Where Tata Martino went wrong with his tactics at Barcelona

Tata Martino has got it all wrong at Barcelona

Barcelona are out of all the three competitions (Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey) within a span of ten days. The stats say that Barça had not lost three consecutive matches in three competitions in fourteen years, since April 2000. Barça’s board is mainly responsible for the crisis, but I would like to show some simple tactical mistakes made by Tata Martino (He knew it, but can’t help it).

During the first half of the season, Tata Martino had many plans at his disposal and Barça were more direct than they were in the last five years. Barça have scored more goals via counter attack this season compared to the last five seasons.

https://youtu.be/ZA4WdmRmc5g

Barça thrashed Rayo 0-4, but had less possession than their opponents.

Everything was going well until some players (Xavi in particular) and fans of the club were unhappy for having less possession, and in order to satisfy them, Tata Martino made some tactical changes and brought the old philosophy back to the team. Since then, the team is in disarray and is just a bunch of individuals. Also, Martino is under huge pressure to pick some players based on their status and their price tag.

Tata Martino reverted to the tiki-taka philosophy. In order to keep more possession, Martino used Cesc Fabregas, which means, either of Alexis Sanchez or Pedro had to make space for Fabregas in the team. So, Barça were now playing with 4 midfielders i.e Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and Fabregas.

How it affected the team

1) Due to the inclusion of Cesc Fabregas, Iniesta move to the left flank. Iniesta’s natural position is in central midfield, and at times he played in the left flank under Pep Guardiola. So, Martino moved Iniesta to the left flank just to accommodate Cesc Fabregas in the starting eleven.

2) To be fair, Neymar shouldn’t have started any of those games against Manchester City or in the other league games ahead of Sanchez, but Tata Martino had to field him because of his status and his price tag. Since Iniesta played on the left flank, Neymar moved to the right flank (Neymar is more comfortable playing on the left).

As we all know, superstars nowadays don’t like to track back to defend. Accommodating Neymar on the right brought more vulnerability to the already depleted defense. Since Alves is more of a RM than a RB, you need players like Alexis Sanchez in the right flank rather than a super star who just cares about “creating a piece of magic”.

Angel Di Maria ran riot on the left side of the pitch (Alves and Neymar’s side) in the El Clasico.

https://youtu.be/-x2l5OmyTts

In all of the matches, Martino took a significant amount of time (60 minutes) to change the system; i.e. to play a proper 4-3-3 with Iniesta in the centre). It isn’t a coincidence that Barça have scored late goals against many teams.

Here is Neymar’s goal vs Atletico Madrid which came after Iniesta played in the centre and Neymar on the left(Second half). If Barça had used this standard template, they could have easily won the double this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h10Q7dG7spc

Conclusion

Martino should have corrected his mistakes after the first leg of the UCL quarter-final, but he chose to play Cesc Fabregas (who shouldn’t start anyway) in the big games and often played Neymar on the right, which meant hindering Iniesta’s and Neymar’s ability.

Tata Martino was successful in the first half of the season where he added more directness in the attack, but in the second half he ended up playing with four midfielders and often picked a player because of his stardom/price tag. With three midfielders and three forwards, Barça could have easily won the league and the cup .

Tata Martino deserves some amount of criticism for his tactical errors and his lack of leadership qualities.