And now it is finally official – Quique Setien, the former Real Betis and Las Palmas manager, has taken over the reins at Barcelona and has replaced Ernesto Valverde, beating the likes of Mauricio Pochettino to the job in the process. Two and a half years after his appointment, the Basque coach is leaving Catalonia and the 61-year-old will take his place.
This tactical analysis will give you an in-depth insight into Setién’s tactics and his general philosophy and will try and use analysis to determine how his systems can be incorporated into Barcelona’s style of play.
General tactics
When talking about Barcelona and their heritage, tradition and overall style, we usually talk about the so-called Juego de Posición or positional play. This footballing principle has a vast array of different tactics but is mainly preoccupied with maintaining superiorities across the pitch – either through movement, manipulation, occupation of advantageous zones and areas or simply through superior positioning and understanding of time and space on the pitch.
Barcelona, especially under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, were the very definition of positional play and its tactics. Over the years, the Cruyffian influence started veining and seemingly reached its climax with Valverde’s conservative approach.
Setién’s tactics and his system, however, could be described as the very opposite of conservative – fast, aggressive, attractive and most importantly – based on the very principles Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola were preaching all those years ago.
The new Barcelona coach bases his whole philosophy on the teachings of the two Blaugrana icons and sees a game of football as a game of chess – something that is as intriguing as it is symbolic.
Subsequently, quick rotations, creation and exploitation of space, superiorities across the pitch and manipulation of the opposition’s movement are crucial to his tactics and will all be looked at in this tactical analysis.
We will split this piece into different sections looking at Setién’s tactics on and off the ball and see how all of that could be transcribed to the current Barcelona team.
Superiorities and playing out of the back
Setién’s tactics on the ball are based on the domination of possession. The main idea behind his approach is to hold the ball and hide it from the opposition, which, interestingly enough, is the very principle Barcelona base their tactics on as well.
Real Betis were extremely good at this and their team could be characterised as brave in possession regardless of the opposition on the other side of the pitch and regardless of how their opponents decided to approach the game themselves.
With that being said, everything always starts with the goalkeeper and the defensive line. But intriguingly enough, Setién adores playing with a back three and a pivot in front of that first line, and just like with everything else when moving forward, creating superiorities is essential.
In the first phase of the build-up play, this is achieved with the three centre-backs and the holding midfielder who regularly drops deeper to assist the transition of the ball and helps combat the high press or blocking of the channels from the opposition.
You can see an example of such an approach above as Real Betis find their way to a higher platform by combining with the pivot and escaping the press. When moving from and into the final third, the principles remain the same – achieve superiority in the wider areas and get the wing-backs into advantageous positions.
This is then achieved by dropping one of the higher-positioned players a bit deeper and the ball-near midfielder closer to the ball-carrier. As a result, Real Betis can pin the opposition inside either a triangle or a rhombus, both of which can be seen in the following examples.
