La Liga is finally back and so are Barcelona. In the first official game in the post-Lionel Messi era, the Catalans managed to scoop up all three points against a largely struggling Real Sociedad side. Ronald Koeman needed to win the game as his biggest rivals in Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid had already tallied their victories beforehand.
This tactical analysis will dissect both teams tactics and give you an analysis of how Barcelona beat Real Sociedad.
Lineups
The big change coming into the game for Barcelona was always going to be the absence of Messi. With the Argentine now officially joining Paris Saint-Germain, it was very interesting to note how Koeman will fill his void. But he wasnt the only absentee. Marc-André ter Stegen was replaced by Neto and Gerard Piqué formed a centre-back partnership with the newcomer, Eric García.
The midfield was pretty standard with no surprises while the front three consisted of Memphis Depay, Antoine Griezmann and Martin Braithwaite. Barcelona were deployed in their traditional 4-3-3 formation.
Real Sociedad, on the other hand, had most of their big guns available as all of their Olympians made a successful return back to the squad. However, the most notable absence was that of Alexander Isak, and in so many ways, that ended up hurting Imanol Alguacils team a lot.
The rest of the squad was still formidable as Portu led the line with Mikel Oyarzabal, David Silva and Adnan Januzaj following closely. Mikel Merino and Martín Zubimendi were the wall ahead of the back four and Álex Remiro in that 4-2-3-1 system but as a whole, they couldnt contain Barcelona for the majority of the game.
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