In the 18th round of the Spanish Primera, Barcelona hosted Getafe at the Camp Nou. The two teams are facing very different challenges: Barça are in the title race with Real Madrid, while the away team is in a fight for survival. Despite the great motivation of both teams, the match turned out to be not very bright: the Catalans got the victory, limiting themselves to a goal by Pedri, while both teams did not create much chances. Let’s figure out why the game turned out like this!

Barcelona don’t have players in the infirmary, but de Jong and Araujo have some discomfort. They entered the application, but Xavi decided not to risk the important players of the team, especially on Wednesday there will be a cup match against Real Sociedad. Lewandowski and Ferran Torres have suspensions – in addition to the match with Getafe, they will also miss the next meeting with Girona. Because of all these losses, Xavi could not fully count on the four-midfield option that he came to in the match against Atlético (1-0) and developed from the Super Cup final against Real Madrid (3-1). Another problem is that Rafinho and Dembele had to be released together on the field. It is inconvenient for both of them to play on the left and one of them inevitably ends up in a suboptimal position.

At Getafe, Munir El Haddadi and Mauro Arambarri missed the match due to injuries. The Uruguayan has a serious injury – he has not played since October and missed the World Cup in Qatar. Given the losses, Quique Sanchez Flores has released an absolutely expected starting line-up, which is exactly the same as the one he came out to play against Sevilla (1:2) two weeks ago. It’s not a coincidence because under Sampaoli Sevilla have a lot of possession and in terms of territory it’s like playing Barcelona.

The match was held in the same mode for all 90 minutes:Getafe defend in the low block and look for opportunities in rare counterattacks, while Barcelona have possession of the ball and territory and are trying to hack the bus from Quique Flores.

Getafe held Barcelona well. The team lacked ideas in positional attacks

Due to Frenkie de Jong’s lack of readiness, Barcelona have not been able to use the four-midfield option that has exploded in recent matches. The new game system allows the Catalans to have an advantage in the center of the field and makes the team less dependent on flank play. In theory, it was possible to release Frank Kessie, but his movement is poorly synchronized with partners, and the player’s profile itself is hardly suitable here. An even bigger problem is the impossibility of using Lewandowski and Ferran Torres. Because of this circumstance, Xavi has no options not to release Rafinha and Dembele together on the field.

When playing with the ball, Barcelona used a structure similar to 2-3-5, where two eights go to the last row, the wingers hold the width, and the fullbacks play in the center of the field: