Is there really anything more to be said about FC Barcelona? Maybe not, but there are a couple of things I noticed while watching the Champions League final that might be worth registering in pixels. Plus, I have a question.
First, it has become conventional wisdom—I have even repeated said wisdom myself—that no one really plays totaalvoetbal anymore, and indeed couldn’t manage it against modern tactical defenses. But I’m reconsidering this belief. Jonathan Wilson commented last year that “Total Football, in its purest form, was pro-active, not reactive, based on the interchange of position 
and hard pressing.” In that article he was talking about the Dutch influence on the Spanish national side, but the Catalans are even more totaalvoetbalisch (I made that word up) than Spain. Spain presses high and hard, Barça higher and harder; and Spain is far more positionally conservative than Barça.
In the Champions League final I often found myself saying, “Wait, what’s he doing all the way up there?” and, equally often, “Wait, what’s he doing all the way back there?” There were moments when the only players deeper than Xavi were Piqué and Valdés; there were other moments when Xavi was the point of the spear. Several times—especially after Manchester United gave up on its initially effective pressing—Piqué got the ball from Valdés and dribbled right up to the half-way line as Messi dropped deep to take the ball from him. Meanwhile, Xavi, finding his services not needed at the moment, moved up to become one of the foremost attackers. I could give several other examples involving Iniesta, Villa, Busquets, and of course Alves, but: “Interchange of position” indeed. No wonder the Man Utd midfielders looked so puzzled throughout much of the match: Carrick and Giggs were simply lost souls out there, and Valencia responded mainly with petulant fouls.
All of this leads me to my second major point: Barcelona doesn’t play a striker, and hasn’t since Ibrahimovic left. They just have a bunch of skilled players—you could call them midfielder-forward hybrids or something—who take turns orchestrating the attack and making runs to the goal. Normally it’s going to be Xavi who gets things going, but at any given point in the match the player launching the push forward could be Busquets, Alves, Messi, Iniesta, even Villa or Pedro (though in the last two cases usually from a wing). Seven different Barça players had shots on goal in the final; they finished with twelve shots on goal total. Meanwhile, only three Man Utd players took shots at all, and Rooney’s goal was the only shot on target. When you’re playing Barcelona, you just have no idea where the attacks are going to come from or who will be making them. How can you plan for that?
So the question I have in mind now is this: Can other teams learn anything from this display of footballing brilliance? Is this just a Golden Generation of players who have exceptional imagination and skill and trust in one another? Or might other teams be able to steal at least a few pages from the Barça book? It would be especially wonderful for the game of football if that positional fluidity could be copied, because all those surprises are fun.
It’s not the sort of style that could be implemented immediately; and perhaps it can’t be implemented at all if you don’t have players who work together for years and years, preferably starting as teenagers. It may well be that the trust the Barça players have in one another, trust born from confident knowledge about what every player is likely to do in a given situation, just can’t be replicated in the modern game, as financial exigencies demand player movement from team to team and league to league. Maybe it won’t even be sustainable at Barcelona for much longer.
Plus, Barça’s style is a risky one: it makes you vulnerable to counter-attacks in several ways, and soccer managers are notoriously risk-averse — as are all coaches in professional sports, really. As Gregg Easterbrook has been pointing out for some time, American football coaches punt way more than they should, but they keep doing it because they’re not going to get fired for punting too much, whereas they may well get fired for taking too many chances. I can tell managers that they ought to try playing aggressive and imaginative soccer, but they’ll just tell me that Ian Holloway tried that at Blackpool and it got him relegated.
So I understand that soccer coaches, managers, and executives will probably look at Barcelona’s style and say, “We just can’t do that. Their situation is unique.” And maybe they’re right. But I wish a few teams would be just dumb enough to try.
Alan Jacobs’s most recent book is The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.
Read More: Barcelona, Champions League
by Alan Jacobs · May 30, 2011
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It’s probably unique to the quality of this generation and their having grown up together. But they say Lille sort of tries to play the same way with three forwards. In fact three forwards – or midfielder-forward hybrids or something, as you’ve better put it – seems to be the new black, so maybe they are being copied in bits and pieces here and there.
I love attacking tridents: the 3 Rs (Brazil 2002), Ronaldo-Rooney-Tevez (one of the main tragedies about buying Berbatov was that it broke up Ronaldo’s understanding with Tevez), Messi-Eto’o-Henry. I don’t think Villa-Messi-Pedro has been that good in comparison to their 2009 forwards, but Pedro has shut me up some in recent important games.
I think it’s inarguable that total football, when done right, brings great rewards. Spain in 2008-10 and France in 1998-2000, are the most dominant national sides of the modern era, and both played according to the precepts of total football. Both, were, unsurprisingly, comprised largely of players who had trained together extensively throughout their lives. It is a great competitive advantage, as you point out, when you can trust your teammates to do the unexpected well.
I wonder if the fact of European financial dominance has translated into national team dominance. That being able to train together as much as the European national teams can, has created the recent era of European dominance. It’s intriguing in that context that the most recent surprise package in a World Cup, South Korea 2002, was a team of players that knew each other very well (and, I’ll note, played a total football system).
I think you could close the gap some by emulating their style, even without putting in the 10,000 hours of piggy-in-the-middle which forged it.
What you can’t copy is their humility and bravery which is authentic.
You can’t play like Barca unless you have the talent pool like Barca: thatis , the best central midfielder of the generation, at least 7 of 10 outfield players with the technical ability to never panic on the ball, at least 2 or 3 of the greatest attacking players in the world to make sure that it all comes off in and around the box. In a word, inimitable.
Swansea are now in the Premier League. Another test of totalfootballic (translating made up words is fun) philosophy for a minnow, though they’re an even purer expression of Rinusmichelsean ethics than Blackpool were. Norwich and Swansea being in the Premier League almost makes up for the disappointment of Blackpool being relegated.
You know, I’ve been arguing for years that what the current incarnations of Barca and Spain play is not “total football”, that while what Total Football was about was positional movement, what Barca/Spain rely on is positional sense. That is, for Ajax/Dream Team!Barca, it was the players that moved; for modern!Barca/Spain, it is the ball that moves. That might still be true for Spain — especially as long as del Bosque continues to play both Busquets and Alonso at the same time — and it might even still be true for Barca when they play more defensively minded teams, but it certainly wasn’t true during the CL final. That really was Total Football out there, with players trading places all over the pitch, the kind of thing I’ve really only seen before in badly edited clips of Cruyff in the ’80s. It was glorious to watch, and I’m quite happy to be proved wrong.
As to whether it’s reproducible elsewhere — well, Arsenal’s been trying to for the past five or so years, haven’t they, and they haven’t managed yet. You definitely need the right players, but you need the right attitude, too, both patience and persistence (neither of which Arsenal exhibits in great quantities). I think Barca’s biggest advantage isn’t just that they have an assembly line that stamps out zippy little midfielders with somewhat terrifying regularity, but that everyone involved with Barca, from the management to the coaching staff to the fans, has the firm belief that staying true to their ideology — itself a legacy of Total Football and the Dream Team — is as important, if not more important, than winning. That has given them the ability to get through trophy droughts and truly horrific seasons (by their standards!) without pulling a Real Madrid and having a complete meltdown when things don’t go their way. That kind of patience and faith in their own institution is difficult to find in sport, especially in modern sport, and even Barca wouldn’t have been able to manage it if said trophy droughts weren’t of relatively short duration, and if the institution in question wasn’t wealthy enough to never be forced into becoming a selling club.
I wish more clubs would take the Barca attitude to things — not necessarily the reliance on zippy little midfielders, I think variety in tactics is a good thing, but the belief that forming a tactical identity is a valuable end in and of itself, and that a year or two — or a decade or two — without trophies might be worth it in the end. (It was looking like my Fiorentina was trying for that, for a while. Then Prandelli left and it all sort of fell apart. So it’s obviously harder than it seems from outside.)
Isn’t there a risk that every team will start to play like Barca? (although we won’t see anything close for years). Why can’t we have barca’s style and other styles?
I just want to see a team that plays like stoke, but has equally gifted players and team cooperation as barcelona.
I think I want a Yin to barcelona’s yang
(Full disclosure: I am an Arsenal fan)
I still think if Barca’s success was going to be replicated anywhere, it was going to be Arsenal. However, Wenger has always been more big picture and isn’t the best match-day manager resulting in some painful, painful losses and the fact that 6 years without a trophy is somehow inexcusable, like trophies are a birthright. It’ll be interesting if Kroenke let’s Wenger ride this out, or if the whole crazy experiment is trashed.
I’d settle for more players to be fully rounded. A large part of Barça’s style is based on all players being more than just specialists. The defenders are comfortable on the ball, the attackers are willing to tackle, and the goalie is good with his feet.
I see too many teams where the defenders can’t dribble or pass and attackers can’t tackle. In those situations, you end up encouraging conservative play because it’s now a choice whether you defend or attack. And it’s always safer to defend and cross your fingers.
Oh look! Another article practically masturbating at Barcelona’s style of play. Run of Play needs to bring in more diverse opinions. Hearing the same exact opinion on that same subjects is getting quite tiresome.
@Holly Oh look! Another person that doesn’t realize Barcelona are quickly creating something that has not been seen in quite a while, and probably won’t be seen for quite a while. It becomes all the more incredible when you remember the Spanish national team is basically a thinly veiled version of Barcelona. Almost Barcelona-lite. Spain EURO 2012 champs anyone?
@Holly go away, if you don’t appreciate Barca don’t read and don’t post, simple. I’m an Arsenal fan but I know greatness when I see it. Keep it up RoP!
Here’s an article about Swansea City which highlights some intriguing statistics: 61% average possession, 526 average passes per game, and 22 clean sheets this year.
Swansea might just be the copycat you’re looking for, Alan. Let’s hope they float where Blackpool foundered.
I’m not sure if its that difficult to copy Barca’s style. What’s required is a bunch of players with incredible determination and patience – and a manager with tremendous football knowledge. We tried that at college football, and I do concede its taken us a year to get our act together, but after that we’ve been highly successful and now the guys on the team enjoy playing with each other more than ever. Guess its the will that carries a team.
@Angharad I am in total agreement with you on the importance of the commitment and patience of FC Barcelona in maintaining continuity of ideals. And also how important management and support staff can be in achieving success.
Liverpool’s dominance through the 70s and 80s was helped by promotion from within, Shankley – Paisley – Fagan, and a unity of purpose. ManU’s strength has been a unremitting, unceasing mental fortitude – an attitude exuded by the entire club that can typically result in them winning games through sheer force of will. We saw what happened at Chelsea when Ray Wilkins, a vital member of the support staff, departed. The wheels came off.
Wenger has attempted to create what Barça has on the pitch, but he doesn’t have the resources that Barça have off it – both in personnel and cash. The Arsenal players have the technical (mostly) and physical ability in spades, but their mental ability is woefully short.
In answer to Alan’s question, I think where clubs can learn the most from Barça is off the pitch. If I went into details, this post would become far too long. I’ll give others the chance to put their two cents in.
At the beginning of the second half, Javier Mascherano (playing at center back!) made a winding run and eventually won a corner. That is total football, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Cruyff left Ajax. That play tells us that total football can be taught, at least to some extent. The Mascherano of Benitez would never have even considered that run (or playing center back for that matter), but 9 months of exposure to Guardiola and his men clearly rubbed off on him, even though he’s had some growing pains along the way.
@Angharad What you write about the current Barcelona sounds good, and it is what Cruijff always preaches, but reality is different. If you look at the statistics, both of the FIFA world cup tournament 2010 and the 2010/2011 Champions league, no one from any team covers more miles than Xavi. He is a zippy midfielder. The best players move around the most.
@Holly Yep, it’s quite repetitive at times, even allowing for the fact that Barca is a phenomenon etc.
Good questions. I think that skill and not tactics is the key to Barcelona’s success. Constant possession in the opponents half is not a ground-breaking idea, it’s what most teams would do if they had the choice. The reason why you don’t see more sideways passes 30-40 metres in front of the opponents goal is because there’s too much risk involved for a small possible gain. Barcelona and Spain are able to keep that risk to an incredibly low level and in most cases this is not because some centre back pops up unexpectedly, but because of a mixture of skills, intuition and blind understanding between the involved players. So if you want to copy Barcelona, you basically have to ask yourself whether you will be able to avoid losing the ball, and there are not many teams for which this question can be answered in the affirmative. As a consequence, these teams have to make adjustments to deal with the risks of offensive tactics. This will lead to less possession and the need to make the possession count. You will end up playing more or less like most offensive minded teams play today, but not like Barcelona or Spain.
The only question now is who carries this Barcelona system forward? They need someone to drill it in day after day that this works. I wonder if Xavi is flourishing more right now than he did say five years ago because he understands this method and philosophy better than any other. Don’t forget, his idols when growing up formed a major part of Cruyff’s Dream Team. And perhaps he did subconsciously think that one day he will play this type of football and honed his skills for it. Maybe he will be the best person to keep alive the legacy of Total Football. Having said that, a lot of maybes and perhaps.
But the thing is it does not happen overnight. Teams have to be prepared to suffer a lull, a number of dry years. In an age of instant gratification, no team or its fans would be happy with no trophies. Which is why I am really, really interested in seeing what happens with Arsenal. Not much is written about what is happening behind the scenes in Arsenal’s academy. How many players are doing well and how many are really ready to graduate up to the next level? Would make an interesting read.
Any number of teams can play in this system, but they need to have those kind of players. With La Masia it is a given that this is the system the young players will be nurtured in. And I surely do hope for the sake of football that other clubs try to bring in a similar system but on their own terms. The worst form of tribute would be aping a system that works for others, without knowing your own strengths.
According to me, the age of buying big-name players each season is over. The sooner clubs realise that the better, financially speaking. Instead invest the money in an academy, in nurturing the future and the result will be more longlasting. Teams have to be prepared for dry spells. If you are going to spend millions without having any guarantee of trophies, then might as well not and ensure you CAN win trophies in the future.
@LC Sorry, but next time is Oranje’s time! 😀
I notice a few posters evaluating that Spain don’t and can’t replicate Barca’s style due to Del Bosque insistence on playing the marmite like Busquets along with the quite good Alonso.
This seems to be the favoured reason of why Spain seem to have a pedestrian stomp to greatness and not a graceful stroll.
Can I throw the current German national team hat into the ring as the damn nearest international imitation of Barca? This would back up the view that a team growing up together can achieve something that is pleasing on the eye plus is and will be more successful in the future.
They will end Spain’s dominance next summer.
Honestly, the most interesting question that this Barcelona poses to me right now is — «How and why will this magnificent team and style of play end?»… They’re just perfect, they’re a real treat to watch, they’re making history as we speak (well, as they play), but there’s a stop sign somewhere along the road, isn’t it?
I’m guessing there’s no other team in the world that any of those players would want to play for. So transfers is not the problem. They’ll want to stay together as long as it is possible, right?
Injuries? Well, a lot of injuries will be needed… That’s the real beauty of the “totaalvoetbalisch” aproach, everybody knows what to do whenever needed…
Pep leaves. Why and to do what?
Quatar Foundation is not as “generous” as Unicef used to be… (well, this one is Mourinho’s wish, really…)
What then?
@thecelticblog Well…I can see Germany’s similarity to Barca in temperament, on a teamwork-and-trust level, but tactically I think they’re pretty far apart. Germany is essentially a counterattacking team (and a very, very good one) and not nearly as positionally fluid as Barca.
SAF apparently would like to ape Barça as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/8546396/Manchester-United-manager-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-backs-overhaul-of-academy-system-in-bid-to-close-gap-with-Barca.html
Scholes retires, waiting for the copycat now.
@Benderinho You’re right about Arsenal, but as well as being mentally weak, they also lack the quality — Van Persie vs. Messi, Villa vs. Nasri, Pedro vs. Theo. Barca win on all three accounts. Nasri is brilliant but, as one in a front three, does he have the requisite speed and cutting edge? For me, he flounders where Villa is ruthless. You doubt Pedro, but again, he has the zip and he plays the Barca way better than Henry ever did; ironically, Walcott is the one Gooner who can’t seem to play the Arsenal way, and thus becomes a weak link.
@Brian Phillips There are differences. The mechanics of international football- lack of preparation time – mean that this will always have a counter attacking tilt. But, as you say the whole team-work and trust level is Barca-lite.
I reckon the style will change. Once they realise they have the measure of everyone else.
I agree with Daniel’s comment – Barcelona’s ability to play total football with such a high degree of effectiveness and without becoming overexposed on the back end, is the result of having basically an all-star team on the field. Midfielders with the scoring ability of strikers. Defenders with better attacking skills than the attacking midfielders of many clubs. “Offensive” players who are better defenders than the starting fullbacks of many other sides. Unreal control, accuracy and foot-on-ball skill all over the field. A level of fitness, depth of bench and creativeness in passing that allow them to run all day while making it seem like the other team is doing 2x the running they are. But how many other teams have all that?
Remember the Showtime LA Lakers of the 1980’s? Sure, teams could try to imitate their style. But unless you had a Magic Johnson running the point, a Kareem in the middle and a James Worthy getting out on the break, your imitation would be a poor one at best, and might well do your W-L record more harm than good. Barca’s current lineup is the equivalent of a 1980’s team with a starting 5 made up of Magic, Bird, MJ, Hakeem and Worthy.
You can do a lot of cool stuff with that kind of talent to make the beautiful game truly beautiful.
@Holly So true, Holly. I also get bored of looking at really nice things. I mean, they’re so nice! Give me swill, I say.
I don’t think you can necessarily get away with playing like Barcelona in other leagues. I did notice that someone below cited Lille, and I’ll cite Lyon under Houllier- they played with 5 strikers, but the French League has been an incubator for unconventional systems.
I think the biggest problem a Barcelona-like team would face would be parity in a top flight league. There’s not a whole lot of parity in La Liga, and the money’s not spread nearly as equally as it is in the Bundesliga, EPL, or Russian league. This parity leads to more even teams- even teams threatened with relegation are paying top flight players (IE: Hleb, Dempsey, Anybody on Everton), which means you can’t really have off matches.
Frankly, some teams (Liverpool) have had success with a manic press, but have had trouble maintaining that level of pace across a stretch of matches. This is because, put simply, teams kick the hod out of you in the EPL. Every team has great players- even Birmingham had Hleb, and they will take points off your B squad if you’re not careful.
So, you have to keep your form at a pretty high level and always score the first goal (Barca, like all teams, really only dominates the matches they score the first goal in- which is pretty much every match, granted). Now, Espanyol is not going to score the first goal against Barca (unless Luis Garcia does something crazy, which he can), and neither is Hercules (BUT THEY DID I CAN’T BELIEVE IT EITHER). Birmingham might, particularly after the end of a five match run that includes Bolton, Fulham, WBA, ManU, and Liverpool (five matches featuring five distinct playing styles sharing one characteristic: athleticism and fitness). Which team do you roll the B squad out against? You can’t expect to ship five past Fulham with Messi on the bench, so Birmingham is it, they get a couple balls into the box, Alves gets sent off, and you’re out 1-1.
You wonder why English football has devolved a bit? It’s because, due to the money and threat of loss, it’s approaching a diminishing returns game. You can’t expect to win every match, but you have to win enough matches, so you pick your poison(s). That and the influx of money (countered by the threat of losing a lot of that money through relegation) means you’re going to see a lot of disciplined, athletic, skilled, fast, and above all defensive teams. We make a lot of fun of a rainy night in Stoke, but that rainy night cost Stoke a great deal more than that balmy night cost Valencia.
@Karl A lot of people brush off Barcelona’s brilliance as the product of disturbingly good individuals, but I think that ignores the more fundamental point:
These guys ain’t Galacticos. They’re almost all home-grown.
I find it hard to believe that some genetic anomaly left a corner of Catalonia brimming with gifted football players. Hell, Pique is probably the closest thing Barcelona has to a stereotypical “good athlete”. No, these players are the products of a determined system, and any system can be replicated. It will happen. Just give it time.
@Brouhaha So, supposedly Rafa’s overhaul of the Liverpool system was meant to produce the same effect (and the young guys brought up have been noticeably better). My experience with the Everton guys was that they wanted to make those kind of players the norm, but Rooney is it so far, so there must have been a regime change below or something.
To you skeptics (who, I admit, have good reasons for skepticism): The question isn’t whether teams can play as well as Barça by playing Barça’s style — they can’t; they’re not good enough — but rather whether they can be more competitive by playing a more positionally flexible style than they can by playing a more conventional one.
I would also say that Arsenal resembles Barcelona in their commitment to the passing game, but they don’t interchange positions on the pitch very much — certainly not nearly as much as Barça does.
@Alan Jacobs Liverpool sure is trying. The problem hasn’t been salient results, it’s been consistency. And the elephant in the room of Gerrard doesn’t fit this team anymore.
@Alan Jacobs In terms of positional fluidity, this worked quite well at Lyon and Valencia a couple years before Barcelona really exemplified it.
@Joe That really is the elephant. The team flourished in the absence of their long-time best player — so what now?
Someone thinks there ought to be commentary about Barcelona playing strikerless soccer; someone ought to be reading The Run of Play.
@Alan Jacobs What is Wayne Rooney, and why aren’t there more of them? That’s the puzzle for me. The prototype Anglicized Strikerless Striker is now entering the second half of his career, and there’s not another like him. Once upon a time, people hoped for a team of Rooney’s, and all they have so far is a Wilshere and a Welshman who won’t conveniently forget it.
@Carlos Vieira Reis Normally you might be inclined to think so, but normally there does not exist a collection of talent such as is found in the Iberian peninsula at the moment.
To answer Alan’s follow-up question to the skeptics – I’d say sure other clubs could adapt Barcelona’s approach and have some measure of success, if they have the right kind of players for the system. IMO it’s hard to find a starting 11 who have the right skill set, skill level and fitness level. But with the right GM picking the players with this system in mind yeah, you could do it. Just don’t try to do it with the typical team with typical specialized but limited skill sets at most positions. And in the end if your players aren’t as good as Barcelona’s, your system will just be a novelty and probably will only have a marginal impact on your W-L record, especially if it becomes more common and other teams get used to defending it.
The concept of “pick the right players for the system you want to run” applies in most sports. Want to be an early 90’s-era Loyola Marymount? It’ll help to have a Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers but if you don’t, you can still do it if you’re committed to it and have the right kind of players. Want to run a spread offense in football? Then get the right kind of athletes in place to run it; don’t try to do it with the same personnel you’d use for a power running and play action based I-formation offense.
The way Barcelona plays is definitely entertaining and it would be fun to see more teams adapt it. But in the end IMO there is no one single system that is most effective and like any system, this one will only be as good as the players running it. I see Barcelona’s version of football as similar to the way Brazil played football for so many decades – it was both beautiful and effective but few nations succesfully copied the Brazilians’ version of the beautiful game, because no other nation could field that number of footballers with that level of skill, panache and creativity.
@Karl Thus, now Brazil doesn’t even play The Beautiful Game anymore, and hasn’t in some time.
@Boo If you look at the statistics, both of the FIFA world cup tournament 2010 and the 2010/2011 Champions league, no one from any team covers more miles than Xavi.
I don’t argue with the statistics — Xavi runs a ridiculous amount. But I would argue that it most games (especially for Spain), he runs in a relatively confined area. The movement of Total Football involved players honestly not having a “zone” — anyone could show up anywhere, and their opponents often capitulated from sheer bewilderment rather than anything else. In a Spain game, and the average Barca game, as with essentially every team, you know you will have a good chance of finding a particular player if you look in a particular place on the pitch. (And Spain is far more locked into positional zones than Barca not just because — like with Cruyff — you simply cannot contain Messi, but also because, as mentioned before, playing both Busquets and Alonso makes the back half of the midfield rather static. I like Alonso — I like Alonso a lot — but he just doesn’t fit.) Where Spain/Barca’s dominance usually come is from being able to move the ball better than their opponents — that does require a great deal of movement on the part of the Spain/Barca players, because it is absolutely dependent on the receiving player being in the right place at the right time, but the opposition is tired out from chasing the ball, not the players. What made the CL final different from most Barca games was that players were interchanging zones and the ball, and the Man Utd players ended up with the same look of bewilderment on their faces you used to see on people who played Holland.
I can’t help but think that Barca’s ability to do that was dependent to a large extent on Man Utd’s willingness to open up in front of them and not employ the “park the bus” strategy most teams go for when playing against Barca nowadays. When there are ten opposition players crowding the box, the midfielders — Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets — bounce off the metaphorical bus and are forced into hanging around in a more properly midfield location, waiting for Messi to leave six defenders in the dust or for a strafing run by Villa or Pedro. The simultaneous lack of pace from much of Utd’s midfield and their refusal to park said bus gave the little zippy Barca players room to be as little and zippy as they wanted — and they took full advantage.
“When you’re playing Barcelona, you just have no idea where the attacks are going to come from or who will be making them. How can you plan for that?”
I guess you could just man mark (and kick!) everyone of them but Valdez, the two centrebacks and the leftback, like Real Madrid tried and thereby certainly decreased their chances of losing if not increased their own chances of winning.
@Logan
I think there’s a positive correlation between technical ability and ball retention and possession. One could argue that it is as much the technical gulf in the technical qualities of two teams which determines the disparity in possession.
The closest I can come up with for your “Stoke” idea is the Milan of Sacchi in the late 80’s. They were direct predecessors of the current Barcelona team in their philosophy of pressing etc and positional sense, but they also had an incredibly direct style to their play, with a plethora of strong, tall players, that also happened to be some of the most technically accomplished around. Tiki-taka is an injection of a systemised version of South American inter-passing style in otherwise Dutch-Sacchian tactical paradigm.
From Barcelona, it seems to me that Arsenal plays, in attack, like Barcelona (position and pass), except that with a little less of pacience, alittle bit more direct. But they lack the defensive organized pressing, which is the big difference between this Barcelona and the one under Rikjard. When Barcelona attacks players are always positioning themselves in a good situation to press high should the ball was lost, and so they recover the ball almost inmediately. Arsenal seems totally unable to do that, probably because their talented forward players have not the skills to do it, and also because Wenger does not seem very interested in defensive tactis. In addition, Arsenal has not the means to acquire a Messi.
I’m an admitted Manchester United supporter who was amazed – and admittedly thrilled – by the display that Barca put on in the final. While watching, though, what struck me most was the manner in which they pressure the ball. The positional fluidity of the players is incredible – and they certainly have the skill across the pitch to pull it off – but what sets them even further apart in my mind is the way they fight tirelessly to get the ball back as soon as they lose possession. It was a stark difference in the CL final – United players sagging off and waiting to intercept misplaced balls versus Barca players continually pressing the ball and forcing mistakes. What I would most love to see is teams copying their on-ball pressure. Not everyone has the class to field an interchangeable 11, but it seems that if teams were willing to just do the necessary conditioning they could – at least to some degree – copy Barca’s relentless pursuit of the ball when they are not in possession.
@Alan Jacobs Right, nor do the Lakers still run Showtime or the Buffalo Bills the run and shoot. Systems have their day, and if they are truly innovative their initial effectiveness is usually magnified by their novelty, in addition to the talent of the players running them and the fit between the players’ style of play and the system they are running. In time, defenses catch up or are designed uniquely to stop them or exploit their weaknesses. I don’t see Barcelona’s style of play being anything unique in that regard; it’s not the one perfect system that is better than any other. It’s one effective system among many, and a team had better have the right kind of roster to run it effectively. I bet that for a while we do see a fair number of attempts to copy it.
Has anyone ever thought about comparing Barca’s style to a men’s lacrosse game? Working the ball from one side to the other and back again until they finally find that sliver of a point of entry.
@Comatose You could probably generalize that to ALL teams, really. Same idea in waterpolo, basketball and most other invasion sports (with a sufficiently large playing area).
I think Barcelona play that way on their worst days (or against parked bus defenses), but on their best days, they’re too fluid for that comparison to work overly well (ex: all of the goals in La Manita).
@Comatose Watching the Bruins v. Canucks last night, I thought of Barcelona.
This season, Borussia Dortmund, Bundesliga champions by 6 points, played a 4-3-3 with intense “always on” high pressuring like Barca. Yee haw!
You forgot to mention Guardiola!
Raul once said that Pep teaches his players the meaning of playing for barca . and Raul was right!
Guardiola was a barca fan since he was a kid. He joined the club at the age of 12-13 .. He became the captain of the first team. And now he is the manager!
It’s not just a job for him. It’s much more .. he wants everything perfect. thats why he is very close to the players. He listens to them, and I remember Pique saying “he doesn’t tell us what to do without explaining to us why we should do it and what will happen if we didn’t.” Thats why there is a good understanding between the players in the pitch ..
Other thing that make barca so good is the number of players who graduated from Barcelona school ” La Massia ”
Messi,Pedro,Xavi,Valdes,Iniesta,Busquets,Puyol and Pique . 8 players out of 11 who came from La Massia ..
They learned everything about total football in a very young age plus it means more for them to play in Barca than to play in any other club.
Imagine if Roma had many players like Totti, who cares alot about his club.
I saw a beautiful commercail few months ago about what I just said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngfkQ8FkCbg
I heared that Barca players train in a field that is next to Barca b players building .. so that those young players can wake up, look out the window, and watch their stars training !! How great is that.
Can anyone play like barca ? .. Well I don’t think it’s impossible to copy their style. but it needs a very hard work and time.. and probably to find someone like Messi!
I enjoyed reading.
Thanks Alan.