Auditioning Thiago Motta’s 2-7-2 on FC Barcelona.

Inside FC Barcelona, the large scale of talent, the squad can get molded into any formation they’re handed.

When Thiago Motta coached the PSG U-19, he came up with a system of 2-7-2 for his side. He implemented his principles from Johan Cryuff. Quoting, “In my team, my goalkeeper is the first attacker, and the striker is the last defender.” We look Inside FC Barcelona’s squad to implement his strategy and see how the club looks in the end.

Motta wanted an attacking ingredient in his approach. And for this reason, he came up with the 2-7-2 formation where the goalkeeper is a part of the midfield. This keeps 2 players in the wide zone, and 7 players in the central area.

This helps FC Barcelona because they already have a sweeper-keeper in Marc Andre Ter Stegen, who recorded 2 assists this season and has an excellent passing ratio.

This is merely a fantasy post on how Barcelona could line up if Setien were to imply this ideology.

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Formation:

The Goalie is assumed to move forward.

This is the basic formation Motta has come up with. If we take a look at it horizontally, we can spot 2 wide players on either side and 7 in the midfield. All-in-all 2-7-2 name was made up.

Blending FC Barcelona

The team is built around the principles of Tiki-Taka what Barcelona are attempting to these days.

In the Defensive positions, we picked Samuel Umtiti, Clement Lenglet and Sergio Busquets due to the fact that they have a better passing ratio than any other defenders in Barcelona. Pique is close, but not as much.

Samuel Umtiti: The Frenchman attempted 718 passes out, of which 669 were successful, bringing him a total of 93.2% pass completion rate.

Clement Lenglet: The former Sevilla man has attempted 1370 passes and completed 1263 passes, taking him to a pass completion rate of 92.2%.

Sergio Busquets: The Spaniard completed 1683 passes out of 1875 and recorded a total of 89.8% pass completion rate.

Midfield & The Attack:

From the midfield to the attack, the players illustrated in the picture were selected due to the Tiki-Taka system again.

However, it was challenging to pick between Sergi Roberto & Nelson Semedo because Semedo is an overall better athlete, but not a player that fits the profile of a quick-pass system.

The next grueling decision was the inclusion of Luis Suarez or Antoine Griezmann. However, we put them both anyways because Suarez didn’t have enough minutes to prove this season.

Barcelona are thought to be signing Neymar this summer, and it is more than likely that the Brazillian will be the automatic first choice over the young French Ousmane Dembele.

Frenkie de Jong and Arthur have been one of the most composed players of Barcelona this season. They, without a doubt, would retain their positions with some tedious competition from Coutinho, Trincao, and maybe somewhat Rakitic.

Here is a table of the pass completion rate of the above mentioned players.

Name Passes Attempted Passes Successful. Pass Completion Rate. Frenkie de Jong 1534 1419 92.5% Arthur Melo 842 761 90.4 Lionel Messi 1307 1046 80.0% Antoine Griezmann 946 765 80.9% Luis Suarez 449 337 75.1% Ousmane Dembele 261 201 77% Sergi Roberto 1508 1378 91.4% Jordi Alba 1310 1134 86.6%



All stats taken from: https://fbref.com/en/squads/206d90db/Barcelona

Summary:

It is crystal clear that Setien would never gamble such a formation at the risk of extreme offense. The plan was always to play a simple-conserved variant of football using the Blaugrana philosophy.

On the contrary, Thiago Motta has come up with a new genre of attacking football for the future. With the increased amount of sweeper-keepers being developed, one could actually imagine this is the future of football.

Let us know what you think about Barcelona being lined up in this formation of extreme pressure and offense.