After 11 games of the 2024/25 La Liga season, FC Barcelona sit top of the table, six points clear of second-place defending champions Real Madrid.
It’s been a highly impressive start to life in the Barca dugout for ex-FC Bayern and Germany manager Hansi Flick, whose win percentage now stands at 85.71% after 14 games (12 wins and two losses), following this past weekend’s resounding 4-0 victory over arch-rivals Los Blancos at the Santiago Bernabéu.
This tactical analysis will detail three of Barcelona’s winning tactics from Saturday’s marquee fixture.
Barcelona Offside Trap: Tactical Analysis
Since taking over, Hansi Flicks coaching style at Barcelona has arguably instilled the best offside trap in Europe.
As their respective defensive territory maps in Figure 1 indicate, both Real Madrid and Barcelona defended with quite a high defensive line in Saturday’s game.

However, Barcelona caught Real Madrid offside a whopping 12 times throughout Saturday’s game — eight of which saw Kylian Mbappé fall victim to Barca’s ultra-effective offside trap.
On the flip side, the hosts only managed to catch Barca offside once in the entire game, drawing a stark contrast between the pair’s defensive approaches.






