La Liga: Round 19

SD Eibar 0-4 FC Barcelona

Lineups:

SD Eibar: Yoel; Capa, Mauro, Lejeune, Luna; Garcia, Escalante; León, Adrian, Inui; Enrich. (4-2-3-1)

FC Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Roberto, Mathieu, Umtiti, Alba; Turan, Busquets, Rakitić; Messi, Suárez, Neymar. (4-3-3)

After beating Real Sociedad and putting and end to their Anoeta nightmares, FC Barcelona went to the Ipurua Municipal Stadium to keep up their winning momentum.

It has not been the best season for Barcelona in the league. Sometimes, they have not been able to find the key to dominate their rivals throughout the entire 90 minutes. Most of the time, it has been the greatness of the MSN — Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar. — that has solved the games for the team. Individual talent has reigned over the collective work. That is dangerous for any team. It does not matter the level of talent that you have on your roster.

Luis Enrique made the regular-January rotations to the traditional 4-3-3 scheme: Arda Turan played as the right interior; Samuel Umtiti and Jérémy Mathieu were the center defenders. These moves seemed good because Barcelona still have to close a tough leg against Real Sociedad on Thursday.

Minutes before the game started, Turan playing as an interior was an uncertainty because he has not played well on that position. He has showed his best level as a winger. The Turkish has great speed and sense of space when dribbling on the edge of the rivals’ box. But he performed well. Barcelona gained a better pace with Turan dragging rivals in the middle of the pitch to open spaces for Ivan Rakitić and Sergio Busquets.

The alarms in Barcelona rang in the seventh minute after Busquets had an ankle injury that forced Enrique to substitute him for Denis Suárez. A substitution that paid dividends later on the game.

Losing Busquets was crucial for Eibar to advance their lines in order to push Barcelona back inside their box. Something difficult to accomplish against a team like Barcelona. But they were actually doing it very well. Barcelona could not find their pace during a big part of the first half. Pedro León, Adrián and Takashi Inui covered both Mathieu and Umtiti and forced Marc-André Ter Stegen to send his passes either to the fullbacks or the forwards. Something that does not allow Barcelona make their usual build-ups.

Messi went from the right wing to the middle of the pitch to help Rakitić, Suárez and Turan while pulling up the strings on offense and feeding Neymar and Suárez with fantastic alley-up passes.
In the 31st minute, Barcelona got on the board after a long-shot by Denis Suárez. That goal gave the control of the game back to Barcelona. The team had a better ball-movement on their build-ups.

Something very important to highlight was the job by Neymar without the ball. He was very active while being on constant movement on the creation of passing lanes for his teammates. And also, he pressured Ander Capa very well on the build-ups.

In the 50th minute, Barcelona made a fantastic counter-attack that started through the feet of Messi. He drove the ball through the middle of the pitch and found Suárez wide open on the right wing because Antonio Luna left his position uncovered. Suárez received the ball and waited for Messi to catch the defenders motionless while cutting through the middle of the box to find the perfect position to receive the perfect long assist by the Uruguayan.

Curiously, the second goal had a different effect on Eibar than the first one. Eibar applied their high pressure once again on Barcelona defenders. That is when the great game by Umtiti came out. At a young age, Umtiti is capable to interpret the game perfectly. He seems confident to be the nucleus of the build-ups when Gerard Piqué is not on the pitch. Umtiti works well under pressure and feeds his teammates perfectly through both long and short passes. He has that Barcelona-center-defender DNA.

For a team like Eibar, it is difficult to put pressure on the other team while advancing their defensive back to the middle of the pitch throughout the entire game. It requires a great amount of discipline and self-awareness by the defensive line to be efficient on going back to defend in transition. Suárez took advantage of this.

In the 68th minute, Suárez made a great usage of his body to interfere on the passing vision of Florian Lejeune and steal the ball from him. After that, it was just about seconds before Suárez beat Yoel Rodríguez on the one-on-one situation.

Neymar had the chance to transmit his great performance into the scoring board. In the 90th minute, Barcelona made a fantastic counter-attack through the right wing that ended up in the feet of Neymar, who received on the left side of Eibar’s box. He made a pause and then finished smoothly to the left corner of the net.