Barcelona’s Tactics, formation and 3 men defense

What is the formation that is being used by most of the teams now a days or even in the worldcup 2010? The answer is without a doubt 4-5-1 [4-3-3/4-2-3-1]. Which shows that teams are now playing with single striker. This brings a new question into mind. When we play 4-4-2 we need two center backs to track both the strikers, why do we need 2 center backs when there is only one striker?

2 Center backs vs 1 striker

When this situation comes, one of the defenders will track the striker and other will be waiting to cover the first defender. The left and right backs will track the opposite teams 2 forwards. Which suggests the one of the Central defenders is always free. Also the second defender can push into midfield or initiate forward runs. Now another question, Why do we need 4 at the back always?

do we need 4 at the back ?

when the teams play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, as we saw above, one of the central defenders is free. So why can’t we manage the defense with 3 men and push one extra men into midfield? This idea is not a new one and in the past many team tried it. Most recent is Mexican team at the world cup. And now Barcelona started improvising this formation.

Barcelona’s Formation [vs Rubin]

OK. Here i marked defenders[yellow] Alves[2], Pique[3],Puyol[5], Maxwell[19] and Midfield[orange] Xavi[6],Mascherano[14],Busquets[16] and Forwards[Pink] Villa[7], Iniesta[8],Pedro[17], as per the UEFA formation diagram.

The actual formation when they played was different. Both the left and right backs pushed forward. Mascherano moved to a position in between Pique and Puyol.

Now this is 3-4-3 formation. The forwards are very narrow, both Villa and Pedro likes cut in and attack.. this allows the left back and right backs who already pushed higher up the pitch to drive further up the pitch.

In general, the teams playing against Barcelona tends to sit deep and defend. When Barca has the wide defenders pushing forward and giving them the extra width to attack, that stretches the defense of the opposition. This is very much possible because all the men that Barca uses as wide players [pedro, messi, villa] likes to cut inside and play. This also makes the forward 3 of the Barca very narrow. The extra central defender will cover the space infront of the goal while the other two takes relatively wide positions to cover the space left by the full backs.

Barca played the same formation/tactics against Atletico Madrid. In this match they used Busquets as the extra central defender with Xavi and Iniesta in front of them covering the midfield.

Will this works always?

This will work every time the opposite team sits deep or just trying to defend. In case your opponent choose 4-4-2 to play against this 3-4-3 formation [like Atletico Madrid] you are leaving one of the central defenders free at all the time by deploying both strikers higher up the pitch. The best formation will be 4-4-2 with second striker playing behind the main striker or a false nine role. Another thing that can work against 3-4-3 is long diagonal balls to the strikers.

Different version of this approach by MUFC

Sir Alex used this formation in their game against Everton. He placed O’shea just in front of the central defenders. Both the full back for forwarded in that match. It all worked well for united but they didn’t defend well in the last few minutes of the match when everron took corners, so not much was written about this formation or use of the extra man in the central defense.