I don’t know if this was the reason for the switch. In the game vs Madrid he played on the side of the pitch where Ronaldo was playing. So maybe here he was defending vs. Osvaldo? Your explanation makes sense too, but it wasnt my first thought
Also I must admit that I was very impressed with Espanyol’s play the first 20minutes. Really gutsy play.
I loved the beginning of the match as well, it was a very very quick game with insane pressuring and insanely high defensive lines by both teams. Unfortunately I had to leave after Barça’s first goal and couldn’t watch the rest. I was very surprised to learn afterwards that Barça had won 5-1 as the beginning seemed so evenly matched! I guess that state of play was unsustainable from the moment someone grabbed a goal…
I’ve seen Portugal use similar tactics and hammer Spain last month, granted Spain isn’t Barcelona, they play slower, they play with one extra DM, it was just a friendly, but it worked. The difference perhaps is that Portugal not only pressed high up the pitch but also used a 4-3-3 with very wide wingers which stretched Spain’s defense.
There’s the two “extreme” schools of thought when playing Barca – play very deep and bludgeon them, or play very high and stifle them…
Unfortunately whatever strategy you use, Barca have the capabilities to destroy you comprehensively. As the writer said, it doesn’t necessarily mean you chose the wrong setup.
Better luck next time Espanyol – I suspect we’re witness to the greatest team that ever existed.
‘I suspect we’re witness to the greatest team that ever existed’
I second that notion. And taking into consideration that the players of the new generation (Pedro, Busquets, Pique) by far haven’t turned the corner yet in their development, I believe Barcelona will be unstoppable for years to come. With the stupendous quality both individually and collectively, I don’t see how there can be any tactical silver bullet. Rather, it is a combination of circumstances making the game unpredictable that might bring Barca to their knees.
I think Pochettino set his team up quite well and his team performed admirably. They took the ball off of FCB for stretches and forced FCB to find new ways to get the ball forward during the match. For all of their good work, Espanyol still lost and gave up 5 goals. I think that speaks more to the incredible moment FCB is having than anything.
It seems impossible to win against that Barca, under normal circumstances. The best idea, though, I’ve read here earlier seems to man-mark everybody except maybe puyol and abidal non-stop for 90 minutes, and have a spare man each at defence and midfield. You need quick and discplined players with a lot of stamina though. It might be enough for a 0-0. It probably anyhow does not matter if you play a high or a deep defence line, as Barca is clever and quick enough to bust it anyways, especially given the modern offside rules, where a striker can run offside to distract the defence, and somebody else onside gets the through ball. Better no defence line at all, rather man-markers and liberos like in the old days
Other option is of course to develop and improve the technical, tactical, and passing skills of Barca, and simply outplay them by their own means.
yup, that’s why it need a discipline and fit team player like Inter, Rubin, Swiss, Chile and die nationalelf. cheers.
The problem, of course, is that Barcelona’s players are constantly switching positions… suddenly you see Pedro attacking on the left, Iniesta on the right, Villa in the center, Messi in the midfield, Pique on the attack, Xavi defending, etc… so you’d really need more than man-marking almost everyone. (which is very difficult by itself… not to mention that players like Messi, Pedro and Villa may need more than 1 marker to successfully stop them)
remember the lesson from Ajax v Inter 1972 though. Total Football feasts on rigid man marking. that game was 2-0 because of some very poor finishing from Ajax, could have been 4 or 5. Weak teams are probably going to lose regardless, but the truly relevant question is how elite teams, especially in the champions league, can cope with this team. My idea would be a United style flat 5 in midfield, that aggressively breaks in support of a lone striker that is very fast, yet can hold the ball (an Ibrahimovic perhaps, or a Drogba). match them for numbers in the center (unless Messi drops off), and have plenty of cover wide against Alves.
Thank you, I have recently been searching for information about this topic for ages and yours is the best I have discovered so far.
great pressing by espanyol, however, suicidal to play the high line which was why espanyol were so easy to break down. And yes it is possible to press high up the pitch effectively and keep a safe positioned defensive line as inter proved in the first leg vs barca last season
I have been watching barca for the last 10 years and am their fan. But it is interesting to try to think of a way to beat barca. Following are my inputs :
1) Defending deep – atleast in the center. This is crucial. It involves zonal defending and cutting off the passing lanes in final third. This required tremendous discipline
2) Despite inter’s victory, I believe Hiddinks chelsea gave us a bigger run for the money. So I believe, despite defending deep, it is essential to have physical and lightning fast counters. The counters must be wide i.e – Players running on the wings as well as down the center. A drogba like striker in the middle to occupy Puyol and Pique and Christiano Ronaldo like winger to push back the wing backs (Dani Alves)
3) It is important to cut out the passing outlet of Victor valdes so that he is forced to play long balls. So during the goal kick, cover puyol and Pique
4) Game needs to physical and non flowing. This would involve disrupting continuity by kicking the ball and comiting professional fouls right at the buildup
5) Set pieces are crucial weakpoint of barca. Players need to aim for Corners and free kicks which give team a good chance to score.
6) It is important to attack the box with long balls and players in the box.
7) If it is maxwell on the left wing, then all the attack must plow through that wing with pace. This was done very well by Inter.
In a game against barca, it is very important to not get drawn into man marking and stay commited to the shape of the team.
Extremely good post. I think point 4 above is key. You have to try and kick them off the park. Take note of Holland’s performance in wc final v spain. despite the criticism they took it was a very disciplined tactical performance. they clearly knew they were inferior but went very close to winning with robben missing the best chance of the 90mins (possibly a penalty?). Of course you need a lenient referee. note refs are much tougher now than 10-20 years ago when barcelona would have regularly been kicked around.
Congrats on the award for Best Football Blogger
It was a pitty that you didn’t win also Best New Football Site (2010) you more than deserved it.
Clap…. Clap…. PoP (Champagne bottle opening)
Keep up the AWSOME work you do here.
yes, let me just add that your site is so many miles better than goal.com (with their absolutely insipid commentary and the disaster that is their comments section) that in addition to the award and Picasso’s champagne, you have the moral high ground. cheers.
Having read your article “Why don’t more teams score goals like this” I found it very interesting watching Barca’s forward line once a move breaks down (and possession is still retained)
A good example is if a player makes a bursting run, giving an option for a through pass and is not used, he will “saunter” back onside, acutely aware of the fact that he’s not strictly man-marked and if a break is found in other areas, he will have a significant advantage.
Anyone else spot Villa, Messi, Pedro in particular at this?
Very good point at the last line. Arsene Wenger should learn to change his tactics to exploit the opponent’s weaknesses. Even Barcelona of all people do that
The whole Alves thing impresses me greatly. Barca find the ability to play with what appears to be three at the back at times and the key to this is the way they press high up the pitch which allows them to put pressure on their opponent and almost force them to think more defensively, i.e. their ability to press high up the pitch allows them to take a risk at the back. All the while being much much more resolute defensively than they were 2-3 years ago.
We need to savour this Barca side, who knows when we’ll see anything this good again?
Anyone thinks Arsenal will stand a chance against Barca? I kind of doubt it. I think they might score once or twice by brilliant individual performances, by let’s say Nasri. But mostly I see them being squeezed by Barca and their own (too high) defence… Prediction 4:1 for Barca either match.