Barca vs Cadiz: Did Barca improve after Getafe?
Bordalas ball sent Barca twitter into despair last week. Did Xavi adapt his game to face Cadiz? Watch our match review video along with our statistical breakdown
On Sunday, Barca played Cadiz in the first home game of the season. After peak Bordalas ball on match day 1 had sent majority of Barca fan-verse into collective meltdown, the game against Cadiz naturally had a lot of interest among fans and neutrals alike,
The popular narrative was that last season’s champions were no longer good enough and Xavi was not the right coach to get the best out of the team.
Happens with Barca entorno. We ourselves were critical.
But football is not played on twitter, and the players playing on the pitch have a couple of better ideas than what we think we know from behind our keyboards.
So let’s look at the data to see, what actually happened.
Formation:
Xavi went with a 3-4-2-1 formation, using FDJ as a left centre back to make those deep runs. Need to break through a deep block?
Add another midfielder and covert one to CB!
Pedri stayed high, but Xavi made a subtle change by moving him to the left, so that he would be closer to Gundogan and at the receiving end of those FDJ deep runs in the left channel.
Raphinha was replaced by 16 year old Lamine Yamal who got his starting debut from Xavi and and who reminded us of ....well a better Raphinha.
Passmaps:
Classic Xavi overload to isolate pass map where he created numerical superiority on the left of the pitch, to isolate young Lamine Yamal, who would have space to take on the winger and make those runs behind the box to feed in those cutbacks and crosses.
Key stats comparison:
With a 63% Gegenpressing Index, 75% possession, 44 touches in the Cadiz box and 80% of field tilt, suffice to say, Barca played a lot of ball, recovered possession, and were more successful in creating chances through FDJ, Kounde, Gundo, Pedri, Lamine and later Fati/ Ferra.
The number of touches in the box is telling, because it was a definite improvement from the snooze fest at Getafe. Xavi made tweaks to inject some pace and help the team in finding ways to better exploit space while countering Cadiz who were happy to defend with five people for most of the game.
xG:
xG almost doubled for the Cadiz game and on another day with better shooting boots and a lesser goalkeeper in Ledesma (who was phenomenal), Barca could have easily scored four or five goals.
But the thing about football is that while xG reads good, what matters is G.
Or goals.
Barca did score two at the very end, but it was a difficult affair to find that break over 80 minutes of frustrating football. While they improved, they weren’t anywhere close to clinical in their execution.
Expected threat timeline:
The expected threat timeline also corroborated what the eye saw. Barca were quick to regain possession and while ball circulation wasn’t exactly zippy, with Gundogan and Pedri seeing more touches the game was definitely faster.
The thing that was missing was finishing. But one can’t blame Xavi alone for that.
Across every statistical parameter Barca had better numbers against Cadiz than against Getafe. The defence and midfield improved the link-up play appreciably. Gavi connected the interiors in Pedri and Gundogan to the outward threat from Lamine on the wings who demonstrated his high ceiling adeptly on the pitch.
None of this was happenstance.
Gundogan had a lot more active role in the game linking up with Pedri and when Cadiz began to tire, moved up the pitch by making subtle runs into the penalty box into those half spaces.
But what was the exact improvement in any?
Comparison of shots
Blue: versus Getafe/ Red: versus Cadiz
Comparison of xG
Blue: versus Getafe/ Red: versus Cadiz
Comparison of xThreat
Blue: versus Getafe/ Red: versus Cadiz
Across every attacking parameter the team improved noticeably. Link up was better and Gundogan and Pedri were much more effective. Coupled with that, Kounde and FDJ had a very good game, helping to drag defenders out of position, opening up play and releasing the Barca attacking mids and misfiring forwards into the box.
None of this was due to luck or chance.
Changing the formation, bringing Pedri and Gundogan closer and using them as interiors, using Frenkie in the “John Stone’s” left centre back position - all pointed to the fact that Xavi had thought about how to counter Cadiz with learnings from Getafe.
Barca was just an effective striker short.
It was the second game of the season and playing Getafe (away) and Cadiz (home) on the first two match days of the season is a nervy affair for most elite teams. That Barca got four points out it, is good enough for us to feel a whole lot better about ourselves and have some more confidence.
Even with Messi we were finding it hard to unlock these blocks.
Xavi is a new coach and while there can be debate on his tactics at times, there is no doubt he is trying the right things. Once these attempts start converting better, the narrative round Xavi and Barca will change.
We got the 3 points. We move forward.
The season as it unfolds will tell us whether Xavi grows as a coach and is the right person to lead the project.
Join us on Offside , our weekly football podcast where in today’s episode we review and analyse the game between Barca and Cadiz.
You can watch it below