[Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Barcelona: Williams’ strike won the fiery battle for Bilbao]

In an attempt of securing the first trophy of the 2019/20 season, Quique Setién’s Barcelona side
travelled to San Mamés, Athletic Bilbao’s home ground, to play the Copa del Rey quarter-final.
While the away side was controlling the majority of the match and ball possession, a single
stoppage-time goal by Iñaki Williams sealed a semi-final spot for Bilbao after a fiery match by
both sides.

Gaizka Garitano made the decision of shifting away from Bilbao’s familiar 4-2-3-1 formation that
they had used in earlier matches to play with a 3-4-2-1 formation. The emphasis was placed on
the back-three with three ball-playing defenders Iñigo Martínez, Unai Núñez and Yeray Álvarez
during the team’s build-up phase. Both wing-backs Ander Capa and Yuri Berchiche were
encouraged to push forward while the team pressed and attacked to create a numerical
advantage out wide. Iker Muniain and Raúl García’s roles were relatively flexible as Muniain was
able to shift from the left-wing into the central, while Raúl García played slightly to the right.

Meanwhile, Barcelona maintained their usual 4-1-2-3 formation with most of their key players
started for the away side. Jordi Alba and Nélson Semedo were encouraged to overlap forward
during the team’s attack to provide two possible attacking options out wide. Their midfield trio in
the middle saw Sergio Busquets dropped closer to the centre-backs while Frenkie de Jong and
Ivan Rakitić stayed slightly wider. Instead of choosing Antoine Griezmann to start on the right-
hand side, Setién picked Sergi Roberto to complete the front three with Ansu Fati on the left and
Lionel Messi in the middle.
  Bilbao’s risky approach
Quite surprisingly, Garitano’s side approached the match with a confident and determined
mentality, which also determined their style of play. Out of possession, Bilbao pressed extremely
high and even looked to regain possession near Barcelona’s 16-yard box. They formed a 3-4-1-2
formation with Muniain moved centrally to mark Busquets, while Williams and Raúl García were
tasked to mark Barcelona’s centre-backs.

But the risky part of their style of play was pushing both wing-backs forward and allowing them to
join the press. Both Yuri and Capa, at times, were found inside their opposition’s half with the
intention of closing down Barcelona’s wing-backs. It left the centre-backs all by themselves to
deal with the opponent’s front three, but they were comfortable in dealing with a 3v3 situation.

Their pressing intention was to apply a man-oriented press and attempt to overload the central
area. Barcelona were still able to distribute the ball down the middle amid their midfielders were
marked tightly. But since the connection between the midfielders and the attackers were cut off
by Bilbao’s central midfielders, they were not able to move the ball forward. At times, it forced
them to restart their build-up from inside their own half, also allowing Bilbao to restart their
press.

The only problems with Bilbao’s press, though, were the positioning of the centre-backs and
Lionel Messi’s movement. Firstly, since the home side opted to press high up the pitch, the
centre-backs were forced to move forward to support them. At times, they found themselves
standing inside Barcelona’s half without anyone covering behind their back. This, along with Ansu
Fati’s pace, was something that Yeray and his teammates had to deal with should the ball carrier
played a long ball forward.

Secondly, Messi was given a free role in this match and he did make the most out of it. Playing in
the central of Barcelona’s front three, he tended to drop deep like a false nine to receive the ball
and bring it forward. This forced Núñez to push forward along with him as he was tasked to mark
Messi tightly. Both Yeray and Martínez also had to drag back to cover the space that he left
behind in case Roberto or Fati opted to utilise it. There were several occasions where Barcelona
were able to capitalise those problems using long passes, but none of them were able to threaten
Unai Simón’s goal.

 Barcelona’s possession-oriented approach

As expected from Barcelona, they preferred a possession-based style of play in which they would
look to have the ball more often than the opposition. Indeed, as they finished the match with
68% of ball possession (compared to Bilbao’s 32%) and 672 attempted passes. This encouraged
them to be more patient on the ball and when they worked their way into the box.

But they were only able to create eleven chances towards Simón’s goal and only two of them
were able to threaten the Spaniard goalkeeper. The reason behind that was because they kept
the ball inside their own half for most of the time. From their passmap, it is able to notice that the
arrows density between the defenders themselves and the midfielders is thick. This shows that
they made a significant number of passes among each other and they were only able to connect
with the attackers on a small number of occasions.

With the ball being kept in between the defenders and midfielders more often, it was not able for
Barcelona to progress the ball outside of their own half. As a result, they had to turn to long
passes inside the second half with most of them were aimed at Messi (he received the most
progressive passes).
Furthermore, the passmap also showed the away side’s tendency of attacking down the left-hand
side even though the average positions of Semedo and Sergi Roberto are higher. Since Yuri’s
defensive ability is better and he also received support from Yeray, Barcelona were reluctant to
attack down the right wing. Instead, they would distribute the ball down the right wing and then
used a midfielder or Messi to switch the play towards the left for Jordi Alba.

This strategy worked on several occasions, though, it did not create many good chances for
Barcelona. Bilbao's defensive shape was able to shift from the right to the left quick enough to
cover up the space in front of the box. Therefore, Alba did not have enough time to pick out
anyone inside the box and was forced to switch the play again or restarted the build-up.

With time running out for Barcelona, they were forced to push the team forward in order to
avoid extra time, which would make the players exhausted. But Bilbao’s defensive shape
remained vigilent and tight in front of their own box, like they did throughout the whole match.
The away side struggled to work their way into the box, but still ended up with two significant
chances where both substitute Antoine Griezmann and Messi got denied by Simón.

In one of Bilbao’s positional attack situations inside the second half, they were able to get the ball
to the right wing and the players quickly moved into the box. A cross from another substitute in
Ibai Gómez found Williams, who was marked by Busquets, and it touched his head to go into the
goal.
Athletic Bilbao’s approach to this match was definitely interesting as it was very risky given that
they opted to press very high up the pitch. They looked to create overloads inside Barcelona’s
half and attempted to regain possession as quick as possible. But it was the approach itself made
the match interesting to watch as it put the away side on their back foot during the first half.

Barcelona reacted to it well inside the second half by moving the ball between the players quicker
to avoid the press. They also attempted to make long passes to hit Bilbao’s vulnerable back three,
the strategy which they benefitted the most. But they struggled to work the ball into the box and
were reluctant to make long shots, which hindered them from creating any threat towards
Simón’s goal.

 Takeaways
While some might criticised Garitano’s decision of pressing very high up the pitch and played with
a high defensive line, it was the crucial factor that decided the match. Bilbao fulfilled what they
wanted before the match, suffocating Barcelona from inside their own half and won the ball
quickly. Barcelona did attempt to regain their control of the match, but they failed to do so and
eventually lost the match. Still, they can still look forward to the Champions League knock-out
round against Napoli with the goal of bringing the trophy back to Camp Nou.