Tactical Analysis: Valencia 1–4 Barcelona
Barca dominate with a win at Mestalla. Important 3 points to keep Barca in the top 4 for the third week running.
Xavi Hernandez and Jose Bordalas faced off against each other when Valencia hosted Barcelona at the Mestalla. In the end it was the Blaugrana who came out on top thanks to a hat-trick from Aubameyang and a goal by Frenkie De Jong.
The fulltime score was Valencia 1–4 Barcelona. As was expected during the game, Barcelona created the better chances with an xG of 2.47 compared to Valencia’s 0.77. The xG time map shows that Barcelona had fewer shots but of higher quality. They had 7 total shots compared to Valencia’s 11.
Xavi lined up his team in a 4–3–3. Barcelona dominated possession with 65% of the ball with a passing accuracy of 84%. It was a breathtaking opening 45 minutes for the visitors passing their way out of Valencia’s pressing structure and moving the ball around to find spaces.
Barcelona in defense looked to press high. Valencia, unable to play through Barcelona’s high press looked to play long through the center-backs. That limited Barcelona’s pressing in the final third and instead Barcelona settled for a mid-block press in a 4–4–2 formation.
Xavi instructed his players to keep a narrow and compact shape. That left room for Valencia to advance on the flanks. Bordalas instructed his team to play wide and then they would try to play the ball behind Barcelona’s full backs to stretch the field. Xavi countered this by shifting the entire block to the side the ball was played.
Valencia relied on quick switches of play when there were overloads on the sides. Once Valencia would switch the ball to the other side or change sides through a series of quick passes, Xavi countered this by instructing his full backs to press and Busquet’s, the defensive midfielder would fill the void by closing down the space. One of the free interiors would drop into the space vacated by Busquets.
Alternatively, another tactic to deal with Valencia’s threat from the flanks was to defend in a diamond or box of 4 in front of the backline with the wingers dropping deep and helping the full backs.
Barcelona in Possession
Valencia pressed high in a 4–4–2. Barcelona pinned their full backs with the wingers out wide. The midfield three moved up high as they do in most games. Xavi, for this match, instructed the team to build out from the back with a lopsided back-3.
Barcelona didn’t have much problem building out from the back as Valencia were only pressing with a front 2 and Barcelona had a numerical advantage. Dest drifted upwards to join the midfield, keeping the side overloaded. Ferran Torres stayed out wide on the other end to stretch the pitch.
Dest occasionally drifted inside to form a double pivot with Busquets, as done by Dani Alves in some of the previous matches. After the initial phases of build up was complete, Dest would make a diagonal run forward at pace and fill up the half space. Xavi wanted to overload the right side of the pitch while attacking because Barca had predetermined that this was Valencia’s weaker side.
Gavi played as a free role 10. This again is the famous box of 4 Xavi talks about. All of Barcelona’s goals came from the right side of the attack. What was the tactical reason behind targeting Valencia’s left side(Barca’s right)? It was because Bryan Gil was on the right and the tactical and data analysts at Barca had done their homework. He has only won 33% of tackles and 44% of duels. Barca knew they would get a man advantage on that side and took advantage of all the space available.
Valencia had their moments as well and had two goals disallowed by VAR. Gayà was offside when he attempted a cross that was fumbled by Marc-André ter Stegen for an own goal. The second one was when the ball went out of play at the start of a move that ended with a goal for Carlos Soler.
Valencia, chasing a 3 goal margin came out with intensity in the second half. They got an early goal on a header by Soler that gave them hope of a comeback. Pedri came off the bench in the 60th minute for De Jong and fired a screamer into the top corner to restore Barça’s three-goal lead with half an hour to go. The goal had a slight deflection off Aubameyang, so it was originally assigned to Pedri, but has since been changed to the Gabonese striker. This change ended up giving Aubameyang a starting debut hat-trick. This is the second time Aubameyang has had the honor of this feat. On his Bundesliga debut against FC Augsburg, he scored a memorable hat-trick including a goal from his first shot in the league.
The 32 year old also made European history as he becomes the first player in the 21st century to score hat-tricks in the Premier League, Ligue 1, Bundesliga and now LaLiga.
His first hat-trick in European football came while playing for Saint-Etienne in February 2012 against Lorient, where he netted three times just two months after signing permanently with the Ligue 1 club.
At Arsenal, Aubameyang had to wait over three years for a Premier League hat-trick. He also scored three times in the Europa League in May 2019 — ironically against Valencia.
