A change of Attack

9-23-12 So, Barca has won their fifth straight league game this season. They are currently 11 points clear of Real and five up front the team in second. Sadly, it's only Real that they need worry about. The rest of La Liga is just not on the level of these two sides, but after having the x on their back the last few seasons Real finds their side the ones everyone is playing their best against. Today they would have played a tricky road game against Rayo. A game they should win, but there's always a chance on the road that something funny could happen. Something funny did happen. Apparently a fan cut the cables that power the lights at Rayo's home stadium causing the game to be canceled and pushed to Monday tentatively. Real has the week off with nothing until the weekend so it's likely both sides will play a Monday night game and keep everything in line with the other sides. Real will not want to be 11 points back even if they had the game in hand. It does something to a team mentally to be behind and with a huge clash with Barca just two weeks away they really can't afford to fall any further behind. While by all means the season is far from over with just five rounds complete Real is has put themselves in a very bad spot. Barca has a pretty easy schedule in La Liga for the rest of the year. There is a strong possibility that they will drop only 3 to 5 points at most. Barca also has the much easier CL group. Tito is going to have an easy time managing his lineups to focus on the games that matter. If Barca can win their next 2 CL games he will likely be bringing up reserves for the last two. That basically buys 2 weeks of rest for his top stars before the end of the year. That all beings said Tito is doing something that I think will make all the difference and is something that pep should have employed more of last year. He's swapping out defenders for strikers in the latter stages of the game. I think this is a brilliant strategy especially against teams that lay back a ton, as many have against Barca. The history of this starts with Pep tinkering with playing 3 in the back. The rationale of this was that if teams were going to play back and the Barca defense was going to cheat up so much then it would make sense to have a speedy midfielder on the pitch that can create scoring chances and get back on defense to protect against the counter, maybe better than a slow defender could even. In a way it was like adding more defense because you have more players on the pitch that can handle the ball and keep it in possession. The only problem was it didn't appear to ever work. Barca dominated the ball more and didn't allow many more goals than they usually do, but they still couldn't finish upfront. They looked far too congested up front. Yet, Tito has put a different spin on this. He has straight swapped the defender for the striker. It's important to note that he is not starting the game this way. I totally agree with this. If you are going to do this it's best to start in the traditional 4-3-3. The reason is to me when the system works there is no reason to sacrifice defense for offense. I believe its more effective later in the game to change the formation when teams are already tired from chasing the ball. Barca has done this for about a combined 45 minutes in the last two games and it's translated into 4 goals and 2 wins. I believe the Barca brain trust believe in their system of 4-3-3, but in the last two seasons they have seen teams adapt to playing them and really make it difficult to score. I hope now they realize that a good reaction to that is not to change the system, but to add a wrinkle to it that puts pressure on the opposing side. I can only wonder if this strategy had been applied against Chelsea if we wouldn't have hoisted the CL trophy last season. Let's see if Tito sticks to this. I'd like to see him do it in the latter stages of all contests so that the team can build on it and change the way teams lineup against them. Barca has to keep their opponents on their toes and guessing. This will add to their effectiveness.