Barcelona's Midfield Looks Safer Now. That's The Problem.

Hello everyone,

Just a little note for this piece. It’s a continuation of the Frenkie free piece I published on Monday and will give you a detailed breakdown of each of Barcelona’s midfielders and how they can be used in the following season.

But if you’ve only been reading the free previews of my analyses, you’re missing the vast majority of the in-depth insight that makes Dom’s Tactics Lab unique.

I know not everyone can afford it but if you can, and you give me a chance, I will make it worth your time and investment.

Enjoy the piece,

Dom

Without Frenkie de Jong in Hansi Flick’s system, Barcelona’s midfield may finally increase their ball circulation speed, release passes faster and be quicker across the pitch. But that’s not all.

According to Pranav’s fantastic tool, Marc Bernal’s median release time is 1.50 seconds and sits at the 98th percentile compared to his peers across the top five European leagues. In Barcelona’s midfield, in particular, he’s the fastest, albeit with a still modest sample of minutes played. Marc Casado, on the other hand, retains the ball post-recovery at the 98th percentile. When you combine those two and add Pedri’s time control and Gavi’s chaos mastery, the midfield, on first reading at least, looks more… controlled?

According to these statistical points, possession should be safer and turnover rates in the first phase should see a decrease, even without Frenkie. But what if I told you that’s part of the problem? What if I told you being safer will not do Barcelona that much good?

It sounds counterintuitive but the player who slowed Barcelona down was the player who somehow made them most dangerous from the deep. Frenkie’s median release of 2.50 seconds sits at the 5th percentile, meaning almost every midfielder in European football releases faster than he does. Turns out everyone who was screaming at him for ‘hogging the ball’ was right. Or were they? You see, as much as it looks like one, that was not a flaw.

In fact, receiving under maximum pressure, holding it for a beat or two until he finds the moment and then carrying the ball at 99th percentile in distances when the action finally comes is the whole core mechanism.

So you see, the deliberate and often misunderstood pause created the penetration itself.

Today, we will analyse what happens when you remove that specific mechanism and everything what remains after it.

Let’s go.

Barcelona fans love to talk about pausa.

It’s one of those things that gets overused but, when asked about it, no one can actually define what it is. It’s the same with Barça DNA. Both of those terms are used so often, we’ve come to the point where people just repeat them without putting any thought behind their words.

In Frenkie de Jong’s case, the pausa is more of a functional mechanism than a stylistic trait, though. You know how some players just seem slow but are somehow faster than all the other players on the pitch? Pedri is a great example.

He dances across the field and you feel like time has suddenly just… stopped. But simultaneously, you can also clearly see he’s not moving that fast. Not really. That’s pausa.

Frenkie, however, is different.

This slow release of the ball certainly defines his player profile but it’s part of a structural mechanism more than it is part of his style preference. Do you remember our Frenkie-Pedri piece from a while back? In it, we established one as the absorber and the other as the transformer in this relationship that brings out the best in both.

The Most Misread Midfielder at The World Cup

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Jul 2

‘People watch, but they don’t really see,’ were Frenkie de Jong’s own words when he was addressing some of his biggest critics. It’s surprising, really, that a midfielder of his quality and status is such a controversial topic on both the club and national team stages. Where some people see a genius, others see a liability. Strange, isn’t it? And these voices are even louder now, following The Netherlands’ elimination by the hand of the Moroccan national team. Fully deserved, that, by the way.

Statistically, though, there is something quite meaningful that suddenly disappears when you remove Frenkie from this squad. And if you’re still unsure about that pausa, this data will help give it a physical outline.

De Jong’s press resistance sits at the bloody 100th percentile. No other available player in the midfield group can reach this. No, not even Pedri. But this is compared to the rest of Europe, too. It doesn’t stop there, though.

His execution quality under pressure? 100th percentile. Progressive carry penetration? Oh, just the 99th percentile. This shows us the distance covered per carry into opponent territory and it’s the highest in the entire comparison pool by a distance. But all of his volume is always followed by elite penetration, as evidenced by progressive carries also being at the 98th percentile.

Interestingly enough, there are midfielders in this roster that do decently well under pressure. More than just decently, in fact.

Casado’s and Bernal’s press resistance is at the 97th and 90th percentile respectively, which, without further context, does stack up nicely to De Jong’s. It’s not as good, obviously, but the next best thing. But - and you knew there was a but coming - there is a catch.

Casado’s carry penetration is at the 39th percentile while Bernal’s stops at the 15th. Both can survive the pressure but neither can advance far when they do. Bernal, in particular, survives through his fast circulation but he moves the ball half as far forward when it does move. Gavi is similar: 88th percentile press resistance, 28th percentile carry penetration.

So that’s why Frenkie’s function is not simply ‘receiving under pressure’.

Sure, it’s part of his remit but the more accurate description would be receiving under pressure and then producing elite-penetration outcomes. All his would-be replacements can replicate that first part of the equation. None have both parts together, though.

Let me cast your mind back to my Myth of Control framework we introduced some months ago. The vocabulary for this type of action is already in the archive and paid subscribers already know about it.

The Myth of Control: Flick vs Pep vs Arteta

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Apr 16

Control is one of the most widely used words in football language but also one of the most misunderstood at the same time. Think about it; it sounds reassuring, feels technical and it just suggests some kind of mastery, both for the person using it and the team exhibiting it. But the truth is, control is one of the vaguest ideas we use when talking about how matches

This has never been about whether Barcelona can control possession and it’s always been about what type of control they exercise and what does that type cost in execution. Because in football, everything has a cost.

Frenkie’s control carries maximum risk in the moment of reception and extracts maximum penetration in the outcome. That’s his true and unique value.

The rest of the midfield cast carry less moment-by-moment risk, sure, but they also extract less penetration when the action comes.

Now, there is no single way to play football. And both of those approaches are coherent forms of control. But they are also completely different bets.

The free Frenkie de Jong piece last Monday told you what happened to him and why it matters for the club. This paid piece, however, will go much deeper than that.

By the end of it, it will tell you exactly which data points measure what's been lost without De Jong, which available player covers which specific function, what no available player covers at all and what the combinations between different players Flick can actually run cost the system in actual observable, measurable terms.

The numbers are more surprising than the narrative. They just might shock you.

Ready to dive in?

So what I want to do here is treat every single player in Barcelona’s midfield as a genuine replacement candidate. They all get the benefit of the doubt until proven that they cannot shoulder this burden.

We’ll start with that they do well and then slowly transition to what they don’t do so well. I will also state exactly whether I feel like they’re a good fit or not.