MADRID, June 28, 2022 (MADRID TIMES) - "Los tiburones nadarán en la Europa League," said the official account of FC Barcelona on social media.
It is true that in their opening match against Real Sociedad at Estadio Wanda Metropolitano a win for Barça would be a great surprise. If it happens, however, this will be done with the fans, not players. After all, they play twice without any crowd - once when playing last year in Russia and then again in Europe before the start of World Cup 2023.
In these games, the game plan has always been to get as much of the ball as possible and if one does manage to do so, there should be no more than two or three men making incisions inside each other's area. As such, Barça have adapted well to every tactical situation that comes their way since joining the club. In recent years, in particular, they have achieved very good results when they come up against top clubs like Inter Milan and Shakhtar Donetsk, where the tactics are similar between both teams. It is worth mentioning that despite that we have had a winning record against them over the past five seasons, which can make some people wonder how they could have gone so long without even being beaten.
There are a couple of things for whom that is true. For example, most players are willing to take risks. The fact that Barça have lost their previous eight matches in their league since January - seven out of 10 - is also proof that the coach Carlos Bilardo is able to adapt quickly to changes made by his team. He also knows what he wants from his side and works at building a solid and compact unit. But perhaps one factor that makes us stand out from other big teams is the possession ratio. We take less time than anyone else in Europe to build up a threat and we don't want our opponents to gain more than 2-3 minutes on us in any case. We are comfortable keeping our shape and trying our best to win by small margins. To put it briefly, we always try to keep our shape on the pitch, regardless of the opponent and our own strengths.
The third point related to possession is a consequence of that last one. Most defenders in Spain defend defensively; they don't attack on many occasions. There's only so many passes the defence can see and the ones that they do see can usually only be detected by passing that ball forward. What the opposition often sees is someone who has to deal with balls coming back and getting the ball to the dribbler or shotkeeper who has to get ready for that pass. That's why at times we're so efficient, and in other cases it seems somewhat ineffective. At least, it was until the Spaniards arrived at the Bernabeu. That was when they tried to change something about their style of play. One could argue that one of the reasons we did so well that season is because a lot has changed around them since arriving. So, the fact that they won four straight matches when they were supposed to lose two in March or April is an encouraging sign. By contrast, there have been five losses on average in those six months.
I believe that the only reason why they didn't fall behind after May and October is because the manager has learned to adapt to different situations. With the arrival of new young stars like Pedri and Raphinha, who are capable of carrying the load of midfielders, there were questions whether they were going to be able to compete to maintain their level as forwards due to the departure of Clement Lenglet, Mariano Diaz and Ander Barrenetxea. Now it turns out that three of those players are now still part of the squad, while the fourth one, Cesar Azpilicueta, has left in order to join Bayern Munich. All that means is that the coaching staff has time to fine-tune their strategy. However, the only thing that is certain - that the Catalan outfit won't be able to compete with top clubs who, in addition to Real Madrid and Inter are currently involved in European competitions, including the Copa Libertadores. On Sunday evening it was Madrid, but that's another story. This includes Real Sociedad, Chelsea and Ajax, the latter of which could easily upset us. And this is why I hope that the Spanish giants can continue to make progress, although they aren't yet quite where they should be. They definitely need to improve their attacking quality if they want a chance to qualify for the knockouts. Maybe now they can get close, while the competition gets tougher.
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