Breaching Barca

3 years ago Barcelona were without a doubt the best team on the planet both defensively and offensively, however, especially since the departure of Guardiola, opposition teams seem more able to compete with them.

The 2010/11 season was arguably one of the most successful seasons, winning everything available to them with the exception of the Copa Del Ray which was lost in a 1-0 clash with rivals Real Madrid. Barca won the La Liga title for the third consecutive season with a mighty 96 points and claimed their fourth European cup with a 3-1 win over Manchester United at Wembley in the Champions League final. In this season only 2 of their 38 games resulted in defeat and conceding only 21 goals throughout the entire season.

The 2011/12 season was Guardiola’s final season at the club and was one that resulted in no trophies being added to the Barcelona trophy cabinet. The main reason I believe this to be is that their water tight defence had seemed to have sprung a leak, all be it not a very big one though it was enough to surrender the title to Real Madrid that season. Barca won 28 out of their 38 games, and being held to high 7 draws, and 29 goals, 8 higher than the previous season. In 2012 captain Carles Puyol was hit with a recurring knee injury which saw him miss a huge proportion of Barca’s league and European campaign which Barca were unsuccessful in both. With no real centre back cover available midfielder’s Busquets and Mascherano were given the responsibility to fill in after which Barca became even more vulnerable which shows when teams were able to muster an average of 7.2 shots per game against them, compared to just the 7 the season before.

This figure continued to rise, with so far this season oppositions averaging 8.8 shots per game against them. Though it may seem Barca have the league comfortably in their grasp it appears to be through lack of serious competition rather than solid performances across the pitch. So far this season Barca have conceded 33 goals, 4 more than last season with 7 games still to go including Bayern Munich (2 legs), Bilbao, Athletico Madrid and Malaga who are all capable of taking advantage of any defensive weaknesses.

This is a dangerous period for Barca with their continuing dip in form coming ahead of their most important games, and bigger teams showing that positive results can be achieved against the Spanish giants. Over the last 20 games Barca have won 10, were held in 6 and defeated in 4. Real Madrid (twice), AC Milan and Real Sociedad all claimed victories, whilst PSG run them close in the Champions League quarter final and probably deserved to go through and as a result I wouldn’t put any money on Barca claiming their fifth European cup this season.

By Ryan Pantrey

Sources:

@BarcaStat, Wikipedia and whoscored.com.