FC Barcelona Femení under Jonatan Giráldez (so far)
30-year-old Jonatan Giráldez took over as FC Barcelona Femení head coach this summer after spending the past two and a half seasons as the assistant coach to his predecessor Lluís Cortés.
Last season, the dominant Barça team won the treble, including the league, domestic cup and the cherry on the cake, their first-ever Champions League.
They won 33 of their 34 league games and scored an incredible 167 times (an average of 4,9 per game) while only conceding 15 times. In the Champions League final, they comfortably beat Chelsea 4–0 after taking a three-goal lead in the opening 20 minutes.
This season, with Giráldez in charge, they have started in the same fashion as last season with 12 wins from 12 in the league. In the league, they’ve scored 72 goals and they’ve only conceded three.
They are also unbeaten in the Champions League with 4 wins from 4 against Arsenal (4–1), HB Køge (2–0) and twice against Hoffenheim (4–0 and 5–0).
“We have the tools to keep winning. That’s our mentality. It is very important to keep this idea developing. We have a nice challenge, which is to win again and that’s the intention.”
— Jonatan Giráldez to Barcelona’s website.
I’ve watched most of their games this season (unfortunately some of their away games aren’t televised at all) and in this article, I’m going to do my best to analyze what makes them so dominant and explain why they’re probably my favourite team to watch this season.
I’m going to include something from all phases of open play, but I’m mainly going to focus on their attacking, which I find particularly interesting.
In possession
Build-up
Barça spend a lot of the time in their games in possession of the ball in the opponents half. The few times per game that they build the play from their goalkeeper or penalty box they use that situation to attract the opponent, play past them and attack the spaces given to them in the attacking half.
Giráldez sets up his team a little bit differently depending on which players are playing. He’s no stranger to rotating his side and that’s easily understandable given that he has a squad full of superstars and that they are competing on all fronts.
But one objective that the team always want to achieve in the build-up phase is to overload the centre by rotating from their initial 4–3–3 shape to a midfield of 4.
One way they do that is by moving their left winger inside. This rotation usually happens when Mariona Caldentey or Lieke Martens plays in that position as they’re both really good on the ball in central positions.
In some games, Barça played with either Jennifer Hermoso or Clàudia Pina in a false 9 position, both excellent on the ball. In these games, the false 9 dropped into midfield while the two wingers pinned the defensive line.
Their main goal in the build-up phase is to find a free player in midfield who can turn and start attacking the spaces available in the opposition’s half.
A lot of times the opponents can’t find a good answer to Barça’s rotation that creates this overload of the centre and therefore the player on the ball can find a completely free player in midfield.
But when the midfielders are marked and therefore not free, Barça have some ‘tricks’ to lose their markers and create free players.
Often one of their attacking midfielders or inside winger drops to receive the ball. The other Barça players close to the ball use the time when the ball is travelling (and their markers shift focus from the player to the ball) to lose their marker with a quick and sudden change of positioning. The player who receives the ball can then directly pass it to a player who lost her marker.
In the clip below, defensive midfielder Patri loses her marker while the ball is travelling and receives the ball back from Mariona. While the ball is on the way to Patri left-back Fridolina Rolfö loses her marker and can receive in a huge space, with good conditions to create something in the attacking half.
One big advantage of dropping an attacking midfielder or inside winger is that they often attract the opponent midfielders towards the ball and consequently a big space is created behind the opposition midfield that they can exploit.
They often exploit this space created behind the opposition midfield by rotating and arriving in this space with another player, for example, their defensive midfielder.
A longer pass to one of the wingers is an interesting way that Barcelona bypass a high press. If the opponent doesn’t react quickly enough, a midfielder could receive the ball from the winger and attack the opposition half. But if the opponents react quickly and retreat the midfielders can make themselves available for a pass a bit further down the pitch since it’s hard for the opponents to retreat and still keep their eyes on the Barcelona players.
That’s exactly what happens in the clip below from when Barcelona played away against Hoffenheim. This combination enables them to move up the pitch, although not past the opponent.
But they can do that a couple of seconds later when centre-back Paredes plays a short pass to the closest midfielder Alexia Putellas. An opponent midfielder is “tricked” into pressing Alexia and leaves space behind her for attacking midfielder Aitana Bonmatí to exploit.
This is what I like to call a “tic-tac” combination.
The tic-tac is what I call a combination that involves a short pass followed by a one-touch pass that finds a player between the lines.
It could, for example, be a pass to a holding midfielder that attracts the opponent midfielder to the ball, leaving space behind for a one-touch pass towards an attacking midfielder.
It has a lot of similarities with the up-back combination, but the tic-tac is usually diagonal or side passes while the up-back obviously includes more vertical passes.
The tic-tac is especially effective when a player is blocking the passing lane to a player between the lines, or to attract an opponent to press and leave space behind them like in the last clip.
Of course, not all of Barcelona’s build-up sequences are down the middle of the pitch. In this phase of the game, both full-backs are positioned out wide to stretch the opponent. By doing this, they create space for the midfield but it also makes them options for passes around the opposition team’s structure.
One thing that the Barça players are fantastic at is having the optimal body positioning while receiving the ball to make sure that they don’t limit their options with the ball. This allows them to always be able to play in multiple directions instead of letting the opponents force them to one side or direction.
Pay attention to the first touch of the centre-back (on the left) Mapi León in the next clip. By having the optimal body positioning for the situation, she keeps her options open and can dribble past her opponent.
This quality helps Barça to switch sides in the build-up until they find a free player who can progress the ball to the attacking half. It is especially helpful when other teams are trying to press them towards one side while leaving players on the other side open.
Middle third
Barcelona’s structure in possession while in the middle third creates overloads in the centre of the pitch and also stretches the opponent with one player wide on each flank.
As they have the ball in the middle third, they usually position themselves in what resembles a 3–box-3.
Clearly, the main objective in this phase is to play past the opponent block, either to immediately create a goal-scoring opportunity or to advance to the final third.
Often, they do this with line-breaking passes to players between the lines. They always occupy these spaces with multiple players and their fluid movement makes it hard for the opponents to close down this space or mark the Barça players.
In the clip below, attacking midfielder Aitana drops from her initial position between the lines down towards the ball. By doing this, she attracts pressure from the closest opponent who makes the space behind her bigger. Mariona then moves all the way over from her (inside) left-wing position to arrive in that space with great timing to receive the ball and attack the defensive line.
The Barcelona players are incredible at manipulating the positioning of the opponents and at exploiting the space that’s created.
Below is another example of that when Alexia realizes that the opponent’s defensive midfielder is marking her, so she drops and drags the opponent with her. Mariona arrives at the perfect time to receive between the lines again. She’s also helped by the run in behind by centre-forward Bruna Vilamala that pushes the defensive line further back to enlarge the space even more.
While some Barcelona players occupy the spaces between the lines, others also make sure to pin the defensive line. This can be done by running in behind the defence like in the last video, or by just staying in a position next to the defenders to make sure that they can’t jump to the receiving players between the lines.
The up-back combination is also an option in the middle third.
Its advantage is that it’s quite an easy way to receive facing the opponent’s goal, instead of having to turn after receiving a vertical pass directly from the defenders.
“As a kid, I was always coached to get on the half-turn. But if you get on the half-turn here, Pep goes mental. He wants us to set the ball, then find the third man. It’s a lot quicker to attack that way.”
Another thing that enables them to break the lines so often is diagonal passes. Centre-back Mapi León and defensive midfielder Patri are especially incredible at these types of passes that cut like a knife through the opposition midfield.
What makes the diagonal passes so hard to defend against is that they’re often directed away from where the opposition is moving towards. Imagine a goalkeeper moving towards his right posts from the other and a striker hits the ball back to the side the goalkeeper moves from.
It’s almost the same situation when a midfielder moves over to try to close down the spaces in front of the ball and then has to react to a diagonal pass towards where they came from.
Another advantage of this kind of pass is that the angle of the pass makes it easier for the receiver to face the opponent’s goal than while receiving a straight pass.
When playing against a medium block, the opponents are keeping their team compact to try to minimize the spaces between the lines. By doing this, space behind their defensive line is inevitably created.
The Barça players are very eager to exploit this space. Sometimes they try to find that space after first finding a player in between the lines like described above. But they are not afraid to play an earlier through ball into that space when the timing is right.
In the game against Hoffenheim, Alexia showed what an amazing player she is with two fantastic early through balls, in both scenarios after first dribbling past opponents.
An early through ball can be especially dangerous and effective when a defender leaves the defensive line to “jump” towards an attacker between the lines, consequently creating a gap for another attacker to run into.
In the next clip, attacking midfielder Aitana Bonmatí is available for a pass between the lines. The nearest defender jumps to close her down but instead, Paredes plays a lofted through ball into the space behind.
Final third
The Barcelona team spend a lot of the time in their matches in possession of the ball in the final third. In this phase, they make sure that the opponent doesn’t get any time to relax by constantly making threatening runs and passes.
They position themselves in a way that makes sure that they have constant threats, while also keeping (close to) full control of the pitch.
Here’s where things are getting really interesting, in my opinion.
With their usual rotation in the final third, they create a 1–3–6 structure.
The clip below shows some of the advantages of this structure. They manage to immediately win the ball back after losing it and then, after playing the ball wide, they attack the box with 5 (!) players.
When playing in the final third, the space between the opponent’s defenders and midfielders is probably even more dangerous than in the middle third, because it’s so very close to the goal.
With so many players in the central corridor and the half-spaces, Barça can often find a free player between the lines.
Their positioning often gives them numerical superiority against the opponents' defensive line which gives them good conditions to combine and create goal-scoring opportunities together.
Another advantage of receiving in that space, so close to the goal, is that you can create a goal-scoring opportunity yourself. The Barcelona team is full of players, like Alexia or Aitana, who are unbelievably good at creating something beautiful by themselves after receiving the ball in that space.
Barcelona’s collective understanding of which the right space to attack the opponents is very high.
When they have numerical superiority on one flank, they attack there. If the opponents move across and the space disappears, Barça switch the play to move the opponent.
One interesting thing that I’ve found in their game is when they switch the play from out wide to the centre and then immediately plays it back to where the ball came from to find a new situation with better conditions for attacking.
In the next clip, Barça starts switching the play from the right flank to the centre. But when the centre-back Mapi León receives the ball, she doesn’t continue playing towards the left flank like the majority of centre-backs would do. Instead, she plays the ball out wide to where it came from.
The “half-switch” has made the opponent move towards the other side and after the pass back Barça attack in a 2v1-situation against the opponent left-back.
As mentioned earlier in this text, it is very hard to defend against a diagonal line-breaking pass. Especially if the pass comes at the same time as the defender is moving horizontally and the pass goes back towards where the defender came from.
Against Hoffenheim, Barça followed up a half-switch from the left with a diagonal through-ball back towards where the defenders came from to play Jennifer Hermoso through on goal.
The right way to attack the opponents after a half-switch is of course not always to play it back towards where it came from. Sometimes, when the opponent doesn’t shift over quickly enough or if they leave themselves in an underloaded situation on the other side, the best way to attack the opponent is to continue the switch over to the other side.
Even though Barcelona try to overload the ball-side and want to attack that side if they can, the team’s spacing across the whole width of the pitch enables them to play shorter passes from one side to the other. After a quick switch, they can sometimes create 2v1-situations with an attacking midfielder and a winger against an opponent full-back.
To repeat myself, Barça are incredibly good at knowing which spaces to attack. They move the ball to move the opponent and then attack the space that’s created.
“The objective is to move the opponent, not the ball.”
— Josep “Pep” Guardiola
I’ve mentioned Barcelona’s ability to play through-balls past the opponent defensive line. Let’s now focus on the runs that give the ball carrier the option of playing such a pass. Let’s focus on how Barça tear their opponents apart with blindside runs.
Their structure in the final third often gives them numerical superiority against the opposition defensive line. This helps them tremendously in terms of threatening with runs in behind and finding a free player in or near the penalty box.
When multiple players do blindside runs at the same time against the defensive line, the defenders usually focus on the player in front of them, because that’s who they can see at the same time as they look at the ball.
Doing this, the first defender that’s going forward towards the player in front leaves space behind. If the next defender isn’t quick enough to react to this, a gap will appear for that attacker.
With numerical superiority for the attackers, the job is almost impossible for the defenders. If every defender reacts quickly and closes down the space in front of them, the furthest attacking player will be free to attack the space behind the last defender.
Clearly, Barça don’t always have numerical superiority against the entire defensive line, for example, 5 attackers vs 4 defenders. But they can often find superiority against one part of the defence, usually on the far-side where they can find 2v1, 3v2 or 4v3 situations.
A run into the gap between two defenders is not only a way to give yourself a goal-scoring opportunity. It can also be used as a decoy run to create space for another player.
A common decoy run is when an attacking player, often an attacking midfielder, runs in the space between the full-back and a centre-back, on the blindside of the centre-back. The full-back follows the attacking midfielder and the ball carrier can instead play the ball past the full-back to a winger who’s given a lot of space.
This kind of run is no rare occurrence in Pep Guardiola’s teams, and in this next clip, we can see that the Barcelona Femení side master it as well.
A big part of Barcelona’s chance creation comes from the flanks. Since the opposition team usually sit deep and compact, Barça often attack the spaces out wide in the final third.
There, they find opportunities to combine past opponents with wall passes, overlaps or underlaps.
They seek to enter the assist zone with the ball, where they can deliver low crosses and cutbacks to players arriving in the golden zone.
When the defenders come out wide with equal numbers, Barça can often manipulate the opponent by rotating positions, and by that confuse the defenders enough to create a free player.
The fact that the players vary dropping, running in behind, position themselves between the lines and staying wide makes defending against it incredibly hard. The rotation complicates it further. If they follow an attacker, another one might exploit the space left. If they don’t follow the attacker, that player might become the one to play a leading role in scoring a goal…
The Barcelona players show great timing of knowing when to rotate position or when to exploit open space to make sure that the defenders can’t react properly. It’s often when the ball is passed or moved and the defenders are watching the ball that an attacker moves away from the ball to find the optimal space.
To continue on the subject of timing, the timing of the runs into the assist zone is incredible. Their ability to arrive at the right place at the right time is so impressive and the way they do it is quite intriguing.
In this next clip, Rolfö, who played as an inside left-winger in this game, are in a central position. Then, when Alexia gets on the ball facing forwards, Rolfö attacks the gap between the defenders and runs into the assist zone with such speed that makes sure no defender can keep up with her.
If she had started closer to the space which she later wanted to exploit, she wouldn’t have been able to attack the space with such speed, nor would the space have been that big because the defenders would have followed her. That’s just one example of their understanding of timing and arriving in space at the right time.
To summarize my analysis of their attacking in the final third, I think this next clip speaks for itself.
Before moving to Barça’s ideas out of possession, I’m going to lead you there by shortly describing their rest defence in the final third.
With the 1–3–6 shape, the players in the “1-3” make sure to be in the right positions to stop counter-attacks and immediately win back balls that might bounce out from misplaced/intercepted passes or clearances. By doing this successfully, Barcelona can play threatening passes and then keep attacking even if the pass doesn’t reach its target.
Defensive transitions
A crucial component in Barcelona’s arsenal is their aggressive counter-pressing after losing the ball.
The players close to the ball are instantly pressing to try to either win the ball back or force a clearance which Barça most probably can pick up.
When they get the chance, they surround the opponent player with the ball with multiple players who aggressively are trying to win the ball back.
Barça’s spacing across the pitch, with short distances between players and multiple players positioned between the lines, creates good conditions for effective counter-pressing.
What makes it so effective is that when the ball is lost, they press the opponent, and close down the space, from all directions. They surround the player with the ball and close all passing lanes out of pressure.
The team’s attacking mindset is apparent in this phase of the game. The job of the Barcelona centre-back closest to their own goal is usually to counter-mark the opponent centre-forward.
If the ball is lost, she has to make sure that the opponent can’t just play the ball out of the counter-press to their centre forward who can turn without pressure and start a counter-attack.
The centre-back should at least be close behind the forward to make sure that she can’t turn or play without pressure. But often, the centre-back is so quick to react to the team losing the ball that she intercepts the clearance or pass in front of the striker.
Sometimes Barça lose the ball in an area where they don’t have the right conditions to apply counter-pressing and sometimes the opponents manage to play out of that counter-press and launch a counter-attack.
That is how most opponents try to hurt Barcelona.
The biggest vulnerability in their open-play is when these situations happen and the opponents launch a quick counter-attack, especially on Barca’s right side.
Their strategy is of course well-calculated in terms of risk and reward.
Yes, there is a risk that their opponent could occasionally find themselves completely through on goal in a counter-attack. But the reward of the strategy is that most of the time, Barça win the ball back high up the pitch and can continue attacking their opponent.
By simply looking at their results, it’s quite clear that the strategy works out well for them. But that doesn’t mean that their perfectionist coach Giráldez doesn’t look at improving whatever he could.
Out of possession
Without the ball, Barcelona usually rotate to a 4–4–2 shape by pushing forward one of their attacking midfielders and dropping their wingers to join the midfield line.
But it’s not a flat, zone-oriented, passive 4–4–2. It’s an aggressive, marking-oriented, high pressing 4–4–2.
Their idea is to press the opposition player that receives the ball, while also staying within pressing distance to all the players that are close to the ball carrier.
They are very aggressive in midfield, by always trying to win the ball when the opponents play into the centre of the pitch.
A marking-oriented 4–4–2 defence entails a problem when playing against an opponent team with 3 midfielders.
While Barcelona’s two midfielders are marking the two midfielders closest to the ball, the third opponent midfielder could potentially receive the ball. Maybe even in a huge space behind the two Barça midfielders who could be dragged out of position by the opponent midfielders.
Barcelona often solve this problem by proactively and bravely stepping forward with a centre-back, to close down the third midfielder. By doing this they leave their remaining defenders 3v3 at the back, but they also win a lot of balls high up the pitch. Again, well-calculated risk and reward.
Depending on the third midfielder’s positioning, it’s sometimes one of the Barcelona wingers who moves inside to do the marking, instead of the centre-back.
The advantage of this is that they can keep numerical superiority at the back while still marking every player on the side where the opposition team keep the ball. The disadvantage is that the opponent have the chance to switch the play to a free player at the other flank who can easily progress the ball.
Therefore, it’s important that the winger forces the play to the side where Barcelona are in equal numbers and can win the ball.
Attacking transitions
When Barça win the ball low, near their own goal, they remain composed and attempt to play out of the opponents counter-press.
With such collective and individual brilliance, they usually succeed and manage to switch the play to the other side where they can progress the ball to the attacking half.
When they win the ball in the middle third, there’s naturally space behind the opponent defensive line to exploit. Barça look to play forward to a player in midfield who can create a goal-scoring opportunity by playing an early through-ball.
Their marking-oriented press means that if they win the ball, they are in equal numbers against the opposition’s defenders if they give the ball to the attackers quickly after the ball is won.
Because the opponent have to transition from their attacking structure, there’s often space between players to attack that Barça aren’t given when playing against a defence in their organized defending positions.
The equality in numbers logically also means that if another player can join the attack quick before a defender can follow, Barça can even create numerical superiority in the counter-attack to create a chance.
It’s not a rare occurrence to see Barcelona flood the penalty box with large numbers after winning the ball high, like in the clip below.
Conclusion
Barcelona want to dominate all phases of the game with a very proactive approach that’s well-calculated in terms of risk and reward.
Their brave, attacking football is, in my opinion, incredibly entertaining to watch and it’s also interesting to see how Giráldez changes small things from game to game.
The team have an impressive winning mentality and in their search for perfectionism, they always look for things to improve even when they win big.
I’ve really enjoyed following this team over this fall and I recommend you to watch their games in the future.
You can watch their games (and every other game in the competition) in the Women’s Champions League for free on the DAZN Youtube Channel.
