FC Barcelona 2011: Tactical changes, technical challenges

One of the main features of Barcelona recently is Pep’s tendency to use his holding midfielder as a third center back, releasing his fullbacks to serve more as wingbacks. 

It is worth noting that this Virtual-third center back is the habit that made the difference stabilizing Barcelona’s system since Pep took the leash as a coach two years ago. It is true that adding Abidal instead of Gio was an automatic upgrade defensively, but it was Pep who customized Abidal’s role as a third Center back freeing Alves to move forward with no concerns. A trick that worked during the first season.

Then, perfecting the system required that this option should be, well… an option, not a must. When the opponent leave one forward to dance between the defenders, there is no sense in locking three defenders to watch him while the offense is struggling to find spaces and stretch the opponent defense and the midfielders are leaving spaces behind while running forward assist the offense. That’s exactly when we started to see Abidal running forward on the flank more often. Last season, Abidal’s offense contribution reached another lever, though his contribution in the offense buildup was still insufficient. There was a need for some new ideas.

Strangely, this “new” strategy of moving the holding midfielder back to assist the center backs is not new. Barcelona used this option few times last season, mainly when the selection contained Maxwell and Alves as fullbacks. The difference is that last season this option was a plan (B) that shied far behind the plan (A) which includes the quality defender Abidal. 

This season, Pep seems to depend on this option more often. I still think that he is still testing his options. There are some concerns about the depth at the center of the defense with only Puyol, Pique, and Milito to serve two positions.

That’s probably the main reason behind this adventure. If this trick works for Pep, then he can create a defense rotation that keeps everyone fresh with Adriano, Maxwell, and Alves serving as fullbacks supported by Abidal’s contribution where needed; and Puyol, Pique, Milito serving as center backs with Abidal’s contribution where needed. But first, there is a need to test if the team can sacrifice Abidals immense defensive quality beside two additional center backs. That’s yet to be confirmed.

It is understandable to think that this Barcelona crucially need to stretch the opponent defense creating holes because the team lack enough players who can create threat in the jam. That may sound like one of Barcelona’s motives to perform this trick. Yet, who said that the opponents will walk gratefully to that trap and let their defense block scatter in every direction. Hurcules didn’t do it. I think there were more motives for Barcelona to activate the flanks using the fullbacks when they had Henry to cut into the box beside Eto’o to benefit from the crosses. There was even a good motive when they had Ibrahimovic assisted by Keita’s runs to the Area. With an offense line of Iniesta, Villa, and Messi we need to think twice if this will end up being the perfect option after all. Mainly because such structure may dictate losing Keita’s offense contribution as the only possible threat inside the opponent’s Area, which is a need for this Fullback-offense-evolution to even worth trying. 

In Barcelona’s match preview against Athletic Bilbao I made the following remark about the previous match against Atletico where Barcelona used Busquets as a center backs' assistant when Alves and Maxwell move forward acting more as wing backs:

Against Athletic Bilbao, Pep recognized that issue. If you compare Xavi’s movement against Atletico to his movement against Athletic, he synchronized more with Keita in the later, playing behind him and covering that gap. That gave Keita more opportunities to move forward and create continuous threat in the Basques’ box.

Against Rubin Kazan, it was the time for the biggest test for the system applied. Barcelona had to face one of the masters of defensive tactics.

Last season, Pep’s decision to start Iniesta on the left wing at Kazan instead of henry was met by a storm of critic. It was not possible to convince Barcelona’s fans after a goalless draw that Pep prioritized possession over directness to decrease the threat of lost possession leading to counter attacks, which is a department the team was too fragile to deal with in that game. This season, Barcelona played –almost- a perfect game against Athletic that I thought Pep will use almost the same selection Against Rubin with only Abidal starting instead of Adriano/Maxwell. Yet, for the second time Pep decided to go for possession quality over directness. He confirmed the argument mentioned in the match preview against Atletico to use Mascherano-Busquets instead of Busquets-Keita in a game I thought will be more open than the Parked buses Barcelona usually need to deal with:

Add that to Rubin Kazan’s predicted style of play:

 

Pep ended up using Mascherano as a holding midfielder and Busquets as a Keita (more or less).

Regardless of all the advantages of this system, it seems that Barcelona need to do one of two sacrifices at a time. Either moving Xavi closer to the defense line to cover the space left by the Holding midfielder transition backward, and give a chance for Keita to stay closer to the opponent’s Area; Or Moving Keita back to do the covering and release Xavi to move forward. The first option leads to losing Xavi where he can generate more killing passes that slice the opponent’s defense. The second option undress the offense from the midfielder who can cover the forwards’ lack of Arial threat in the box leading to a dramatic decline in the usefulness of fullbacks contribution attacking the flanks.

Is this a good system for Barcelona to count on? That’s for everyone to decide. Do I think there is a better option? That’s for the second part that I will publish tomorrow.

Posted by Ramzi on 06:58. Filed under Articles, Barcelona, Football, Ramzi . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0