FC Barcelona Tactics

[Hamzah]

The back three works just fine for juventus. Bonucci also does a good job as a sweeper when you consnider he isn't that good.

 

[ebieymjunior]

The back three works just fine for juventus. Bonucci also does a good job as a sweeper when you consnider he isn't that good.

It works well, but in my opinion a default back four is safer, just my opinion that's all, not saying they can't play with three. As you can read from the comment on the last page, a 3-man defence is suggested for when a fullback goes forward, that's the good thing about the formation, cause you can change it even during the game. And Barcelona does play a 3-4-3 at times, so they're already used to it.
If they can interchange formations of the defence like the attack does, it'd be really good, cause now there's a dynamic attack and really static defence with no creativity.

 

[Hamzah]

It's an idea to try out for sure. I would be open to trying it out. I'm just skeptical that's all.

 

[ebieymjunior]

It's an idea to try out for sure. I would be open to trying it out. I'm just skeptical that's all.

Yeah, I'm also a little skeptical to try it out in Barcelona, but you never know cheers

 

[oz187]

That's why you need good reflex and positioning, imagine someone else playing in Messi's position, they'd not play that well.

Doesn't matter how good your reflex and positioning. Even if it's perfect and the sweeper gets across to the winger every time, that's still ten or twenty opportunities for a winger to be one on one with the last defender. You'll likely concede multiple goals every game.

 

[ebieymjunior]

Doesn't matter how good your reflex and positioning. Even if it's perfect and the sweeper gets across to the winger every time, that's still ten or twenty opportunities for a winger to be one on one with the last defender. You'll likely concede multiple goals every game.

This formation is almost identical to the one with 4 on 1 line, it's just that you choose to ignore the offside trap at times (not always). The winger can always get past a fullback, the difference is that if he does get past him, he still has to get past the sweeper, while with the one line defense, he can easily get past the whole defense at once (then you have to sprint back to catch him), the reason why Barcelona conceded so many goals last season, especially on the counter (and yesterday by Montoya).

It's also not only the sweeper that does the thinking. Suppose the attacker is running towards him, the obvious thing for the CB (or fullbacks) to do is to go behind him and cover for him, acting as a sweeper himself, and the DM covering for the CB. You always have a man behind the final defender, and him and the FBs (+DM) covering/defending the attackers. The big difference is that instead of 2 CBs on one line defending one attacker (allowing him to get past both), you get the CB and sweeper behind him, and they constantly getting behind the other until one intercepts the ball.

It's a sort of formation that works with covering for one another, giving other defenders time to get back to their position, that way an attacker will have to get past multiple defenders multiple times in order to get a scoring chance, while they can't pass the ball easily because of the pressing and coverage of his other teammates. You give an illusion of having 4/5 defenders for 2-4 attackers, while making it hard to get past the last man (cause when you get past him, there's already another defender waiting for you).

The more I think about it, it's the perfect formation for Barcelona, interchanging 1) the 4-3-3 or 1-3-3-3, 2) the 5-4-1 or 4-1-4-1/1-4-4-1/1-4-2-3, 3) 3-4-3 or 3-2-4-1/3-2-2-3 and 4) the 4-4-2 or 1-3-4-2/4-4-1-1/4-2-3-1, with Messi in AM and a striker, which already happens (it's a headache for the opposition, and multiple backup plans in one plan), TOTAL football. Anyway, it confuses everyone, except the team that's playing that way. You do need a lot of rotation during the season for the front defensive line (last man has significantly less to do, perfect for Puyol), but with Bartra, Piqué, new CB, Ie *B and Bagnack *b for CB, Adriano, Alba, Alves, Montoya, Planas *B and Grimaldo *B for FBs and Busquets, Song, Mascherano, Ilie *B and Samper *B for DM roles, there won't be a problem of depth.

 

[Robert]

What Barcelona needs more than formation tweaking is some good cover in the CB positions.

 

[DennyCrane]

The more I think about it, a sweeper would best work if we have a double pivot as well. Granted, Barca play a high line but some of the mechanics of it can be adjusted to make the sweeper a massive benefit instead of a hindrance.

1. Fullbacks: I don't see that much benefit of both fullbacks bombing up at the same time because both flanks aren't being used. If one fullback bombs up the other can shift inwards to form a 3 man back line that wraps around the formation and remains flexible in movement, not just rigid or straight.

2. Double pivot: Barca will have to find a different kind of double pivot system than what is fielded by most other teams to suit our philosophy of play. Busquets/Samper seems good for the future as both are great technically and have amazing defensive positioning. I'd suggest that if that were to happen that they become more eager to venture forward in the buildup play while the other remains reserved and vice versa so that they are very involved and crucial. Them sitting in front of the 3-man back line during our attacks will decrease the amount of holes we have defensively and make it more solid.

3. Pressing: Our back line will look a little thin with this formation initially but the team needs to have a pressing system like Bayern did in the semifinal and like Sacchi's Milan side did back when they were the best in Europe. It's not about hardcore, endless stamina running like dogs ala Dortmund or Madrid. It's about shuffling around and covering all the free space they have in between the lines of their formation so that they have absolutely no space to play the ball. As we get dispossessed we'll shut them down with the pressing and shift back to the 3 man back line with the sweeper behind it. If they want to play long balls/high balls the sweeper can cut them out. If they start shoving too many people up front to handle, we can switch back to a 4 man back line to catch them offside.

4. Sweeper: His job remains crucial throughout the entire game in giving us security. He's the one calling the shots in terms of positioning for the back line and the deep midfielders. He's the one who keeps shuffling around to position himself in case an opposition player slides a loose through ball past our players. His mere presence cuts out a lot of "behind the defense" options for them to play and ultimately will cause them to make errors. 99% of the time they try to catch the sweeper out and make a mess of the defense, they'll end up hitting the pass too hard out or mess up under pressure. The entire system forces errors and in the end is so unorthodox that they wouldn't be able to break it down for quite a while. Eventually the sweeper will die out as it did before, but this system can work for us for quite a few years.

5. The defensive system in general: You might be thinking that all of the things that I said are way too complicated and theoretical to really carry out but think of it this way. As a collective defensive unit, this system gets the best out of everyone while disguising their worst as everyone covers each other in one way or another. Individually their jobs are easy enough, but what it adds to the group is extremely valuable. Opposition players will find it very hard to find a way through and this sweeper system helps us remain secure even when a player doesn't do his job correctly, which often screws us over.

First off, I don't think your ideas are too complicated and theoretical; that is simply the nature of a tactic discussion. It's always 'just' on paper and the execution can always contain random factors. But that's what a good tactic does: Minimizing the random factors of the game.

1. Sweeper + double pivot: My main question would be when the team can/should utilize this formation, as it has by design the tendency to evolve into defensive overkill and passing the initiative and momentum to the opposition. I admit right away that I'm no fan of the double pivot when it's played like for example Spain does, mostly because it's redundant 95 % of the time in both the defensive and offensive efforts. Then again, when Barca played Sevilla last season we utilized something similar to a double pivot when fielding Busquets and Song, but both DMs weren't really on the same line and had differing tasks. Those were the dying minutes of the game though, when Barca more or less decided to maintain the result. This could work out as a situation-dependent defensive formation, but I don't see how Barca could apply it as default.

2. Spare man aka the Bielsa-solution: Bielsa promotes the idea to have a spare man in defense, which equals to having one more CB than the opposition has strikers. This CB ist without a direct opponent, is therefore 'free' and acts like a sweeper does. Most of the time, we face opposition in a 4-2-3-1 formation or one of it's derivatives; which is a formation that doesn't really tell anything about what's going to happen: Is there only one striker and does he move forward or tilt to the sides, is a SS actually disguised as a midfielder, are there inverted wingers, is it a fluid or a rigid formation etc. ? Bielsa solves this problem by shifting the defensive-formation around constantly. The only downside of this is that it requires a sheer insane amount of anticipation and understanding of the game (as all of Bielsas' concepts do btw.). The advantages are abundant though: It's adaptive, it's fluid, it's unpredictable and can be activated and dissolved at will. And that is actually what I try to promote: More proactivity in defense, and I'm quite positive that Tata has something up his sleeve.

3. Pressing: Trying to differentiate this a bit: The pressing we've seen in recent months is a rather unusual mixture of defense pressing and what I like to call false-pressing. What the team totally lacks is actual attack-pressing and Gegenpressing (counter-pressing), which means pressing immediately after losing the ball in the opponents half. Under Guardiola, the teams' counter-pressing was influenced mainly by the opponents short passing options. One player pressures the ball-leading player while others block direct pass-options in order to force errors or uncontrolled long-balls. When this form of counter-pressing is implemented correctly, there's no need for a staggered sweeper to collect the long-ball attempts mostly because these balls will end up in no mans' land. Every time our pressing game was bypassed via a long ball that hit its' designated target, it was because the team didn't pressure the ball-leading player correctly. I specifically remember the first match vs PSG where Verratti and Beckham could pass the ball at will to Ibra. They had too much time.
Furthermore, pulling this off correctly requires having as much players as possible in the opponents half, so I think a permanent sweeper would be counterproductive to our goal of effective counter-pressing.

 

[ebieymjunior]

First off, I don't think your ideas are too complicated and theoretical; that is simply the nature of a tactic discussion. It's always 'just' on paper and the execution can always contain random factors. But that's what a good tactic does: Minimizing the random factors of the game.

1. Sweeper + double pivot: My main question would be when the team can/should utilize this formation, as it has by design the tendency to evolve into defensive overkill and passing the initiative and momentum to the opposition. I admit right away that I'm no fan of the double pivot when it's played like for example Spain does, mostly because it's reluctant 95 % of the time in both the defensive and offensive efforts. Then again, when Barca played Sevilla last season we utilized something similar to a double pivot when fielding Busquets and Song, but both DMs weren't really on the same line and had differing tasks. Those were the dying minutes of the game though, when Barca more or less decided to maintain the result. This could work out as a situation-dependent defensive formation, but I don't see how Barca could apply it as default.

2. Spare man aka the Bielsa-solution: Bielsa promotes the idea to have a spare man in defense, which equals to having one more CB than the opposition has strikers. This CB ist without a direct opponent, is therefore 'free' and acts like a sweeper does. Most of the time, we face opposition in a 4-2-3-1 formation or one of it's derivatives; which is a formation that doesn't really tell anything about what's going to happen: Is there only one striker and does he move forward or tilt to the sides, is a SS actually disguised as a midfielder, are there inverted wingers, is it a fluid or a rigid formation etc. ? Bielsa solves this problem by shifting the defensive-formation around constantly. The only downside of this is that it requires a sheer insane amount of anticipation and understanding of the game (as all of Bielsas' concepts do btw.). The advantages are abundant though: It's adaptive, it's fluid, it's unpredictable and can be activated and dissolved at will. And that is actually what I try to promote: More proactivity in defense, and I'm quite positive that Tata has something up his sleeve.

3. Pressing: Trying to differentiate this a bit: The pressing we've seen in recent months is a rather unusual mixture of defense pressing and what I like to call false-pressing. What the team totally lacks is actual attack-pressing and Gegenpressing (counter-pressing), which means pressing immediately after losing the ball in the opponents half. Under Guardiola, the teams' counter-pressing was influenced mainly by the opponents short passing options. One player pressures the ball-leading player while others block direct pass-options in order to force errors or uncontrolled long-balls. When this form of counter-pressing is implemented correctly, there's no need for a staggered sweeper to collect the long-ball attempts mostly because these balls will end up in no mans' land. Every time our pressing game was bypassed via a long ball that hit its' designated target, it was because the team didn't pressure the ball-leading player correctly. I specifically remember the first match vs PSG where Verratti and Beckham could pass the ball at will to Ibra. They had too much time.
Furthermore, pulling this off correctly requires having as much players as possible in the opponents half, so I think a permanent sweeper would be counterproductive to our goal of effective counter-pressing.

For the first point: the DM is only used in a double pivot when they need to defend a lot of attackers (in defense, that is, if they get past the midfield).
Like your second point. What you describe as the Bielsa way is actually close to how I see the sweeter: a free defender in a defense that changes formation constantly.

 

[Shegzy]

I think with the kind of pla:yers we have 3-5-2.back three:new cb-nmasch-pique,two wing back:alves,alba,sanchez,montoya,adriano to provide attacking width and defensive cover,dmf;busquet,cm:song(if the team want to be more defensive) or cesc(more attacking),am:cesc or iniesta.forwards:neymar,messi,tello,pedro,sanchez as forwards.

 

[oz187]

The winger can always get past a fullback, the difference is that if he does get past him, he still has to get past the sweeper, while with the one line defense, he can easily get past the whole defense at once (then you have to sprint back to catch him), the reason why Barcelona conceded so many goals last season, especially on the counter (and yesterday by Montoya).

With a sweeper the winger doesn't need to get past the fullback. He can stand level with the sweeper and will have a headstart on the fullback and the other defenders. So he can literally stand in a lot of space. With a high line it also means he has a lot of space to run into. Get him the ball and he can attak the sweeper directly and there won't be time for the rest of the defense to get back since he has a headstart.

With a flat back four he has to try to break the offside trap, he has to worry the player with the ball and about timing his run. That is the challenge. With a sweeper there is no challenge, he can literally stand in space and wait for the pass to be made. His doesn't need to worry about movement, he can focus on the ball making his job easy.

 

[Robert]

I think with the kind of pla:yers we have 3-5-2.back three:new cb-nmasch-pique,two wing back:alves,alba,sanchez,montoya,adriano to provide attacking width and defensive cover,dmf;busquet,cm:song(if the team want to be more defensive) or cesc(more attacking),am:cesc or iniesta.forwards:neymar,messi,tello,pedro,sanchez as forwards.

It's the substitute CBs I'm worried about, not the starters. We're shallow in the back, especially with a 3-man defense.

 

[barcanuck]

If Tata really does love diamonds of players why not play a 4-1-2-1-2. I would love to see this formation some games :

Valdes

Alves - Pique - Puyol - Alba

Busquets

Xavi - Cesc

Iniesta

Messi - Neymar

With the Alba and Alves going up and down the flanks it should be more of a 3 - 1 - 4 - 2

 

[Shegzy]

It's the substitute CBs I'm worried about, not the starters. We're shallow in the back, especially with a 3-man defense.

we can sell alexis and use the money to buy nkoulou and sign vergini on free transfer together with new cb we will have 3 new cb's

 

[MagIX]

Survey:
http://www.sport.es/es/encuestas/ba...aereo-uno-los-deficits-este-barca/48933.shtml

¿Cree que el juego aéreo es uno de los déficits de este Barça?
(Do you think the aerial game is one of the gaps of Barca?)

Sí - 98% (10117 Votos)

No - 2% (239 Votos)

A big problem we have since years is our height: as team we probably have the lowest average height in europe.
We have collected too many goals because of that. In attack we cant be dangerous with cross, we cant play long ball, because our attack and midfield is 1.70 height.
We have enough player 1.70m height, please stop buying player 1.70m height !!