Barça 2.0 - a Defensive redemption?

Being an ardent Barcelona fan and having the audacity to try out my hand with the pen time to time has kind of compelled me, in a slow growing manner, to try out a footballing blog at some point. Keeping myself up to date with, among others, everything in the BleacherReport and SportsKeeda Barça streams and my wallmate Biswajit, another super fan, getting a private connection to especially watch la liga matches has helped.

The plan is to begin with a 3-part article about how Barça’s changes have impacted the new season, and I start with discussing the defense. 

Barcelona made nearly half a team worth of purchases over the summer, and now that 9 matches of the season are over, we are in a position to start commenting on how the season might go with the new look that Luis Enrique sought on his celebrated return to Barça, this time as manager (he had been club player and captain and manager of the B team before).

With the departure of Victor Valdes, there was a need to fill up the shoes of a man who could fit into Barça’s passing game well, someone who was good his feet and would dare to keep the ball in play even in dangerous situations. ter-Stegen and Bravo were both brought in to replace the outgoing duo of Valdes and Pinto (not a big critic of Pinto, but I still feel if Valdes had not injured himself last season, we would have had a better chance at both the European and Domestic competitions). And though it was ter Stegen who was supposed to get the first nod, seemingly Bravo had taken the best opportunity of his injury and cemented his place in the first team, keeping 7 clean sheets in the beginning of the season, a La Liga record! What a Barça start for the former Real Sociedad man! We are yet to see sufficient of ter Stegen (and he just let in 3 goals against a superb PSG in the Champions League group stage match) but well, he is still young and I think we can wait a bit more to give him a fair comment. ter Stegen has also been called up recently to the German under 21 team, and that sure will make up for the confidence lost against PSG. Jordi Masip from the Masia is the third choice keeper and I sincerely doubt we will be seeing a lot of him this season, unless, guessing by Luis’s rotations and repeated remarks that all the three goalies are important to him, he decides to use Masip as the first choice for the Spanish cup matches; but again that’s a personal opinion.

The clean sheets, which have heralded a rare strong show in defense since the time of Guardiola, also have to do with the purchase of Jérémy Mathieu. Though many eyebrows were raised at the 20million € purchase of the Frenchman who is slightly on the wrong side of the age parameter, we have already seen him made some very important clearances and he gives a defensive balance in Barça’s otherwise attack minded backline. More importantly, Mathieu, being experienced in La liga, has taken little time to fit in the Barça system and all that seemingly remains is maintaining the constant improvement that is required of to be in a team like Barça. We have seen last season how the second half the season can differ so much, with too much pressure on the players, especially even if the league if also in  tight race, and I believe Mathieu here will give us longevity in tone with Enrique’s policy of rotations. With the choice of Pique, Bartra and Mascherano to partner him at the back, there exists a fair pool of talent to do the rotations from. One of the recent tactics employed by Enrique has been to substitute Busquets for an additional Centre Back in the late second half, when Mascherano would take up the Defensive Midfielder position, which he had mastered during the Brazil World Cup. This allows a much better depth at the Defensive Midfield position than last year, when Alex Song was used sparingly. Also, Sergi Samper from the B team has shown promise in the minutes he has played, and with a cool head and consistency, he can actually compete for the place in later parts of this season.

Another fresh tactic was Mathieu playing as Left Back against Rayo, and it had paid off. I will be happy to see him play here more often, which again gives us a 3-man depth at the Left back position, with Adriano being the natural second choice. This also can give Jordi Alba a break time to time without having to fear a serious vulnerability on the left.

To the right, it is heartening that Dani Alves seems his very best once again, after so-so performances last two seasons, when his position was threatened by Martin Montoya genuinely. We once again see the pin perfect crosses to the box (and it is sad we are still not among the best in the world in the aerial aspect of the play, which would have been perfect to salvage the maximum from those crosses) and good link up with the wingers. All we can hope is, with Alba having a similar attacking style on the Left, and both the full backs being spotted more often near the opposition box than in their own half, that Dani continues to manage a good balance between his attack and defense skills. The media is going to bomb up once he makes a mistake and a goal happens because of that; but with nearly ten games into the season, Dani gives us the best option for a Left Back in the world, probably only to be matched or bettered by Phillip Lahm of Bayern. The other player bought for this position, Douglas Pereira, fresh in Europe and seen as the long term replacement of Dani with a similar flavor, is again yet to play sufficient minutes, but scouting him out for 4 million € seems a fine deal given his performances in the Brazilian league.

We are yet to see Thomas Vermaelen in action and so it is not possible to give a fair word; but what we have basically seen is that the purchases have given a security to each position with depth in the squad, and Luis Enrique seems confident that his rotation policy will work out, with some players being given responsibilities at different positions in rather important games.

Luis Enrique has yet not employed the risky 3 man defense we sometimes see, and though it is exciting to anticipate it, I am rather happy not conceding goals. But if there comes a time we are ready to experiment, I think we will have to sacrifice one of our attacking wing backs and play Adriano or Mathieu at the left or right with Bartra or Pique at the centre; and combine it with Mascherano taking up the defensive midfielder's role from Busquets to keep it a bit more defense minded.

Let’s hope everything works for the very best, and that we have results speaking for us at the end of the season. To point out two specific aspects, if Pique keeps up his reputation of being one of the world’s best when he wants to, and leads the improvement of the team in terms of aerial threats from set pieces, and Mascherano finds his world Cup form in the centre back position, where he is most often used, I believe we have a very big chance to create defensive records this season, and of course, get back our long due silverware.

Barça for Life!