Malaga offer Barcelona a reminder of mortality
It was a shambolic display. Nothing like the Barcelona of the recent weeks and a lot like the Barcelona that failed to score both at home to Celta Vigo and away to Real Sociedad. After a full week of rest, there isn't really an excuse for the lack of urgency that saw Barcelona hit their heads against Málaga’s blue and white wall.
The lack of urgency was a result of many things. Málaga did a remarkable job shutting Barcelona's key players down. Neymar was isolated in his wing, constantly up against two or three defenders. The Brazilian tried to dance his way through, but was stopped more often than not, and made bad decisions with the ball. Below you can see the pattern. Málaga’s two defensive lines played closely together and moved as a unit to isolate Barcelona on the flanks.
Lionel Messi was double-teamed on the right-hand side, constantly marked by two or three men when he drifted towards the center, and completely isolated from Suárez who, in theory, should have helped the Argentine make his runs from the flank. It's fair to say that Málaga had really done their homework, and they had done it well. Barcelona failed to move the ball quickly enough to find one on ones or numerical superiorities.
When Messi and Neymar were more or less cut out of the game, life became a lot easier for Málaga. Suárez was offside nearly every time he touched the ball and couldn't do an awful lot individually. Rafinha and Iniesta were struggling to create anything, and their only offensive contributions were the runs made into the box, waiting for a delivery from out wide. The moves were predictable and barely forced Málaga to break a sweat.
Not to mention, Barcelona fired a total of 48 crosses into the box, something that is quite uncharacteristic for the side that isn’t known for its aerial abilities. Below there is an infographic of Barcelona’s crosses in the match [via Squawka]: Too few of them were successful, and one can ask why there were so many of them in the first place.
Perhaps the midfielders went back to playing a bit too wide. The balance in the middle of the field has been better in the recent weeks. In Saturday’s match, Rafinha only completed 30 passes in 63 minutes and often received the ball in wide positions [image below, via FourFourTwo].
For comparison, in the previous league match against Levante, Ivan Rakitic completed 59 passes in 62 minutes playing in the same position. There was a drastic change against Málaga, and it can be seen in the result.
Things didn’t look too good on the defensive end either. Barcelona’s pressing wasn’t as intense as it has been during the recent weeks, and Málaga found themselves attacking Barcelona’s bare defense line. If it wasn’t for Piqué’s display at the back, the visitors might have scored more.
The Barcelona midfield constantly surged into the box and left Busquets with an impossible amount of space to cover when the ball was lost. Below is an example: Iniesta and Rafinha are both in the box, Alba is high up the pitch, as is Alves on the other flank. After a simple math equation, we notice that only Busquets, Piqué and Mathieu are at the back and Málaga easily escapes to start a counter.
Barcelona gets men in the box, but if there’s no pressure on the opponent after losing the ball, it’s rather difficult to stop a dangerous counter attack from happening.
Conclusion
The match was most certainly a big step backward from what has been seen recently, and the following weeks will show us if it was a bump in the road or a sign of something more worrying. Either way, it can be said that a match like this was bound to come: Málaga shut down the key men in Barcelona’s system and showed that although the Catalans have been on the right track, the team is still very much coming together and can be vulnerable on a bad day.
The line between balance and disorganization seems thin, which is natural for a team with so many new pieces. Perhaps this serves as a good reminder of mortality ahead of the crucial Champions League tie against Manchester City.
Published with permission from weloba.