World Sports: Flick s offside tactics have failed and are now the biggest flaw in Barcelona s defense

Hupu November 06 News Fernando Polo, deputy editor-in-chief of the Spanish media "World Sports News", wrote a column and talked about Barcelona's defense this season.

The reporter said that Barcelona is falling into the tactical trap set by itself day after day. Flick's forward-pressing defense and suffocating pressure on the ball holder, which Flick became famous for last season, did achieve good results although his opponents figured out the routine at the end of the season. Although the German coach promised improvements in May, he still adheres to this extremely risky tactical system - which becomes a fatal weakness when opponents can calmly play the ball. In Bruges' away game, this high defense completely collapsed.

Only 16 minutes into the game, Barcelona was forced to penetrate the goal twice by its opponents due to excessive forward pressure from the defense and lack of pressure on the home team's players. In the first goal conceded, Conte, who was distracted, did not create an offside defense; the home team's 2-1 go-ahead goal actually came from a Barcelona corner kick, Brugge formed a five-on-three counterattack, and Forbes singled out Szczesny to succeed - the red and blue team's defensive speed was embarrassing; the third goal conceded came from a precise through ball behind Balde after the ball was coordinated from the sideline.

This start went down in history in a disastrous way: Barcelona has never faced the nightmare of losing two goals in a row in 16 minutes and 30 seconds in the Champions League. Flick's team's defensive holes are shocking: they have conceded goals in the past nine games across competitions (a total of 14 goals), setting the worst defensive record since March 2013 (conceding 21 goals in 13 consecutive games).

Despite the shocking data, Flick still insisted on a high defense line, but the tactics had long since failed. The actual combat perception and cold data jointly revealed the crisis: in the battle against Brugge, Barcelona only succeeded in offside once. The Red and Blues repeated the same mistake they made against Inter Milan in the Champions League semifinals last season - even if they scored three goals, they still couldn't win. Not to mention that when Montjuic faced Real Madrid at home, they had to score four goals to narrowly win (4-3).

The fragility of Barcelona's defensive system is an open secret in European football. Top players such as Henry and Kroos recently bluntly stated that this style of play is counterproductive, and Gullit even denounced it as a "suicide tactic." After the game, De Jong said bluntly: "We must do better. Some tactical details need to be adjusted, but they cannot always be implemented on the field. Due to the way of pressing in the frontcourt, defensive positioning and marking problems in transition and defense, we appear fragile during defensive counterattacks. This is a systemic disease - the tactics of last season must be abandoned. We were not the strongest in Europe and had not won the Champions League. We were already full of loopholes at that time. When a team concedes three goals per game, victory is out of the question."