How Hansi Flick’s Barcelona laid the perfect trap to turn Kylian Mbappe’s Clasico debut into a nightmare

Mbappe, the jewel successful the Madrid crown, fluffed his lines 8 times alone. (Reuters)

The tactic—chiselled to perfection—has defined the epoch of Hansi Flick. Teams person averaged 6.5 offsides per La Liga crippled this play against him, the champion successful Europe and doubly much than the champion of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona (3.74 successful 2010). He has fused German cutting-edge with Catalan tactical purism. He idolises Johan Cruyff, counts his predecessor Xavi arsenic his friend, but maintains the German ideals of tactical flexibility and directness. From the archetypal crippled of the season, Barcelona person maintained a dangerously precocious defence line, with the backline and cardinal midfielder slotting themselves into what astir resembles a consecutive line, precocious up the pitch.

The full-backs would beryllium somewhat much guardant than the centre-backs: 17-year-old Curbarsi and Martinez, who is doubly his age. The midfield enactment is astir breathing connected them, truthful overmuch truthful that they shrink the tract to fractional its size. They dispersed retired similar a quality concatenation to chopped retired the holes. So did Pep, who besides laid clever offside snares, but ne'er truthful systematic oregon rigorous similar Flick’s acceptable up. The players had to beryllium supremely acceptable and young. Six of his starting eleven were under-21s. Fitness and subject had been emphasised since the archetypal day. Slower players similar Ilkay Gundogan were asked to determination on.

For this extremist offside trap to succeed, defenders request flawless coordination. Timing is everything. Defenders indispensable measurement up together, creating a consecutive enactment that pushes attackers offside. Cubarsi and Martinez person settled into a brace that could pass telepathically. But immoderate hesitation oregon misstep tin let the hostile to enactment onside and endanger the goal. A fewer times, they reacted precocious and astir paid the price, saved by Madrid’s sloppy finishing. Even the VAR-chalked disconnected extremity could beryllium viewed successful 2 ways — clever defending oregon reckless reaction.

Holding signifier is primary. In lawsuit idiosyncratic advances with the ball, different promptly occupies the space. Unlike the Pep era, the defenders are much successful your eyes. Rub your eyes too—they apical the illustration successful completing much tackles successful the last 3rd of the transportation (33). The connection itself was considered disfigured during Guardiola’s time.

Fundamental to the ploy’s occurrence is the connection of the defenders, ensuring everyone moves astatine the aforesaid time. But shot is nary choreographed dance. They err too—Barcelona person leaked 10 goals successful 11 games, a fig neither awesome nor shameful.

On respective instances connected Saturday, it looked arsenic though Mbappe was mistiming his run. He was, but not due to the fact that helium ran excessively early, but the defenders didn’t fluff their ain lines. High antiaircraft lines entice forwards to get disconnected the blocks excessively early. The abstraction down lights them up. A well-weighted needle-eyed walk is what they necessitate to tee disconnected into acres of space. And Mbappe has unmatched gait to burn. Here, his biggest spot was a obstruction too. He mightiness person been over-eager. It was his expected statement-making game. His archetypal El Clasico astatine home. Madrid dominated the archetypal half, but they were the astir frustrated.

In the 2nd half, they switched done the gears and chopped the Madrid backline to ribbons. Barcelona’s twinkle-toed forwards wove mysterious patterns astir the men successful achromatic and struck 4 delightful goals. The psyche of their crippled is their forward-play, tricksy forwards buzzing backmost and forth. But title-winning seasons are founded connected robust defences.

Flick’s is not the lone proponent of laying offside nets, though the astir businesslike one. Aston Villa’s Unai Emery excessively spins daring offside webs. Last season, they lured an mean of 4.2 offsides a game. It’s nary coincidence that the strategy has go much prevalent aft the instauration of VAR, which has sided with defenders successful lawsuit of marginal offside calls.

Like each strategies, an antidote would beryllium recovered out. And an antidote to the antidote too. But what is magnificent is that Flick has turned a ragged, underperforming footballing elephantine into a thrilling, winning proposition. Vanquishing some Bayern and Madrid successful 4 days time, they are retracing their paths to mislaid glory.