Why are Barcelona scoring so many goals?

author: Sid Lowe
source: The Guardian
date: 12 December 2008
editing: fcbtransfers.blogspot.com





Blunt doesn't do it justice. The cover of El Mundo Deportivo showed a gigantic red arrow pointed to the Camp Nou goal below the headline "lads, it's over here!" The second week had gone and Barcelona had a solitary point. Worse, they'd scored just once – from the penalty spot.

Yet still it felt like before long someone, somewhere was going to be on the wrong end of a huge hammering. That someone was Sporting Gijón in week three, against whom Barcelona scored six. It was, they said, a one-off: Sporting were desperate defensively.

But Barcelona had only just started: they scored three against Betis, five against Almería and six against Valladolid. They beat their first big opponents, Atlético Madrid, 6-1; they scored four against Málaga on what was more public pool than perfect pitch; they travelled to Sevilla, the team with the best defensive record in the league, and beat them 3-0. Valencia arrived unbeaten away; Barcelona dispatched them 4-0. Since that arrow pointed the way, Barcelona have won 11 league games, drawn one and lost none, scoring 43. They're on course for a new La Liga record.

Add the five goals against Basle and five against Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League, plus 17 shots against the post, and Barça are Europe's most impressive attacking side. The question is, how did it happen?

Know exactly what you're playing at
Since the arrival of Johan Cruyff – first as a player, then coach, now unofficial presidential advisor, a kind of eminence gris - Barcelona have shown an almost obsessive desire to maintain possession, best expressed in the Dream Team that won four successive titles between 1991 and 1994.

"Everything revolves around the ball," says one of Pep Guardiola's closest collaborators. It's all about quick and constant movement, short, one-touch passing, intelligent positioning. About running, sure, but running the right way.

Barcelona have had more seven, eight, nine and 10-man moves than any other side - and by over 50% in every case. The key is just how entrenched the Cruyff method is: while Cruyffism can be fundamentalist, it works because it is so much a part of Barcelona's DNA, running right through the club. As Michael Robinson, Spain's most famous football commentator, puts it: "put 20 kids in a park and I can tell you which two are at Barça."

There is a Barcelona model, common to Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fábregas - traceable to Cruyff's ideology and the classic Barcelona central midfielder: current coach Guardiola. It is the commitment to an identity that led Barcelona to opt for continuity with him rather than employing the iconoclast Jose Mourinho. The inclusion of La Masia graduates like Xavi, Carles Puyol, Leo Messi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué, Bojan Krkic and Pedro makes that innate feel for the system even more self-perpetuating.

Re-establish seriousness and hunger
As Barcelona collapsed last season, Guardiola privately commented that with the talented players they had, all it would take would be to add a bit of effort, discipline, togetherness and hard work to make them half decent again. Although there's more to Guardiola's method, that's exactly what he has done. Out went Ronaldinho and Deco, in came a new code of conduct. Now, stung by failure, particularly the humiliation of handing champions Madrid a guard of honour, Barcelona have renewed determination.

Give width and depth to your attacks
Barcelona's 4-3-3 is not the 4-5-1 in disguise adopted by many sides. All three of the front three play as real forwards, opening up the pitch and create space for the midfield to exploit, constantly interchanging but within a clear framework. "Barcelona make the pitch look bigger than it really is," says the former Barcelona midfielder and current Getafe coach Víctor Muñoz.

On the left, Thierry Henry plays right on the touchline, getting through more running than he ever has before. Behind him, Eric Abidal rarely ventures forward. On the right, it is a different story: Leo Messi dashes inside, leaving the wing free for right-back turned hyperactive child Alves to zoom past from deep.

Push the side right up the pitch, suffocating the opposition
"It's simple," says Guardiola, "I'm happy when we're in the opposition's half and not happy when we're in our own." The defending starts from the front. Messi, Henry and Samuel Eto'o have committed more fouls this season than centre-backs Puyol, Rafael Márquez and Piqué. "I prefer pressuring the opposition to scoring goals," says Eto'o.

But it's not just defending – it's attacking too. Pressuring high, swarming over their victim en masse doesn't just mean winning the ball; it means winning chances. "Barcelona play very high up the pitch and if they get the ball off you there, they're lethal," says Muñoz.

Be alert and get the small details right; work on set plays and quick thinking
Graeme Sounness recently said: "When play stops, bad players rest. Good players ask 'where's the dope?'" Barcelona have good players, properly tuned in after two years of cruising. At the Camp Nou Valencia stopped to appeal for an offside; Alves didn't, steaming 30 yards in the blink of an eye to score. Against Atlético, goalkeeper Gregory Coupet was leaning against the post as if waiting for a bus when Messi clipped the free kick into his empty net.

Meanwhile, a clever free-kick to Messi, pretending not to be interested, broke Recreativo's resistance. Barcelona have already scored more from set-plays this season than in the last two under Rijkaard. "We're working on strategy now," says Xavi. The "unlike before" goes without saying.

Score early
Virtually every team that plays Barcelona does it the same way: 10 behind the ball and on the break. The longer it takes to score, the more entrenched the opposition get, the more edgy Barça become, and the harder it gets. If the opposition score first, the anxiety really kicks in for the Catalans. The solution: score first. Resistance broken, that massed-ranks tactic no longer works. Forced out, Barcelona can pick them off.

Barça scored after just 20 minutes against Sevilla, twice in the first 43 minutes against Sporting, twice in the first 23 against Betis, twice in the first 19 against Málaga and twice in the first 28 against Valencia. After 44 minutes against Valladolid it was 4-0 and after 36 against Almería it was five. When Barcelona faced Atlético they were one up after three minutes, two up after five, three up after eight, four up after 18 and five up after 28.

Have great players
Finally, there's another, very simple reason why Barcelona are so good: Xavi, Eto'o, Iniesta, Alves, Henry and the rest are very, very good football players. Messi meanwhile is the best in the world. And, this year he's fit.

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