serghei
Senior Member
Rondos are a perfect training element, because it means you can outplay 2/3 players without movement. But as above, training at Barcelona misses physical/endurance elements into play next to rondos.
It depends on the intensity of the rondos. If the guys in the middle are putting in serious effort to get or block the ball, it becomes a physical training as well, and even more than that, a pressing training focused on how to close passing channels quickly.
A 7 vs 4 rondo is hard. The 4 guys trying to get the ball back in low space conditions can make it very hard to keep the ball for the possession team if they put in serious effort.
Of course you can also play rondos laughing and half-assing it all the way, without any intensity like we do. At which point it defeats the purpose of the rondo, which is meant to develop press resistance, speed of passing and triangulation, all key elements in beating the press, keeping possession and creating progression.
The purpose of possession play is to create numerical and qualitative superiority by keeping the ball. Basically recreating in game the conditions of a training rondo. Hence the saying that watching Barcelona during Guardiola was like watching a training session. In more ways than one it kinda was for us. A 7 vs 4 training rondo was probably harder for us in training sessions than in most matches, due to the efficient pressing system of our team. We were the most efficient team on the ball, with our sublime passing, and the most efficient team off the ball, with our relentless pressing. Rondos developed both these aspects at the same time.
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