Barcelona’s famously
high line was a key topic of discussion after their Champions
League draw with Club Brugge, but are things as bad as they
appear?
A year is a long time in football.
It was around this time in 2024 when talk of Barcelona’s
offside trap and their high line was all the rage. It was so
aggressive, so effective, that it almost made Hansi Flick’s team
unique.
The attention reached its zenith during and after Barcelona’s
astonishing 4-0 Clásico win over Real Madrid at the Santiago
Bernabeu on 26 October.
That was Barça’s joint-biggest La Liga win away
to Real
Madrid in the 21st century; Lamine
Yamal became the youngest goalscorer in the fixture’s history
(17 years, 105 days); Flick became the first men’s manager to win
their debut Clásico by four or more goals (any competition) since
Jorge Valdano in 1995; and defeat prevented Madrid equalling the
all-time La Liga record for games unbeaten, as set by Barcelona in
2018 (43 matches).
And yet, strangely enough, offsides dominated the post-match
discourse, with Kylian Mbappé enduring an immensely frustrating
first La Liga Clásico.
He was caught offside eight times over the course of the match,
which at the time was the most by any player in a single match
across the top five European leagues since Sergio Pellissier (10
for Chievo vs Roma) in December 2010.
Six of those occurred in the first half, with Mbappé accounting
for 75% of the offsides (6/8) against Madrid before the break. The
eight offsides given against Carlo Ancelotti’s men was the club’s
joint most on record (since 2003-04) in the first half of a La Liga
match.
Over the full game, Madrid’s 12 offsides was their most in a
league game since March 2013 (also 12 vs Celta Vigo) and the
most by either them or Barcelona in a Clásico going as far back as
at least 2003-04.
Not only was Barcelona’s 12 offsides provoked in that game
incredibly high, their per-game average for the season at that
point (7.0) was also streets ahead of anyone else in the top five
leagues. In fact, after that Clásico, Barça’s 77 offsides provoked
for the season was more than the combined total (70) of the clubs
with the second and third most in that metric.
It should be noted that Barcelona didn’t manage to maintain that
level for the whole season. That doesn’t necessarily mean they
stopped playing a high line; it could have been impacted by their
opposition’s tactics or personnel issues. Nevertheless, their 4.8
offsides provoked per game was still almost 10% higher than any
other team had managed over a full season since VAR was introduced
in any of the top five leagues (2017-18). And in terms of total,
their lead over everyone else was stark, as shown below.
They won La Liga as part of a domestic treble in 2024-25, and
there’s no doubt their high line played a role in that.
But, fast forward to the present day and the discourse is rather
different, especially in light of Wednesday’s 3-3 UEFA Champions
League draw at Club Brugge, a team they’d have been expected to
beat comfortably.
You could argue that all three of the goals Barcelona conceded
in Belgium were at least partly caused by their high line, though
there was particular focus on Brugge’s first.
Barcelona’s backline was slow to react to Carlos Forbs’ run in
behind down the right flank, with Jules Koundé playing the winger
onside. He galloped clear and laid the ball on a plate for
Nicolò Tresoldi in the box.
“I think when you see their first goal, last season, for me,
that’s 100% offside. This season, we struggle a little bit; we do
not have the confidence,” Flick said afterwards. “When there is no
intensity, you have no chance in the Champions League. Everyone is
able to play fast, transition fast and Brugge did it really well,
as we expected.”
Forbs scored Brugge’s two other goals and each of them saw him
bursting clear of Barça’s backline, with the second a rapid
counter-attack that caught Barcelona with too many men forward.
But this is by no means the first game this season in which
Barcelona’s high line has come under scrutiny.
During the shock 4-1 defeat at a mediocre Sevilla (who’ve lost
three on the spin since) in early October, three of the hosts’
goals came via quick, direct attacks against Barcelona’s high
defence.
And just last weekend, Elche’s Rafa Mír ran all the way from the
halfway line before slotting home after breaking Barcelona’s
offside trap.
Also, against Levante in August, Iván Romero’s brilliant opener
came with the Blaugrana backpedalling towards their own goal,
too.
But it’s not that Barcelona still haven’t been effective at
times when it comes to catching opposition offside. They’ve
provoked more offsides than any other team in Europe’s top five
leagues this term, both in terms of total (54) and per-game average
(4.91).
Actually, they are catching opponents offside more times per
game on average in La Liga than they did over the full 2024-25
season – the difference is, their 4.9 offsides provoked per game
this season is quite a drop-off from where it was about this time
last year (7.0), which was a staggering anomaly.
There’s no question the high line is what teams are trying to
exploit when they play Barcelona, though.
But how high do Barcelona defend?
Well, on average Barcelona’s offsides provoked occur 31.6m from
their own goalline in the league this term, which is slightly
closer to goal than the 33.8m from 2024-25. That was the highest
average of all La Liga teams last season by 2m; this campaign they
trail Real Madrid (34.6m) and Atlético Madrid (32.6m) but have
provoked 46 and 44 more offsides respectively than those two
teams.
There’s quite a big difference between Barcelona’s numbers in La
Liga and the Champions League, in which their offsides provoked
have occurred just 22.2m metres from their own goalline on average.
However, it must be noted that they’ve only played four games in
that competition, so the average is warped by playing against
Newcastle and PSG (five of their seven offsides provoked occurred
in those two games), who would have offered a different threat
entirely to Olympiakos and Brugge, not forgetting the latter’s
effectiveness on Wednesday.
Of course, the most important thing is whether any of this is
leading to more goals or not.
Well, in the Champions League, they’ve already conceded twice
from direct attacks (open-play sequences starting just inside the
team’s own half that have at least 50% of movement towards the
opposition’s goal and end in a shot or a touch in the opposition’s
box) compared to just one in 14 games last term. In La Liga, their
average of 0.18 direct-attack goals conceded is slightly less than
the 0.21 they recorded last term, though it’s still the
third-highest such figure in the Spanish top flight.
Furthermore, Barcelona’s troubles against quick transitions is
further highlighted by looking at fast breaks (fast counter-attacks
starting in the team’s own half with the opposition’s defence at
least partly unsorted). This season in 11 La Liga matches, they are
facing 1.36 shots per game from fast breaks, up from 1.05 in
2024-25, and they’re letting in 0.36 goals per game from such
situations, compared to 0.21 last term.
In short, if you’ve watched Barcelona this season and felt they
look more susceptible to transitions and counters than in 2024-25,
the numbers would seem to back you up.
Pinpointing one exact cause is a fool’s errand, but there are a
few potential explanations.
Firstly, it cannot be ignored that Iñigo Martínez was allowed to
depart in the summer. He was the most experienced of Barcelona’s
centre-backs and a key figure for much of last season.
“For [Flick], I think I was a key piece, and when I left, the
puzzle broke a little,” he told COPE last month, having
accepted “an unmissable offer” from Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia.
The other fact we cannot brush over is that Barcelona’s team has
been quite disrupted this season due to injuries, both in midfield
and the frontline. Raphinha,
for instance, played a vital part in ensuring Flick’s high press
was effective, but he’s played seven of a possible 15 games this
term across the league and Champions League. Robert Lewandowski and Yamal have each missed at least four
games as well.
Disruption to such a well-drilled front three is bound to have a
knock-on effect further back, so potentially impacting the
midfield, who then aren’t as much of a protective barrier for the
high line, which is more exposed.
Actually, Flick pointed to that most specifically after
Wednesday’s draw, saying: “In midfield, we don’t have the pressure
on the ball and we don’t win the duels, so it’s not easy for our
last line to defend these fast players. We have to work on that,
analyse everything. We will speak with the players.”
But don’t expect Flick to suddenly turn his back on his
principles.
“We could do it like this, play a low block and defend in the
first third, or we go on our way, our philosophy, how we want to do
it and do things much better,” he continued. “We can speak about
changing everything, but I am not the coach for this. We want to
play to our DNA; we don’t want a low block and transitions to win
1-0, but [I recognise] 3-3 is not the best result for us.
“At the moment, sometimes, we get it wrong, [but] this is not
about the philosophy.”
Flick is adamant the problem is internal rather than down to
teams outfoxing him and his system. Maybe he’s right, though
suddenly his insistence around this time last year that such an
approach “isn’t risky” appears somewhat misplaced.
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