3 Things We Learned: FC Barcelona vs. Deportivo Alavés

Barcelona stumbled to a shock 2-1 loss against unfavoured newcomers Deportivo Alavés at the weekend.

Squad Rotation

Luis Enrique still hasn’t mastered the art of squad rotation. Barcelona started the game with a heavily weakened line-up. Enrique obviously had the first Champions League game against Celtic in the back of his mind. Therefore rotating the team made sense, but he was a bit too heavy-handed with it, and Barcelona paid for it. However, he did state after the match that he was at fault for the loss.

Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Andrés Iniesta were all left on the bench. This took away a lot of the fluidity in the team even though these players all came on as substitutions. The lack of Iniesta, Messi and Gerard Piqué took away the majority of the experienced spine of the team as well. This was too many changes for a game after the international break because the majority of players had been away with national teams, so chemistry between the Barcelona players was lower than usual due to the limited amount of training over the past week. There is also the factor that the summer signing are still adjusting to the new environment, and 4 of them started against Alavés which helped cause a lack of understanding between the players in the final third.

International Break

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The significance of the international break being prior to this match must be considered when analysing the result. The sluggishness of Barcelona’s attacking play at times was clear to see. Travelling a larger distance than usual as well as playing in different systems can disorient players from their usual rhythm. This combined with the reduced amount of training before the match helps reduce familiarity between the players for a brief period which is a key part of how Barça play due to their intricate passing and clever runs requiring an understanding between the players. Barcelona’s attacking play was often disjointed because of this with the final pass in their attacks often missing the intended target. The amount of changes from the previous match compounded this as mentioned above. Nonetheless, the quality of Alavés’ performance must not be ignored.

Photo credit should read LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images /

Alavés Brilliance

As I said in my preview, Alavés play direct attacking football, and are organised defensively with a clear game plan. Alavés cut apart Barcelona’s defence with their efficient attacking play which made the most of the brief possession they had. Deyverson and Ibai Gómez were the pick of the bunch for Alavés, but it was a great overall team performance. That’s 4 points from their games against Barcelona and Atlético Madrid which is a great start to the season for them.

More from Everything Barca

This result is most likely an anomaly for Barcelona due to the various specific factors that influenced the result. Therefore it shouldn’t be an indicator for whether Barcelona are going to have a successful season. Barcelona are notorious for being slow to start the season with the early season draw against Málaga and loss against PSG in the 2014/15 treble winning season being great examples of this. However, the Champions League match against Celtic will be crucial in moving on from this loss, so expect a big response from the players, and hopefully a large positive scoreline for Barça.