Video Analysis: Barcelona’s Build-up Play

Guardiola’s Barcelona and its tiki-taka way of play dominated Europe but soon enough, teams got around to figuring a way to make them ineffective. Successive Barcelona squads have had to deal with this and have started to incorporate certain tactical elements which are noticeable from where we sit. Luis Enrique’s Barcelona  have often had to vary these tactical elements and tailor them depending on the team they were facing. One such game was back in September when Barcelona played Athletic Bilbao. While Suarez was still prohibited from playing at this point, the other big name signing, Rakitic, was seen playing a crucial role in their build up play.

Barcelona employed a tactic which saw them have their strikers stick close to each other. This automatically created spaces out wide that could be exploited. Krzysztof Sierocki provides a video analysis of Barcelona’s build up play and how it was executed.

Barcelona build-up against Athletic from Krzysztof Sierocki on Vimeo.