Barcelona played with 4-2-3-1 line up.
Villarreal played with 4-4-2 line up.
When Barcelona tried to make game in their half, Villareal tried to press De Jong and Busquets. 2 centre forwards and 4 midfielders tried to mark them taking De Jong and Busquets between them.
Villarreal waited in the midfield and met with balance but between midfield and defense line was too long and Barcelona’s player could use these spaces easily. Their tempo was not good and if they could take the ball, they couldn’t create counter attack opportunities. And the most important thing was they were not compact.
In this position, Barcelona is trying to make game. Messi is in between the opponent’s defense and midfield line and he is completely free. Moi can cover him but he has no idea about Messi’s position.
Busquets is seeing him and when he passed to Messi, Barcelona became 4 vs 4 against opponent’s defense line.
The league has started not long ago so Villarreal could be more compact in the next matches. As a result Barcelona hadn’t any problem about making game from their half.
In the Barcelona’s set attacks, Barcelona transformed like a 2-1-3-4. Full backs came to the wings, Busquets was the regista, De Jong played in box-to-box role, Coutinho came to the forward line and Messi played in the false 9 role.
They usually used left wing in the set attack. Look at the attack side, heat map and Barcelona’s passes. They absolutely used the left wing more. All the team was closed to the left wing.
Positions were interesting. Coutinho’s, Ansu Fati’s, De Jong’s and Alba’s communications were very much.
This is De Jong’s heat map.
And this is Coutinho’s heat map.
If Ansu Fati was in the left half-space, Coutinho came to the left wing and used free space. Because Ansu Fati pulled the opponent’s right back and stopper. Or they took position oppositely.
In this position, Ansu Fati is closing to the opponent’s defense line from left half-space.
And when he close, Coutinho finds free space in the left wing.
De Jong took position in their behind and used left half-space too.
Also Alba came to the left wing and when he came, they had 4 players in the left wing.
And sometimes Coutinho came to the centre to make game. This time when Ansu Fati was in the left half-space, Alba ran behind him and used left wing greatly.
In this position, Ansu Fati is in the left half-space and Coutinho is in the centre forward.
When Ansu Fati close to the midfield and pull opponent’s right back, Alba can be completely free because opponent’s right back can’t see him. End of the attack he passed to Ansu Fati and Ansu Fati scored goal.
They hadn’t any offensive midfielder. But they had 3 players ( Messi, Coutinho and Griezmann) who could make game so there was not a problem for them.
And also when they were pressing, Coutinho came to Messi’s beside and they transformed to 4-2-4.
First half they destroyed Villarreal and scored 4 goals. Second half Villarreal became to 4-3-2-1 line up before the match started the second half but it wasn’t enough to turn back.
Barcelona played well and was not dependent on Messi. They could also use other great players. I can’t say Barcelona can win the UEFA Champions League this season but they showed great things.