Despite the disappointment of watching title rivals Real Madrid snatch a last gasp victory against Villarreal on Sunday, Barcelona’s title challenge remains ongoing as Luis Enrique toys with two systems.
Points are needed at this stage of the season and to a degree style goes out of the window with Los Blancos still very much in the driving seat, having a game in hand still to play.
For that reason the Asturian coach is looking to try and surprise upcoming opponents with changes and tweaks that haven’t been used by Los Cules before this term.
Barcelona elected to change tact and utilise these changes on Wednesday evening ahead of the visit of Sporting Gijon, perhaps with an eye on the Paris Saint-Germain return leg.
Luis Enrique elected to use a 3-4-3 formation when Barcelona are attacking yet the structure reverts to a more stable and familiar 4-3-3 when defending.
When on the back foot holding-midfielder Sergio Busquets drops back into defence to make it a flat back four.
Javier Mascherano has been positioned at right-back since the start of the match and has impressed in the role having been key to the Blaugrana’s second goal.
This isn’t an alien system with Jorge Jesus’ Benfica team of 2014 having used its fluidity to great effect a number of years ago with Ljubomir Fejsa having been entrusted with dropping into defence.
It allows a team to orchestrate more control over a match in both phases of play and with Busquets’ intelligence up there with the best in world football, it is little wonder the tweak is working to this point.
marca.com
