Missed the last two due to the unfortunate match time and a busy tuesday night. But back again, and its a good match, was one of the best this season for sure (minus the wasted chances at building a solid lead).

Looking at the starting lineup, this is likely the best version of this team right now. Maybe Balde back in on the left and Cancelo on the right, with Christensen/Araujo/Kounde in the middle. But Balde has not been in form for a while now, so Cancelo is rightfully prefered right now on the left.

I have said it multiple times before but I think Kounde as a RB works better than Araujo does offensively. If there is a big threat (Vinicius for example), then sure you can put Araujo there to stiffle it, but Kounde just brings that little bit more offensively.

This was one of Gundo’s best matches so far in a Barcelona shirt. He was involved, he was dictating the play, he was bossing the midfield together with Frenkie. He played a lot more from deep and I have been begging for him to do this since basically his first match lol. He got a bit sloppy towards the end, might be because he was getting tired out there, but his first half was excellent.

Which brings me to Frenkie, he is absolutely world class. He elevates every single other midfielder and makes them better. He even made Romeu playable at first by covering his weaknesses. (Up until the opponents realized he is slow and thus a vulnerable point of pressure. Now they legit just rush him whenever he plays and his flaws are being abused out there so he won’t likely see many minutes).

He is always available to give the ball when you are under pressure and he can make up for mistakes with his positioning. He is legit everywhere! He is the most important player in the team and crucial to making Xavi’s system tick.

Cancelo on left brings a threat on the wings with his penetration dribbling, and his crosses are a lot better than Balde’s. Balde has been lacking in a final product for a while now and his dribble penetration has also slowed down (more game time means more time spend analysing his moves by opponents in preparation. He seems to be a bit predictable out there and he likely needs some time to adjust and increase his bag of tricks.)

Raphinha is as industrious as ever, and while he isn’t beating his man as reliably as a Yamal does, he connects better with the team and doesn’t make many selfish decisions (which Yamal has been getting prone to do lately. He is young though so his decision making will improve.)

Lewa… I dont know man, maybe its the age catching up to him. He has just been rough this season. He connected a bit better and his touch atleast looked somewhat reliable (in comparison to his amateurish first touch in previous games), but he fluffed at chances quite a bit.

Its looking good that despite Pedri not even being anywhere near his best in my opinion, he looked a lot better than he has been since his return from injury. Imagine if he gets it going again, he already showed glimpses of his ability today.

Tactically I think the strategy was kill their build up play, win the ball high and slow it down. Usually you see in high press that when the pressing team wins the ball they immediately try to hit them back with a decisive pass, but it looked deliberate that whenever Barcelona won the ball back they chose to retain possession and patiently look for a opening instead. This lowers the tempo of the game, which I think better suited Barcelona. They had good movement, immediately highlighting Frenkie Pedri and Gundo here for this part. They poked and prodded at that defence untill they found either a opening or Raphinha/Felix got enough space to do their own thing. Lots of short,quick combinations between them to pull midfielders/defenders out of position.

I think the subs Simeone did helped a lot in countering the game plan laid out by Xavi today, and Xavi didn’t really react. He subbed out for fresher legs but same gameplan. I think he was just trying to hold on to the 1-0, let Atleti push up more and then abuse the space left behind by Atleti. (This should have led to the 2-0 a lot earlier, but the biggest example of this is the Fermin/Yamal breakout late in the game that got snuffed with a potential penalty shout.)

Overall though I am quite happy with this match and the way Barcelona played. Yes they had to suffer a bit in the second half, but they should have arguably burried this match in the first half atleast 3-0. The defence withstood the second half test, which was badly needed with how shaky the defence has been this season. I think its a turning point going forward, barring injuries.

I expected some changes to the system by Xavi, interesting strikerless formation though.