Team News: Barcelona is forced to use low-level defense to perform worse than high-level defense

The outside world generally believes that Frick's high-level defense is its biggest weakness, but the tactical analysis and data of the "Team News" challenged this view.

Although Barcelona is indeed exposed to their gap when their opponents counterattack due to their aggressive high-level pressing and prerequisite defense. In La Liga last season, 17.1% of their goals conceded from counterattacks, the highest in the league, but their overall defensive data is still excellent, ranking fourth in the league last season (39 goals).

A data found that Barcelona is not the most vulnerable to defense at high positions, on the contrary, they perform worse when forced to adopt low positions. According to tracking data, when taking a high-level defense, Barcelona's conceded numbers are better than 83% of the teams in the top five European leagues, which is comparable to Paris Saint-Germain (84%).

However, when they rarely defend low posts, they are shot more by opponents than 75% of the top five league teams. This reveals a tactical paradox: the system they are best at (high-post pressing) is risky, but the actual defensive efficiency is very high; while under the low-post defense system they do not often use, they are more likely to be created by their opponents.

In addition, data shows that Barcelona is excellent in defensive set pieces, conceded only 2 goals in the entire league last season due to corner kicks.

Barcelona's high-risk tactics bring high returns. This style of play not only allows them to remain efficient overall on the defensive end, but also creates a huge offensive advantage. They had the highest goal difference in La Liga last season (+63).