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On 18 June, 2014, the Spanish national team surrendered its defence of the World Cup after being humbled by a vibrant Chile side. This, following a serious 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Netherlands only a few days ago.
Much like its rise to the footballing summit, Spain’s decline was in tandem with that of Barcelona, which suffered a disappointing, trophyless season, engulfed in controversies on and off the pitch. For critics of the ‘tiki taka’ style of football there couldn’t have been a bigger ‘I told you so’ moment.
The signs were there for all to see as Spain was outplayed by Brazil in the Confederations Cup final in 2013 and just a few months preceding that, Barcelona was absolutely battered with an aggregate scoreline of 7-0 over two legs by a rampant Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League semi-final.
Yet, Luis Enrique’s Barcelona has once again made a mockery of those criticisms by securing the treble for the second time in the club’s history and reclaiming its spot at the pinnacle of football. In a way, the critics were right as ‘tiki taka’ will never exist in its purest form like the way it did between 2008 and 2012 when Barcelona and Spain conquered the world of football.
Teams found out how to counter tiki taka and became efficient in closing out spaces and pressing the ball. The time had come to make changes. This is a harsh reality that Pep Guardiola, the former Barca coach is still struggling with at Bayern Munich. On the other hand, what Luis Enrique has done to Barcelona’s style of play is more of an evolution than a revolution in order to meet the demands of the changing nature of the game.
Instead of changing the system from the core, Lucho has added a few tactical tweaks while retaining the basic principles of possession football. The Blaugrana still dominates possession statistics and scores numerous goals, yet one can see a marked difference in style of play as compared to Guardiola and Tito Vilanova’s versions of the Catalan outfit.
Let’s take a closer, analytical look at where Enrique has managed to alter Barca’s game:
Defense
One of the biggest contributing factors to Barcelona’s success has been the tremendous improvement in defence as compared to previous seasons. Barcelona are devoid of individually brilliant and mature centre backs like John Terry, Gary Cahill, Giorgio Chiellini, Andrea Barzagli, Sergio Ramos, Thiago Silva or even their previous leader in defence, the lion-hearted Carlos Puyol.
The likes of Gerard Pique, Javier Mascherano and Jeremy Mathieu are good defenders but are nowhere close to being as efficient as the aforementioned players. They often lack the defensive awareness, discipline or the individual ability to fend off vicious attacks coming their way and are always prone to committing moments of madness and careless mistakes.
However, Enrique has managed to bring the best out of the back four as a unit on the whole. Barcelona have started defending much deeper than they used to earlier. When in possession, the centre-backs still push forward in order to enforce territorial dominance, but without the ball, they drop deeper into their own half instead of pressing higher up the pitch.
This has helped the team in not getting caught out on the counter as often and also masked the limitation that is a lack of pace of players such as Pique and Mathieu.
Apart from stemming attacks from the other team, it also helps set itself up to launch counter-attacks of its own. The focus of the defence is not to win tackles and dispossess players as high up the pitch as possible, but to gradually ‘jockey’ the attackers away from goal and neutralize the attacking threat.
The Catalan side managed to display their new defensive setup effectively in the Champions League final against Juventus as most of the Italian champions’ attacks ended in long-range shots instead of making runs behind defenders and getting closer to goal.
Also, the full backs have maintained better discipline this season and have tracked back a lot more than they previously used to. This is especially true of Jordi Alba, who seems to have improved and matured as a player under Enrique.
Midfield
Probably the most noticeable feature that marks the difference between Luis Enrique’s Barca to those of most of his predecessors is the functioning of the midfield. For years, the midfield has been a hub of attacking creativity for Barcelona.
However, this season the midfield setup has been modified in a defensive sense and yet, it has only further helped to bring the best out of the devastating South American front-three.
Much like the defenders, the midfielders drop deeper than they used to earlier. The inclusion of Ivan Rakitic has given the team a whiff of physicality which it lacked before. The Croatian is a tireless runner and makes his presence felt box to box, much like Claudio Marchisio does at Juventus.
Both him and Andres Iniesta have been crucial in covering the marauding full-backs on either side and holding off attackers long enough till the full backs track back.
Sergio Busquets drops very deep into his own half and almost acts as a supplementary centre-back. His excellent reading of the game helps cut out incisive passes on the edge of the box and release the ball quickly to a better-positioned player.
While on the ball, the three midfielders usually help in keeping possession and circulate the ball in different areas of the pitch instead of looking for the direct final pass themselves.
The passes have become largely horizontal and backward. This too, serves as a defensive strategy as the opposition cannot pose an attacking threat when they do not have the ball.
Statistics such as number of assists and goals scored may show that the midfield has not been up to the mark this season, but if one takes a look at the distance covered, tackles won, interceptions made, and passes completed one will realize just how vital its contribution has been.
Attack
What more can be said about Leo Messi and his two partners in crime, Neymar and Luis Suarez that hasn’t been said before. The world has run out of superlatives to describe the magic that these three have created time and time again, throughout this season.
Each of the three are individually brilliant and have enough skills and tricks up their sleeves to bamboozle even the best of the defenders. In addition to that, the understanding between the three is almost telepathic as each of them understand the way the other two play. They can anticipate each other’s runs perfectly and are always ready to make selfless passes to serve the common interest of the team.
With the midfield taking a rather sterile role in an attacking sense, the creative burden has fallen almost entirely on the front three, especially Messi.
‘MSN’ has been assigned the direct responsibility of making the incision into the opposition’s defense and they couldn’t have done more justice to their roles. In fact, it suits their playing styles as each of them are much more than just goalscorers and enjoy creating goals as well.
Messi is the one who drops deep to link up with the midfielders and make the direct passes to find either Suarez or Neymar. The latter two are extremely intelligent players who have incredible movement and are masters in beating the offside trap.
The first goal that Barcelona scored in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final at the Allianz Arena is a perfect depiction of how the three operate. Messi picked out Suarez with a sublime through ball from the deep, the Uruguayan peeled away from his marker and squared it up for Neymar to knock the ball into the goal. Such is the understanding between the three that it usually takes only 3 or 4 passes for them to create a goalscoring chance.
Furthermore, with Messi returning back to the right wing under Enrique, he makes beautiful cross field passes with the side of his foot to switch the play to the opposite wing and stretch the opposition defense.
Also, as mentioned earlier, the fact that the defense and midfield drops deep to recover possession makes sure the team is perfectly set up to launch counter attacks. The front three tremendously benefit from such type of situations as it gives them a free license to run into open spaces, something that they are excellent at. It is hard enough to contain them with a packed defense, let alone when caught out of position on the counter.
Adaptation was key
Lucho’s Barca has been exciting to watch and has managed to adapt to the changing times without really discarding its mantra of possession dominance. Dropping back at times instead of pressing up may have reduced their possession stats by 5-10% on an average per game as compared to previous seasons, but it has managed to make them that much more lethal attackingly.
The Asturian coach has shown that anything is possible when you can learn to adapt to your players and realize how to bring the best out of each one of them.
A fitness freak himself, he has brought back the emphasis on physical fiitness and squad rotation to ensure that the squad can keep up with the gruelling schedules of modern football. He has instilled a work ethic and hunger that has made Barcelona a ruthless, goalscoring machine.
If not anything else, Barcelona’s performances this season have reflected the most trademark features of Enrique when he was a player – pragmatic and hardworking, yet, creatively brilliant.
