News
MAR 19.11.2024
When opponents score against Hansi Flick’s Barça, they understand that they need to wait for VAR confirmation before they can celebrate the goal. That’s because the Catalan outfit have become masters of the offside trap. In LALIGA EA SPORTS and in Europe, there is no team quite like them when it comes to staying defensively coordinated and giving opponents little space to work in.
In his career, Flick has been known for having well-drilled and synchronised teams in which all players have to buy in. This is seen defensively with stats such as the 577 recoveries Los Azulgranas have already achieved this campaign, many of them in the opposition half. With the centre-back on the side of the pitch where the ball is marking the offside line, with constant communication and with no spaces left in the midfield line, Barça have managed to catch their opponents offside 86 times already this LALIGA EA SPORTS season. Although this offside tactic is risky, with the high line almost at the halfway line, the opposition forwards aren’t able to get in behind and make the most of that space. Instead, they usually cough up possession.
This league campaign, the Catalan outfit have seen 10 goals by opponents get cancelled for offsides, while it’s 14 in all competitions. It started away at Villarreal CF, when Yeremi Pino thought he’d opened the scoring at the Estadio de la Cerámica only to find out that it wouldn’t count. That started a trend, with three goals disallowed against Villarreal CF, one against AS Monaco, two against Deportivo Alavés, one against Young Boys, one against Sevilla FC, one against Bayern Munich, two against Real Madrid, two against RCD Espanyol and one against Red Star.
Back in the day, it was Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan side who really became one of the first teams to exploit the offside rule to their advantage, adopting it as part of their playing philosophy in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That helped them dominate in Europe, with players such as Carlo Ancelotti, Frank Rijkaard, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini. That squad evolved from the historic Italian mentality of defending close to their own box to become proactive players who attacked the opponent. Sacchi instructed his forwards to press their opponents and got his central defenders to play out well. In this way, pressing did not represent a great physical effort for his players and allowed those behind the pressing line to organise themselves to act quickly in the event of the opponent breaking through that front line.
Football in those days was very different from today, although both in the past and now the offside trap is still a very risky tactic. Many factors are needed, most importantly concentration and coordination of the entire team. This requires a lot of training drills and for almost perfect synchronicity. That is what FC Barcelona have been striving for in the 2024/25 season, achieving 86 offsides in their favour already in LALIGA EA SPORTS. Even when they don’t add to that tally, it’s often because they’ve already forced the opponent to play backwards.
Although many expected this season’s FC Barcelona to be a team in reconstruction, Flick has implemented this offside trap and also helped the team to score goal after goal at the other end. The first signs of this philosophy were seen in pre-season and he has stuck with it, even against rivals who are known for attacking space well with their speedy forwards, like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
It worked against the German side, as Bayern Munich had a goal disallowed in what was eventually a 4-1 win for Los Azulgranas, while the most spectacular success story came against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu. There, Real Madrid were flagged offside 12 times, and Kylian Mbappé had eight alone. That was his worst record in that regard, while the 12 team offsides were the most in a LALIGA EA SPORTS match since RC Celta also racked up 12 offsides in a game back in March of 2013. It was the most offsides in ELCLASICO since at least 2003/04. Furthermore, FC Barcelona achieved a lot of impressive feats in that game which they won 4-0, as Lamine Yamal became the youngest goalscorer in ELCLASICO history at 17 years and 105 days and Flick became the first coach to win his ELCLASICO debut by four or more goals in any competition since Jorge Valdano in 1995, while the result prevented Real Madrid from equalling the competition’s all-time record for unbeaten games, set by FC Barcelona in 2018, of 43 games.
The Iñigo Martínez and Pau Cubarsí tandem
In Flick’s system, the individual members of the FC Barcelona back line have caught the eye. Left-back Alejandro Balde hasn’t been dribbled past so far in any competition, and Jules Koundé is performing like one of the best right-backs in the world. Yet, special recognition must be given to the tandem of 33-year-old Iñigo Martínez and 17-year-old Pau Cubarsí, the two centre-backs in the starting line-up. The pair, who have a 16-year age difference, have started 11 games together in LALIGA EA SPORTS, winning 10 of them. Both centre-backs are almost irreplaceable for Flick, so Ronald Araújo knows he’ll have to do something special if he is to return to the line-up when he comes back from the injury that has sidelined him since July. The tandem formed by the Basque and the Catalan is solid, especially when it comes to leading and orchestrating the movements of Flick’s defensive line. When you look at it all together, it’s no surprise that this unit is the team forcing opponents offside the most in Europe.
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