The Stats: FC Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United May 2011 - Fascinating Analysis

Sourced from http://www.totalbarca.com/2011/news/the-stats-fc-barcelona-3-1-manchester-united/

This is terrific piece of game analysis. The diagrams drawn from the on field movement plotted from the game are a revelation and go a long way past simple passing statistics, powerful as they are in attesting to Barcelona's superiority. The movement patterns and where on the field they occurr are pivotal to deconstructing the Barca system of play. These are players who are trained to work as hard off the ball as with it and then win it back quickly if it lost and start all over again. Relentless. Wonderful stuff.

You don’t need me to tell you that Barcelona utterly dominated their English counterparts in Saturday’s Champions League final. So I won’t tell you: I’ll show you some charts and diagrams instead! The passing, shooting and assist numbers for this match go a long way in showing just how Pep’s crew dismantled Manchester United. The stats for the game also reveal some subtle changes in the way Barcelona played this match that help explain the team’s ultimate victory.

Barcelona Passing Dominance

Only a fool would have failed to predict that Barcelona would hog possession in this contest, but the extent to which they imposed their passing game on the match is incredible. The team completed 719 out of 813 passes, with all three central midfielders in sparkling form. In fact, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets completed more passes between the three of them than the entire United squad combined. Xavi’s total, 142 out of 150 sets a new record for the Champions League this season. In contrast, Ferguson’s team completed only 110 passes in the attacking half, its fewest in any Champions League match this year.

Barcelona: passing statistics

Sourced from http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/03/31/arsenal-2-2-barcelona-passing-statistics/

This data is taken from games between these teams and Barcelona in 2010. Says it all!

Barca v Arsenal
Barca won 3:1
 We were told constantly before the game that Arsenal against Barcelona was a clash of two sides who play football ‘the right way’ – short, quick passes from excellent technical players comfortable in possession. And that proved to be correct, although this graph shows a stark contrast between the sides.

Xavi’s dominance on the field of play transfers to an incredible dominance on this graph, with Sergio Busquets not far behind. The fact that Barcelona have the top 8 players in this graph rather sums up the way the game went.

Barca v Inter

Barca won 1:0

Even taking into account the fact that it’s Barcelona we’re dealing with, these passing statistics really are quite incredible.

Only the two players who didn’t complete the game – Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Eric Abidal – break the pattern that every Barcelona player completed more passes than every Inter player.

The graph again shows the incredible influence Xavi has on games, and it’s getting to the point where it would be a huge shock if he played in a game and didn’t complete by far and away the most number of passes.

Liverpool FC Coach Makes Some Very Interesting Observations About Playing the Barca Way

Sourced form http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1365644/Kenny-Dalglish-Its-way-Barcelona-play-makes-Xavi-Messi-look-good.html

A lot of analysis of Barcelona is going on at the moment and for good reason. As the "experts" delve into this football organisation, it quickly becomes evident that it is a very elegant and socially responsible football culture. So much more than just a few extravagantly talented players. There are so many lessons to learn from Barcelona, on and off the field. All of it is directly transferable to our football environment here in the ACT.
Lets start by making the Capital Football development regime a loud echo of Barcelona's academy, then it on to Clubs, many of whom have the ordinary, socially responsible attitudes so apparent in the Barcelona Football organisation.
Barcelona's motto is "Move than A Club".  So it is. Dalglish makes that point in a very Football fashion.

It's the way Barcelona play that makes Xavi and Messi look so good

by Kenny Dalglish, Manager Liverpool FC

13th March 2011

Robin van Persie's controversial sending-off in Barcelona should not disguise the fact that the right team went through to the Champions League quarter-finals.

Barcelona, not Arsenal, deserved to be there. They had 20 shots on goal at the Nou Camp and Arsenal, unusually, had none.

You can never say for certain that a team from one era could beat another from 30 years ago but the time has come when it’s legitimate to compare Barcelona with all the legends from years gone by.

There are certain teams who will always be remembered by their generation as the best ever, to be revered down the ages — the Real Madrid team of the late Fifties and early Sixties with Puskas and Di Stefano; Brazil in 1970 orchestrated by Pele; the AC Milan of the Eighties and Nineties with the three great Dutchmen Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard.

Now you can add Barcelona to that list, and deservedly so. Many years from now, younger fans will listen attentively to tales of Xavi and Iniesta, who worked in tandem and never gave the ball away, or the wizard Lionel Messi, who scored 45 goals in a season before the middle of March.

Van Persie was unjustly sent off because, even if he saw the offside flag before shooting, there wasn’t enough time between the two actions to prove it was intentional. But, despite the fuss being made about it, we mustn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Barcelona were a class apart.

Their manager, Pep Guardiola, will watch this week’s Champions League games featuring Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Inter Milan with interest but not fear. I don’t think he minds who he gets in the quarter-final draw. But I think everyone else will be praying they avoid Barcelona.

Clearly there is a way to knock them out. Inter Milan did it under Jose Mourinho last year with a supremely disciplined performance in defending the 18-yard box. But to do that, and also score three goals in the home leg, is a very tough call.

Mourinho’s Real Madrid showed that without that discipline you can get hammered, as they were 5-0 this season. Arsenal were better than that on Tuesday night but not tight enough and they couldn’t pose a goal threat either. Barcelona’s principles are world renowned. I wouldn’t say other clubs see that and say, ‘We must copy the way they play’ but, of course, we all try to look and learn.

We have two former Barcelona coaches in our academy at Liverpool and that must tell you something.

What is interesting is that, despite the incredible individual talent at the Nou Camp — they had three nominees for World Player of the Year — the team is king.

The first-team players have been educated to play a certain way since they were kids. If you went to see the B team, I bet their style is very similar to the style we saw against Arsenal.

On top of the world: Xavi, Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta were shortlisted for the Ballon D'Or, with the Argentine scooping the prize

Xavi and Iniesta are rightly lauded but would they look half as good if they went to another club? I think the Barcelona players look great because they play in a system where they trust everyone around them. Maybe if you took them out and stuck them somewhere else, you’d realise that individually they aren’t quite as great as you thought.

Even Messi, one of the most talented players you’ll ever see, wasn’t quite the same when he was taken outside the Barcelona comfort zone and played for Argentina in the World Cup. It is not a criticism of him, just a compliment to the methods that they use at the Nou Camp.

Whatever ability their players have, it is tutored and doctored in the right way. And they make their team-mates look better as well. ........

But irrespective of who Barcelona face, you’d fancy them now. Youngsters today should be glad they are able to watch a team who compare with anything their fathers — or grandfathers — saw in the past.

Is It The Barca Way For Football Development In The ACT? It Should be!

Well if it isn't, it should be.

They are the perfect training aide for National Football Curriculum. Who wouldn't want to play like Barcelona? The number of triangles they create in quick time, the willingness of every player off the ball to work to provide the next best option, the hunger to retain the ball and then win it back quickly if its lost, are attributes you would want in your team, every team, not just the representative teams or development programs. Every Junior coach should analyse the Barca style, Capital Football should make it their business to get as much vision of their games, edit it to provide a training resource to coaches and clubs.  If the Junior Clubs mandate the use of the 1-4-3-3 this season, the National Football Curriculum will really take off and the Football leap ahead.

Parents take note - look to have your child trying to play like this and their coach advocating and training to play in this style. Its fun! The best that Football can offer - next to the enjoyment of playing a truly beutiful game with your mates.

If you get a chance, find a video fo the recent first round game between Barcelona and Arsenal. It was nothing short of Football heaven. An inspiration for the season ahead here in the ACT at every competitive level in junior commmunity football.

The Les Murray Blog from that wonderful Football program "SBS The World Game", contains a terrific article on Barcelona - http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/les-murray/blog/1048057/Is-Barca-the-best-in-history#add

Les Murray had this to say:

Is the current FC Barcelona the best club team of all time?

"...Sorting through the images that are in my mind, and the experiences that I’ve had as a student of the game for more than half a century, I’m having difficulty resisting the supposition that this Barca is not only up there with the cream but may be as good as it gets.
It’s important that I qualify what I mean here. I’m not talking about the greatest club in the world, based on trophies won, achievements made over prolonged periods, star players paraded etc. I make reference only to the unique excellence of this current Barcelona, the one under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, which is yet to complete its third season.
Greatness in football is defined by many things. But the greatest point of distinction and respect, is when a team becomes a singular reference point for all that other teams admire and want to become. This is the Barcelona of today, in a way and to an extent one has rarely seen in the long annals of the game." ....

"The stars have aligned, creating a product that is the envy of all clubs and will be remembered and nostalgically recalled fifty years from now. By and large it has a team that was not bought but organically fashioned from within, and by a technical ideology which, though inspired by the Dutch, is now distinctly its own. This is important when making comparisons for too many great teams of the past were assembled by the cheque book.
This fact promises the greatness of the current Barcelona some serious longevity, which brings us back to the original question: is it the greatest club team of all time? "....
"What I can and will say, is that the Barca of today is the finest club team I have ever seen. I would guess that many would take the same view, including Craig Foster who I’m sure would shamelessly concur. And I’ve been around more than twenty years longer than him.

I rejoice every day at being alive to witness the infinite beauty of this Barcelona and sometimes have to pinch myself to see if it’s all real."

Here is a couple of video clips of Barcelona to inspire you:

So now we have a "System of Play" - So what "Style of Play" will we adopt??

The FFA Technical Director, Han Berger, talks about two things when he is speaking about the new National Football Curriculum:

1. The "System of Play" he wants adopted in all "developmental" contexts  - the 1-4-3-3
2. The "Style of Play" he wants employed when using the "System of Play" - a possession based game and playing out from the back.

The two together are the way ahead. You can have a 1-4-3-3 system of play and not be a possession based team. We want to be a possession based team. Peaches and Cream!

Let's have a closer look at this one - it's worth the effort. Courtesy of the publication "Soccer Systems and Strategies, Jens Bangsbo and Birfeg Peitersen, ISBN-10:0-7360-0300-2" and "The SBS World Game video of Han Berger at the FFA Coahing Conference March 2010".