FanPost

The Double Pivot & its Tactical Options

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Barcelona has the luxury of possessing arguably the most deep squad in all of Europe. We boast many of the best players in the world, giving us a very stacked squad. But maybe too stacked for our own good. Barca has the two best players in the defensive midfield position, yet we do not use both to their full potential. This is due to many factors including the system, style of play, form, and consistency. Javier Mascherano and Sergio Busquets are both unique players with different skill sets and abilities who play in the same position. But as we know, Sergio is our default anchor, and Masche (so far) is one of our default centre backs. Let's take a look at some of their key attributes they offer to the team.

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I will compare Busquets' 2013-14 performances(Red figures) vs. Mascherano's World Cup performances(Blue figures) vs. Busquets' current 2014-15 season(Orange figures) All Figures were used from Squawka.com's comparison matrix

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Figure 1: Defensive Duties

Mascherano is the typical bulldog in midfield that chases down anything. His performances at the World Cup proved to us that he is one of, if not, the very best in the anchor role. Many people expected the Argentine team to score tons of goals in order to compensate for the terrible defence. But what happened was quite the opposite, wasn't it? Masche's performances during the summer is probably the only reason he is shortlisted for the Ballon D'Or. Anyhow, Masche is very, very aggressive and is an exceptional tackler. He wins the most tackles compared to Busquets. Though none of the DM's are good in the air, Mascherano surprisingly wins more 50/50 chances in the air than Busquets despite being 15cm shorter. Though he wins more balls back than Busquets, Mascherano also is prone to making more bad tackles. His philosophy is simple. Either the man gets past, or the ball gets past. Never both.


Masche closes down opponents and wins the ball back in a blink of an eye. He doesn't wait for anything. If he sees an opponent with the ball, he will go and get it. Period. He is by far the better defensive player as he makes more than 70% extra interceptions than Busquets. Masche also sacrifices his body to block shots, sliding in (and risking tearing his anus) to keep the ball out of the net. At the end of the day, Masche's defending gives him a defensive score 3 times higher than Busquets.

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Figure 2: Possession & Distribution Stats

Take a look at the statistics. Busquets wins at the possesion score, passes back and forth more and completes more of these said passes. As expected, he outplays Mascherano with his possession stats. Now take a look at the average pass length, and it tells a different story.
Masche's passes are nearly 33% and 25% longer than those of Busquet's passes during last season and this season, respecitively. El Jefecito prefers playing the long ball, as we saw countless times during the world cup. Maybe that is because Argentina's system is a counter attacking one, but I'll get to that later. He is more risky in his passing, and as a result, his pass completion is slightly lower than Busquets. But what Mascherano does with the ball in terms of creation easily dwarfs Busquets' contribution. To be fair to Busi, these stats are due to Mascherano having a bigger impact as he is the primary creator(in the back atleast) with Argentina, while Busi is surrounded by creative midfielders who will demand the ball from him.

With Mascherano in our anchor role, he can provide a different dimension not only in defense, but also in attack. His ability to pass accurate long balls can launch counter attacks through our forwards. He is unlike Busquets in the sense that he is not afraid to make plays himself. While Busquets may simply rotate play with his terrific one touch passing, Masche will not mind taking a few extra touches, waiting, and then playing a long pass to someone out wide. What he does may disrupt Barcelona's careful build up of passes, but you decide if that's a good or a bad thing. Nowadays with the abundance of parked buses in front of Messi whenever he gets the ball, a lot of extra "care" is placed against him. This means our other forwards receive less attention and may get into good places slightly unnoticed. This is when Masche, if given the ball, can pick this stray player out and send him in on goal.(An alternative to your "attacking" CB, ProteusXP. Wait for the bus, Let messi occupy 90% of the team, and then let Masche put Suarez/Neymar on goal.)

Mascherano's positioning is also slightly different than that of Busquets. Sergio lies deep most of the time, but Masche lies deep all of the time. Masche prefers to stay slightly ahead of his centre backs, even when the ball is deep in the opposition half. He provides defensive security, always. In contrast, Sergio likes, and needs, to move up field into the opposition half to support build up by rotating play with his excellent positioning and awareness. Because he plays more advanced, opposition breaks sometimes catch him off guard, leaving our CB's exposed. His pace, or lack of thereof, does not help defend these attacks either.

As you can see, these two are almost complete opposites of each other. Each has "strengths" the other lacks. It is almost as if they must be played together to get the best of both of them...in a double pivot.

The main strength of the double pivot is of course, defensive solidarity. The main weakness of Barca is of course, the lack of defensive solidarity (and aerial supremacy). In the double pivot, both players cover each other's "weakness", for lack of a better term, and make the defensive part of Barca's game a lot stronger. Counterattacks won't be as devastating to us anymore, our CB's will have more support, and our flying full backs' defensive capabilities won't be exposed as much. Every single aspect of our defense is strengthened. The perfect fit for us?

Maybe. However, there will be drawbacks, as with any system. One extra player for our defensive woes means one less player to contribute in our fantastic attack. This will inevitably change how we play. Take our legendary midfield trio for example. Each member has their own distinct roles and responsibilities. Sergio is our anchorman, Xavi/Rakitic is our playmaker, and Iniesta is our creator-attacker hybrid. Sergio sits back, rotates play and protects our CB's. Xavi/Rakitic allow us to keep possession by passing every which way and making plays. Iniesta links our midfield build-up to our attackers like a bridge. Since Sergio is already present in the double pivot, who do we replace? Do we replace our playmaker? The heart and soul of the team? Without Rakitic or Xavi, the team would not be able to keep possession, and without an orchestrator, our passing will be pointless...Then do we replace Iniesta? Our new captain who uses his orgasmic dribbling, passing, agility and vision to glide past defenders and unlock parked buses?...Of course not. His presence has time and again allowed us to penetrate buses and contributed to countless goals. Another option is to use a double pivot of a defensive player and a more creative player. It is becoming a trend, and we are missing out. BVB(Bender + Gundogan), Chelsea(Matic + Fabregas), the Pre-Pep Bayern(Martinez + Schweinsteiger) are a few successful teams who use a double pivot this way. In the creative pivot, we could use either Xavi or Rakitic. Xavi however may not work best here. He does not have the capability to defend any more. Rakitic may do well here. He is a box-to-box presence who could do very well for years to come. Its another option that may work. It is similar to our current MF trio though, and if its not working now, it probably won't work later.

With the reduction of one advanced midfielders (who are either Xavi, Rakitic or Iniesta. I'll refer to the position as CM from now), you can see how much it affects how we play. The missing CM means we won't be able to pass here and there, back and forth as effectively and as much as we do now. The only real creative outlet in the midfield would be whoever plays in the single CM role. This makes it very easy for the opposition to reduce our creativity by simply marking them. In doing so, they destroy the link with the attack, and leave us toothless up front. Without the luxury of passing endlessly and enjoying possession, we would need to be quick, direct and to the point with our build up. This opens up the option of playing a counter-attacking game. Luckily for us, we have players capable of not only playing on the counter, but also playing it exceptionally well.

We have Neymar, and Neymar has the pace, dribbling, flair and finishing being a deadly player on the break. Then we have someone named Messi. He is lightning quick of the mark, allowing him to beat players easily. He also coincidentally has the best finishing and dribbling in the game (and possibly ever) which doesn't hurt either. His pace, dribbling and finishing combined with Xavi-like vision and passing can potentially mould him into our ball carrier. He would be the person with the ball dribbling past opponents and then picking out a run from the other forwards to pass to. Or he could just dribble around the entire team and chip the keeper. You know, whatever. Messi's football IQ is out of this world and he would make the decision whether to carry or release the ball right 11 out of 10 times. Finally now that his exile is over, Luis Suarez can take Barca and attacking football to a whole new level. He has similar skill sets to that of Neymar, but he trades in a bit of pace for physical strength and aerial domination--he could be terrifying leading the charge in the 9 position. Suarez, who was the highest goal scorer in the EPL, and joint highest in all of Europe's big leagues, is no slouch when it comes to finishing chances. All 3 forwards have superb tactical awareness, meaning they are able to time precise runs and split defenses in doing so. And maybe most importantly, all 3 have had the experience of playing on the break. Neymar was superb with Brazil at the World Cup terrorizing defences with his pace. Messi reached football's biggest stage and thrived on the counter with Argentina. And finally, Suarez almost exclusively played on the break with both Liverpool and Uruguay, en route to netting 33 goals in total for both.

With these dangerous players, opposition mistakes will be bound to be punished. If they are able to click and work together, the will destroy any defence. 3 of the best forwards in the same line-up in the world will almost guarantee no "bad days" for Barca. If one, or even two, of the mentioned players do not perform, the third will. We have all the right parts: the endless ammunition of chances, the expert marksmen, and a solid base. All that needs to be done is for these parts to be put together properly, and Barca will blow all opposition out of the water.

Thanks for reading the not-so-short article. Sorry for the delays too. Please comment and let your thoughts out. Next, I hope to post some specific formations and their tactics...once I find that piece of paper...Thanks again, and Visca El Barca!

<em>This does not represent the views of Barca Blaugranes or SBNation</em>

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