Beating Barcelona

It's easy to think that the surface coverage of La Liga coming from the English sites is minuscule at best, slanted with suppositions at worst, and giving an anglo-centric viewpoint that has little to do with the reality of the Spanish game. You wouldn't expect me to pull off an effective critique of the English game, let's say I wrote an article called "Beating Man United" and then went about criticizing the Red Devils for their stereotypically English aerial game, their blood-and-thunder challenges, and their lack of creativity or flair, would you? I'd be wrong for one, there are plenty of sides fitting that bill and Manchester Utd. are by no means indicative of that stereotype, but I'd be found out pretty quickly as a neophyte to English football.

That's pretty much what I found (surpringly) only in reverse in an article entitled 10 ways to try to beat Barcelona on our sister site La Liga Weekly. There are some interesting points, some half-truths, and some naive attempts to make sense of the Spanish game with a Premier League schema in mind. Well, that's not what we're here for. We may not have all the answers here on Forza Futbol, but we at least strive to provide a better lens on Spanish Football.

How then do you beat FC Barcelona? The bold italics are the author's answers. The rest is my rebuttal.

Sit back and defend well: It is a theory that many people espouse, not just the English, but it is not as effective as you would think. Inter beat Barca 3-1 at the Giuseppe Meazza not by absorbing pressure and conserving energy, but by applying high-pressure and attacking in numbers, overwhelming the Barcelona defense. The assumption there is also that Guardiola's men lost at the Camp Nou. They did not. Mourinho may have danced on the pitch, but Barcelona actually won that match 1-0.

Speedy strikers: It is correct. They don't have a lot of speed in defense, and they do send their fullbacks forward quite often, but they are never as out of control as it might seem. Quite often attacks are snuffed out by the quick reacting Busquets before they even get started. Most importantly, they are extremely good at destroying an opponent's counter attack before it even begins. That's why controlling the midfield is so important against Barca. See Sporting and Hercules this year.

Luck: Luck has a part, last year's volcano had a great impact on the Inter games, but an organized side can take points off Barca, especially if the blaugrana are distracted by another competition, injuries, or by substitutions.

Hope Messi doesn’t play: the is one of the biggest myths around; this idea of Messi-dependence. When Messi is out, Barcelona adapt their game, it is an attacking system built on interchangeable parts. Yes, they miss his individual brilliance, but Iniesta, Pedro and Villa can and have stepped in admirably when Messi is out. The key players missing when Barcelona are hard-pressed and vulnerable? Busquets, Pedro, Puyol and of course Xavi. Barcelona's dependence is in the midfield and at the back, not up front.

Use wingers: Sounds right. Abidal and Alves do like to bomb forward. They do leave plenty of space on the wings. The problem is that wingers are a dying breed, at least wingers in the classic sense, but even Sevilla under Juande Ramos, who loved a high-octane attack with wingers like Jose Antonio Reyes, Diego Capel and Jesus Navas, only beat Barcelona twice.

High balls into the box: Another fallacy. Osasuna, Athletic Bilbao and a number of other clubs in La Liga use this strategy a lot and they have more skill on the ball than lowly Stoke City in England. They don't have a very good record against Barcelona. The worst thing you can do with Barcelona is give the ball up needlessly and high balls into the box are their bread and butter for starting their own counter-attack. Puyol may not be the biggest defender, but he defends heroically, and both Pique and Busquets are good at defending the high cross.

Physically battle them: This is the one point that I agree, but then it just turns into a criticism of the Spanish league which is just too easy. I's a pronouncement that holds no water if you follow the league at all. The idea that La Liga is all about champagne football and caviar challenges is just an idiotic stereotype. There are plenty of hard-working sides that battle and scrape to win in Spain. The northern sides are typically aggressive as are some of the Andalusian sides. I mean, a last place Espanyol beat them two years ago by mugging them in the midfield, so this point while true, just doesn't hold as much weight as it should.

Keep possession better than they do: Better said than done. There are very few clubs that have been able to play with this Barcelona side at their own game. It just doesn't happen, and even the Arsenal who dominate the stats, in a league that devalues that stat, just doesn't do it as effectively as its Catalan cousin. The key between them is in the midfield. Plus, few teams play this way anymore anyway, so part of the problem that Barcelona affords is that there is so little time to prepare for a side that plays the way they do.

Man-mark Xavi: wrong, wrong, wrong. If Xavi has the ball at his feet, it's already too late. He thinks faster than you can run. Limit the supply lines to the on-field General. Man mark Sergi Busquets, or pressure Pique who likes to come up the pitch more than he should.

Pray: Corny. They are a great team, but this isn't Sacchi's Milan we're talking about here. They are human and vulnerable. You must however treat them with kid gloves. They have individual talent and a system that allows them to shine. They can be had, but not by regurgitating old homilies and well-worn tactics that were moth-balled in Cloughie's time.

Well, no offense meant to La Liga Weekly, I am very proud of the fact that I was lead editor there before returning here, and no offense meant to author either. Just a dialogue to spark conversations.

You've heard our thoughts, what does it take to beat Barcelona?