[This is the transcript for the above video]
Github repo for the analysis: https://github.com/viethuy25/Scouting_Report-Xavi_Barcelona
What's up everyone? Welcome back!
Tomorrow on Sunday, we will have the El Clasico that we all have been waiting for. It makes an interesting case to look at how Barcelona has been performing these few weeks. As we all know, they are not having the best time the last few games. So let's have a more detail look.
Now, you know Barcelona still likes to play the 4-3-3 formation with one sitting further back. The starting eleven here is based on my opinion of the best player for each position. As you may see, I put Frankie De Jong as a CDM instead of Sergio Busquest. I will explain that to you later.
So, the idea of Barcelona when they are on-ball is that they are going to shift the formation to a 3-2-5, it's kind of flexible as it can changes to 1-2-2-5. The ideas is that to have the left flank move into the central and near central striker because Xavi really love the idea of having the right winger solo with the defenders.
You see that in last season with the Amanda Traore too. But the thing is this very depends on if they can go past the defenders. So if opponent tries to cover, he will need a backup or a helper. So that's why you see Gavi usually push forward between the centre forward and the right-winger. In desperate situation, they usually wmove to 1-2-2-5 as we saw against Inter last time with only 1 defender, who is usually the slowest one, is back with the other two better with the ball move forwards.
On the defensive side, they actually retrieve back to more like a 4-4-2 with the right wing, which it usually is not the right one but usually Raphinha who is familiar to is moving back a lot. I guess it was because of his time with Leeds he was trained to do a lot more defensive thing and he is more experienced helping the defense than Dembele.
You see Barcelona try to push a lot and higher than opponent from the get-go. So that's why you see usually they performed very well in the first half but it also means that they usually drop off in the second half. And dropping off means you loose the momentum.
As you can see, they lost positions, they lost the control of the games and it backfires on them quite often. Now that, beside of disappointing performance from the veterans, especially Busquet and Pique, who is not himself anymore in this big game. Except for Lewandownski who is carrying the game for the team.
You also see later, we have a lot of issues with the transfer saga. For example, Ferran Torres. They bought him in the January of the last season for 50 millions, but they bench him for being underperformaning, which is fair, but it would make the question: "Why did you even buy him the first play if if you don't know how to use him?". It's the same thing with Raphinha. Actually you see he usually swap the wings with Dembele, but he only do the best on the right swing, and he is usually replaced at the 60, maybe a little bit more at a 65-minute. But he is always the one who is being subbed off. If you watch the Inter Milan game, you will see his frustrations when being subbed off because it goes so often is it annoying.
On that transfer saga of Frankie De Jong, it is still doesn't matter if Frankie stays as he still doesn't have the game time in the starting eleven. Xavi usually prefers to have Pedri and Gavi pairing with Busquet as a CDM. This is hindering a lot of Frankie De Jong progress as a player in his career.
Frank Kessie signed for free but he barely got any game time. And most of the time he's on at like the 70 80 minutes, like the garbage time. So why did you even sign him in the first place? Especially Barcelona is very stacked with so many options in the midfield positions.
Now if you look at the the attacking stats, you will see that Lewandowski is carrying the games for the teams. He scored fourteen goals and the next highest score is Dembele with three goals. If you check the xG and xA, Lewandowski and Dembele and Ansu Fati is overperforming. Now, you can also make the case for a lot of the players are being unlucky or just underperforming. If you see Pedri, although he scored twice, his expected goal and expected assist is four, but he has two goals. He doesnt have any assist. The same is true for Gavi. Gavi has the expected assist of two but he doesn't even have any thing yet.
That is also the case for Rapinha, who has also the same expected goal and expected assist with Pedri, but he only register one goal and one assist. If you see Franck Kessie here, this year he only have 3 starts and under 300 minutes, which is even fewer then Marcos Alonso or Ferran Torres.
If you look at this chart for the "Killer Pass", you can understand this as a key pass that open up the defenders and setting up for a goal. So you can see Dembele, Rapinha and Pedri and Gavi and Robert Lewandowski are leading the team. So basically the five you want. I also have to point out that day is a lot of people saying Gavi is is underperforming and they want to bench Gavi. But if you look at the chart, and later on, you will see why Gavi is being used and the one should be benched is not Gavi but Sergio Busquests for Frankie De Jong.
If you look at the pass to the final third, so Barca also have a lot pass to and in the final third . You will see the leading pass into the final third is Sergio Busquests. You also see Pedri and Frankie De Jong, who has much less game time than both Pedri and Busquests. It is also suprising to see Pique and Araujo leading the chart. Franck Kessie has very few game time but he provides much more final third pass than Ferran Torres.
So in general, if we look at the team formation, like I said before, they push very high so you see that they press a lot in the final third, in the attacking finals third, is way much more than opponents. But what is hindering them is the midfield, the mid third. So they got hit with a lot of counter attack goals because they failed to stop the attack in the midfield. Once the opponent goes past the attackers and into the midfield, which you only see one individual error leads to goal that is Pique in the Inter game,they just fail to stop the counterattack in the midfield.
In the past, you have Busquests to stop the counter attack efficiently. But he is old and cannot cover the ground as much as before, so that why Xavi is using Gavi to help Busquests with the defense but that is still not enough. Obviously, if you watch the Inter game too, you see a lot of time Gavi is trying to help with the defense. He even saved Barcelona one goal because he dropped so back into the defensive line to have with a defense, while Busquest is still further forward.
So if you look at the made tackle won, Gavi is on the same pace with Busquets and Frankie De Jong. I have to repeat, Frankie De Jong has less time on the field but has the same amount of tackle won as Sergio Busquets. That is something to think about.
Again, with the pressure success, because Gavi give you so much dynamic in the Midfield, what you receive from Gabby is not much about the creativity that is like you got from Pedri, what you got is the energy, is the vitality of the midfielder. He is leading the chart by a mile, compared to the second-highest one that is Sergio Busquests. And again, Busquests is a CDM and he is supposed to push the opponent.
If you look at the attacking side, I removed Pique because he only has 1 dribble this season so he is an outlier. So if you look at the attacking side, Gavi also, like I said about the creativity, he doesn't provide the passing or the dribbling that you like to see Pedri or Raphinha. However what he give you is the dynamic. He can carry the ball from the midfield to the final third and drop off the pass to the two wingers. If you remember the formations, Gavi is in between of the central striker and the winger, so he carry the ball from the midfield all the way to the final third and he can either to the left or to the right, which is what Xavi wants.
So that also leads to the question: "What is Xavi doing with Kessie?". Because he is not being used at all. He doesn't provide the defence that you want to see, he also does not give you the creativity to help with Pedri. So he cannot replace Busquests or Gavi, where is his fit in the team?
If you remember what I said, I prefer to see Frankie De Jong in the middle. As we have seen from times to times again, De Jong is so versatile that he can play from CB, CDM to CM. He can provide the energy and progressive pass and help the defence with Gavi.
But Frankie De Jong for Busquest is not enough to stop counter attack from the midfield. Barcelona needs more help. If you look at last season when Dani Alves played, Barca had better than now. Why? Because Dani Alves usually makes an inverted full back, he does not go up way higher, but he is pushing inside to form a two pivot along with the CDM. So Busquests and Dani Alves performed as a two pivotal position in a 1-2-2-5 formation.
So who can play in this position? Simple! We have two ball playing center backs in Barcelona right now. That is Kounde and Eric Garcia, both have exceptional ball passing skill for center defenders. So I think they play in the CDM position, especially Garcia. He does not defend the ball very well as we all know. Although he has improved by leaps and bounds this season, it is more interesting to see he push higher as a CDM to provide some sort of shield for the back line.
All of this has to be in consideration before the El Classico game.
So, what do you guys think? Please let me know in the comment section what do you think about this, and what are you guys looking for in tomorrow match? Thank you very much and have a very good day.
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