Match date: 30 September 2014

The two sides met in the Champions League two years ago, with Barcelona winning the knockout stage tie on away goals. Last year, Paris Saint Germain made it to the quarterfinals, as they did the year before, this time losing to Chelsea and again, it was on away goals.

During the last few years, Paris Saint Germain have been on the rise in terms of power in European football, while since Pep Guardiola’s last season, Barcelona’s dominance has slipped, highlighted by their 7-0 aggregate defeat against Bayern Munich in the semifinals after they went through against PSG two years ago.

Luis Enrique took over Barcelona in the summer and has done very well with the Spanish side. For this match, he selected Ter Stegan over Bravo, who has had most of the appearances in goal this season. He also selected Rakitic over Xavi, with the Barcelona captain close to setting the all-time Champions League appearance record.

Laurent Blanc’s side have also had a successful domestic league thus far, but with Ibrahimovic out of the side, Blanc selected a forward three of Cavani, Pastore, and Lucas, with Marquinhos coming in for Thiago Silva at centre back.

PSG’s Shape, Defending, and Pressing

Laurent Blanc’s side setup in something of a 4-3-3 and a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield. It was almost very Barcelona-esque during Guardiola’s time at the club when Messi was still considered more of a false 9. In this case, Javier Pastore acted as Messi, with the PSG man playing between Cavani, on the right, and Lucas, on the left. He would at times, however, drop into midfield and Cavani and Lucas would become much narrower and act as two central strikers working together rather than inside forwards. Pastore helped PSG overload midfield at times as Messi would rarely drop in to do defense work, Pastore’s work rate was much higher and gave PSG a 4v3 in midfield, which allowed them to play decent football when they had possession of the ball, which came sporadically throughout the match.

The midfield for PSG consisted of Verratti, Matuidi, and Motta, with Motta captaining the side in the absence of Thiago Silva. All three midfielders are more defensive in their mind set than creative, playmaker types. However, Matuidi and Verratti are both very dynamic. Matuidi breaks the lines with runs through the middle and drifts wide left, which draws opposition midfielders out and opens space up for his teammates, something he did very well last year when PSG beat Chelsea 3-1. Verratti has the ability to break opposition lines on the dribble, although his decision making on when to attempt such take-ons lets him and PSG down on occasion. Nonetheless, both these attributes were necessary to PSG’s attempts going forward, which will be talked about later, as well as pressing.

With Motta in between the two, the PSG midfield was able to take away Barcelona’s space to play. One of the problems that teams usually encounter against Barcelona is Messi’s positioning and his lack of true centre forward play. Does a centre back set with Messi and try to deny him the ball? Or do they allow Messi to drop into holes and receive the ball? For PSG, the answer was to simply defend in a low block, with the midfield line very close to the back four, limiting the space between the lines and allowing Messi to get on the ball, but very deep and in front of two defensive lines. Below, you can see a good example of the compactness of the midfield three and back four.

It took discipline to allow such a player like Messi or Neymar to pick up the ball and allow them time to find passes. David Luiz, in particular, was going to have to be defensive discipline. Often criticised during his time at Chelsea for making rash decisions to leave his back line, the Brasilian’s adventurous attitude and indiscipline was highlighted during Brasil’s 7-1 defeat to Germany in the World Cup. Against Barcelona, however, he was rarely drawn out and attempted just one tackle, which was inside PSG’s penalty area. On Messi’s goal, it wasn’t Luiz that showed a lack of such discipline, as van der Wiel and Thiago Motta were drawn out to Neymar, who played a quick pass to Messi, who then combined with Iniesta for the goal. But the pocket of space that Messi was able to take up prior to his goal became increasingly rare. As the game went on he had to drop much deeper to look for the ball. Below, you can see that he received the ball just three times in PSG’s area.

One of the most impressive parts of PSG’s performance, however, was their willingness to press Barcelona in the attacking half of the field. Early on in the match, Busquets was tackles by both Motta and Cavani, both of whom were able to get shots on goal as a result of their pressing. Teams that defend Barcelona in a low block, tend to quickly get into shape and allow Barcelona to have the ball. PSG certainly allowed Barcelona possession and did sit deep, but when they lost the ball in Barcelona’s defensive third, they attempted to win in back. If the first line of pressing was bypassed by a pass or dribble, the rest of the team would quickly drop into their shape. Below, you can see the high number of tackles from PSG in Barcelona’s half.

PSG Going Forward

While absorbing Barcelona’s possession, PSG looked to play on the counter. David Luiz and Marquinhos, in particular, would look to play long balls in hopes of starting quick breaks. The main outlet for such breaks looked to be Lucas Moura on the right side of PSG’s attack. This made sense as Lucas has good pace and Jordi Alba was caught up the field while supporting Barcelona attacks and so the space in behind was open to balls to be played into. The secondary outlet was Cavani, however, rather than look to play balls for Cavani to run onto, PSG would look to use Cavani as a target man and have him hold up the ball while the likes of Pastore and Matuidi moved their way up the field.

Moura’s runs up the right side of the pitch were supported well by Gregory van der Wiel throughout the match. The Dutch right back crossed the ball for Matuidi’s goal, after PSG had a good amount of possession leading up to the goal. While the likes of Cavani and Moura did their respective jobs well, it was the support from the likes of van der Wiel and Matuidi that made PSG dangerous going forward.

Barcelona Attack the Right

Barcelona only had two shots on target, which resulted in two goals. The first goal well worked. As mentioned above, Neymar’s movement was key, not only because he received the ball and turned to play Messi, but because he drew both Thiago Motta and van der Wiel out of position. Messi was able to find space with Motta drawn towards the ball and Iniesta was able to run into the penalty area into the space that van der Wiel vacated and when he received the ball, he drew Marquinhos over, which opened up the space for Messi again. Interestingly, however, much of their play came on the right rather than through Neymar and Iniesta on the left. Other than the two goals, Barcelona had good chances late on in the match through Iniesta, who should have hit the target with his left foot from about the edge of the penalty area, Munir, who hit the post, and Sandro, who hit his shot over.

For all of their possession, Barcelona were forced to play into the wide areas by PSG, with the PSG midfield and back four staying compact and crowding out the space in the middle of the pitch, as mentioned in the above sections. Barcelona’s main focus of attack went down the right, with Dani Alves seeing a lot of the ball, much more than either Pedro or his substitute Munir, both of whom were deployed on the right side of the attack. Alves, however, was very poor going forward. He got on the ball plenty and offered Barcelona a high outlet on the right side, as he has done throughout his time at the Spanish club, but he failed to deliver anything decent from those areas.

With much of the play going down the right side, Ivan Rakitic was forced to drift from a central area and support Alves as Pedro would consistently drift inside as Messi would drop. Rakitic didn’t look comfortable when he received the ball under pressure in the wide areas and wasn’t able to have as big of an influence on the match as Barcelona would have liked with much his time being spent out of the central area. Other than stifling Rakitic’s playmaking abilities, his wider positioning allowed that central space to open up and for Matuidi to burst into on transitions.

Conclusion

PSG were impressive in their discipline and their pressing and got three points, all while looking very comfortable without Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva.

Barcelona’s inability to defend set pieces was again highlighted as both David Luiz and Verratti scored as the result of a set piece. Had their set piece defending been much better, Barcelona could have very well come away with three points, despite having just two shots on goal, and if it were not for Marquinhos’ block on Alba’s shot, they would have come away with a point.

Luis Enrique recognised the poor performance of Dani Alves, taking him out late on in the match. Had the Brasilian full back been better with his final ball and decision making in the final third, Barcelona could have created more chances.