Barca's Issue: Pushing Forward and Falling into Their Own Trap

07/10/2025 15:09:00 pandatv

The 1-4 loss to Sevilla last weekend wasn't Barcelona's worst defeat, but the Catalan side has never played such a terrible match under Hansi Flick's tenure.

"I am unsure whether the issue lies in fitness or mentality. Now the players must represent their national teams, and I hope they can recover their morale," the German coach stated after departing Sanchez Pizjuan with the players, their heads hanging low.

The Offside Trap: A Double-Edged Sword

Last season, Barcelona’s high defensive line to catch opponents offside became a hallmark. Flick’s team crafted many fascinating moments using this tactic, such as catching Kylian Mbappe offside eight times in the first El Clásico, before efficiently finishing off Real Madrid.

Hansi Flick has built a highly entertaining team that attacks sharply but is also prone to mistakes. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this Barcelona version is that no other major European club plays quite like them. The goalkeeper pushes far out of the box, the defense holds a midfield position, leaving a 45-meter gap behind, while midfielders and forwards press as if fully reliant on it, disrupting opponent build-ups and forcing errors. They average 67% ball possession, and their opponents have the lowest pass success rate among Europe’s top five leagues.

The cornerstone of Flick’s strategy is an almost reckless offside trap. Last season, his team caught opponents offside 289 times across all competitions, with 182 of those in La Liga alone.

In the match against Sevilla, Barcelona’s offside trap was triggered 10 times. However, four times it was broken by Matias Almeyda’s side, who scored three goals from these situations. Football is a game of two sides. Yesterday, the champions’ offside trap was a lethal weapon; today, it has turned into self-destruction.

This marks one of the clearest advancements in football during the VAR era, a high-risk tactic enabled by La Liga’s semi-automated offside technology capable of detecting even the smallest infractions. Some offside calls against Barcelona are decided by millimeters, but this isn’t luck—it’s the effective use of technology in football.

Flick’s method demands commitment, physical strength, speed, and synchronized coordination from every position on the field. Missing any of these elements results in the offside trap failing and seals the fate of the Catalan team.

This happened once in the defeat to PSG a few days earlier and repeated again against Sevilla, a team that sensed the champions’ downfall a year ago, easily breaking Flick’s “trick” with long passes, allowing second-line players to surge forward.

The offside trap has become Barcelona’s Achilles' heel at this point.

To Persist or to Give Up

"We need to improve many things to come back stronger after halftime. We lacked aggression and clarity in ball control. We were not at our best. We didn’t even know what to do with the ball when they pressed us," said Pedri, the most disappointed with Barcelona’s result and performance.

Declining fitness is one factor causing Flick’s stars to lag behind opponents’ pace, maintain positioning, and meet his demands. But it might not be the whole problem with the offside trap. He faces a bigger challenge: opponents have found creative ways to penetrate Barcelona’s high defensive line, which has shown vulnerability to two specific attacking patterns.

The first is what Real Sociedad forward Takefusa Kubo calls runs down the wings from midfield. "We trained against their high defensive line. I’m not sure if they accounted for wing runs from the second defensive line, from midfielders, even defensive midfielders... I think those situations are tough because they have to pause to watch the forwards or wingers," said the Japanese midfielder.

The second is wing runs by players behind Barca’s fullbacks, especially during counterattacks. Flick often pushes the team forward recklessly, and right after possession changes, there is usually space behind right-back Jules Kounde and left-back Alex Balde to exploit.

Last weekend, Sevilla applied this exact approach to score their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th goals against goalkeeper Szczesny. Pep Guardiola’s Man City had to adopt a defensive stance to win again—what about Flick’s Barcelona?

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