How Real Sociedad stalled Barcelona
La Real made it a chaotic and rugged affair at the Reale Arena, leaving Hansi Flick's side looking as uncomfortable as they have all season.
Real Sociedad lost two of their most aggressive duel winners in the summer: Robin Le Normand left for Atlético Madrid and Mikel Merino left for Arsenal. No player won more duels than Merino in the league last season (326), while the only defender to win more aerial duels than Le Normand was Antonio Raíllo of Mallorca.
It has taken them some time to find their feet given the changes in personnel but the victory over Barcelona on Sunday night was a sign that Imanol Alguacil’s side still have a residual competitiveness that is hard to replicate. As Hansi Flick’s side found out, it’s also difficult to play against.
Everything Alguacil’s side did during the game was aimed at making Barcelona uncomfortable. This Barça team don’t have many weaknesses, but they do have some. Few sides are able to take advantage of those and do it for a full game while executing at the other end of the field. That’s what Real Sociedad did on Sunday night and while it wasn’t always pretty or perfect, it worked.
They created chances (2.02 xG), while at the same time stifling Barcelona’s attack (0.64xG). Here’s a look at how.
Make the pitch bigger
One of their main aims was to make the pitch as big as they could. We all saw, and many headlines were written, about Barcelona's high line against Real Madrid. They squeeze you so tight that you eventually succumb to the pressure or get caught offside trying to escape it. We saw it against Girona too, a team that likes to play out centrally with the centre-backs playing close together.
For Girona, the benefit of having these players close together during the build-up phase is that the probability of misplacing a pass is really low. At the same time, you're also easier to press — and if you do lose the ball, you’re in serious trouble.
In San Sebastián at the weekend, Barcelona allowed 13.6 passes per defensive action against Real Sociedad; their highest figure in a LaLiga game this season. In layman’s terms, they struggled to interrupt their opponent’s possession with their usual bite.
As we see in the graphic below of Real Sociedad building from the back, Álex Remiro is literally standing on his goalline as Nayef Aguerd and Aihen Muñoz make a beeline for the corners, dragging Fermín López and Jules Koundé with them.
This meant that while a potential turnover could prove disastrous, it meant Barcelona were disjointed in transition if or when they did manage to win it back. Real Sociedad weren't drawing out the pressure to play through Barcelona, they were doing it as a measure to buy time before going long — the idea behind it wasn’t ideological.
Real Sociedad knew that just going long and inviting pressure constantly is not the way to go against Barcelona. They drew them out and took what they could before going long.
There were 33 aerial duels for Barcelona to contest in this game, their most in a single match this season. Real Sociedad don’t have Mikel Merino anymore to contest and win the majority of his duels, but they do have Luka Sučić; the Croatian six-footer who is the next best thing in the squad, who started ahead of Sergio Gómez as a preemptive move. He was also a better match in the middle against Frenkie de Jong.
Barcelona did technically manage to force 10 high turnovers in the game, yet they would end the affair with just 0.64 expected goals; their lowest total so far this year in the league. Against Girona, another team who tried to bait Barcelona’s press, they had 17 high turnovers and yielded a goal from one. They couldn’t even muster a single shot from their 10 high turnovers against Real Sociedad.
The logic is simple. Spread Barcelona out and use their energetic press against them, before emptying out when the heat is on. The more running they have to do off the ball means the less sharp they will be when they eventually do get on the ball.
At the point where the ball was being contested for in Barcelona's defencee, it wasn't even that important whether Real Sociedad won the duel or not. Of course, they would prefer to win all of them but they also know that they are really difficult to play through when the game is less settled. Getting the ball up the field, with Barcelona stretched vertically, helped to protect against the bite of Flick’s side in advanced areas.
Disrupt the build-up
As we pointed out here, Real Sociedad are agents of chaos. They like to play the kind of game where it feels very attritional. As Jürgen Klopp said ahead of the Champions League final against Bayern Munich when he was the Dortmund coach: "We need to bring them down to our level".
This is what Real Sociedad did to Barcelona.
It was the first time all season Barcelona didn't have a single build-up sequence in a LaLiga game (a sequence of play with 10+ passes).
After their early attempts to press out of a 4-4-2 diamond shape, Real Sociedad soon decided to go man-on-man in the middle, with Martin Zubimendi on Pedri, Sučić on De Jong and Brais Mendez on Marc Casadó. Up at the top, the fact that Iñigo Martínez is left-footed meant that once Kubo chased him down from inside, he was unable to turn back inside and look for either of the double pivots. It meant, once again, that La Real were conditioning how Barcelona played.
As for right back Jon Aramburu, he played the hybrid role and ran himself silly between covering behind and getting out to smother Alejandro Balde. Though he did pick up an early yellow card, he made four interceptions and recovered possession six times in the game; a joint-high for the home side, along with the tireless Take Kubo.
Tactically Dynamic
Barcelona are one of the most dynamic teams in football at the moment. To beat them, you have to be equally dynamic out of possession. And that's not to say there are 10 outfield players running around aimlessly trying to plug gaps — it has to be a coherent form of dynamism where the shape is kept. An organised form of chaos.
Real Sociedad, to a man, knew where they needed to be to prevent Barcelona's movement from dragging them all over the field. They seamlessly shifted from a 4-4-2 to a 4-2-3-1 with Sučić joining in occasionally to make it a three-man defensive front in a 4-3-3.
The trade-off by shutting down the centre means there are spaces on the wings, but Sheraldo Becker kept Jules Koundé quiet with his threat of counter-attacking. Real Sociedad generally wanted to push Barcelona down the left where Kubo would work to close down Iñigo Martínez, before collectively regrouping to get back behind the ball and stall them there. The 12 combined possession recoveries between the right side of Kubo and Aramburu was testament to how successful this part of the plan was.
Much has now been said that Barcelona have been ‘found out’, but the combination of Real Sociedad’s hard work, high press and competitiveness across the entire game is not easy to replicate. You also have to have an element of luck on your side too. Barcelona were without Lamine Yamal, who would have made Becker and Muñoz’s task on the right infinitely more difficult.
Regardless of where Barcelona will feel where they could improve, Real Sociedad played the game on their terms, which is both brave and not necessarily advisable. Alguacil’s version of the Txuri-Urdin were forged in the fire and not many teams can replicate such composure and competitiveness once the chaos begins.