Team Focus: How Enrique's Barca Treble Hopefuls Compare to Pep's Strongest Sides

“Barca open a new chapter,” wrote AS’ Alfredo Relaño in his editorial on Sunday morning, after Barcelona had beaten Athletic Bilbao 3-1 in the previous night’s Copa del Rey final, sealing the sixth Liga and Copa double in the Catalan club’s history.

Relaño continued by saying that the current Luis Enrique coached side, with Lionel Messi as an all-controlling right-sided playmaker, was a much different team to the blaugrana outfit from a few years back, built around midfield string-puller Xavi Hernandez.

“It’s not tiqui-taca anymore,” he wrote. “Xavi is leaving and he’ll never play alongside Iniesta again. This Barça side play in a different way, without over elaborating build-up play, without eliminating their opponent from the contest, but are capable of winning in style. Messi is sitting deeper and is instrumental in creating play and finishing other moves. In general everything they do is done in a more dynamic manner and with a degree of unpredictability. I liked the way the former team played, but I like this style too. Another great Barca team.”

The previous great Barca team being referred to is of course the side built by Pep Guardiola, which did win the treble in his first season in charge [2008/09], and then for many came close to football perfection two years later when they again won the La Liga and Champions League double.

That 2011 team had Xavi holding the baton in midfield as they were controlling games through holding the ball, and eventually suffocated teams through possession. By that stage Messi had become firmly established as a 'false nine', with the team's other attackers – usually Pedro Rodriguez and David Villa – in very secondary roles.

Guardiola's successors Tito Vilanova and Gerardo 'Tata' Martino both tweaked this 'tiki-taka' model, but without making any serious break from Guardiola’s structures, leading to last season when the side went without any silverware for the first time since the pre-Pep era.

The argument from Relaño and many other commentators is that Luis Enrique, while always claiming to be continuing the club’s typical style, has done more than just evolve Guardiola’s model. Despite plenty of grumblings from the blaugrana traditionalists, things have turned around spectacularly - with a front three of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez all in amazing form. Barca are now heading into Saturday's Champions League final against Juventus looking to complete what would be only the club’s second ever treble of La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey.

There is a feeling that should the treble be won again, it will be done in a very different way. It’s not just outsiders who think this way, as centre-back Pique, a mainstay in defence for both Guardiola and Luis Enrique, happily told a press conference last month.

“We’re a more mature team, who know better how to take on adverse situations,” Pique said. “We’ve evolved our style of play, we don’t have so much possession, and it now does not seem as if it is a handball game. We’re more direct, and take advantage of the forwards we have. We’re also more solid in defence.”

Pique’s views echo those of many observers who see the current Barca team being much more ‘vertical’ and direct, eschewing too many sideways balls in midfield, and getting the ball forward quickly so that their superstar front three can wreak havoc before defences have time to get set.

But do the stats back up this impression? It seems not really...

During the 2014/15 La Liga season Luis Enrique’s team had 69.7% possession of the ball, and an 88.2% pass completion ratio. Back in 2010/11, Guardiola’s team had 67.5% possession, with an 89.6% pass completion ratio. So the current team actually have a slightly higher possession percentage per game, and only a marginally lower pass completion ratio. In terms of the amount of time Barca have the ball, and how well they keep it, there is no real difference between the teams.

We can also look at the type of goals the teams have scored. In 2014/15 Barca scored 108 goals in total in La Liga - 80 from open play, six from counter-attacks and 16 from set-pieces. This compares to 2010/11, when they scored 94 La Liga goals in total - 71 open play, nine on the counter and 9 from set-pieces.

Again the statistics do not really back up the impression of a break with the past - with Pep’s side actually scoring three more counter-attack goals that year than Luis Enrique’s have managed this term. There is a big difference in set-piece goals however, with the current coaching staff’s training ground work certainly paying off there [16-9]. That definitely shows the pragmatism of ‘Lucho’, but is not a sign of a big change in philosophy on the ball.

Another statistic to look at is the type of passes made by each team. Guardiola’s 2010/11 Barca made 55 long balls per game, compared to 694 short passes. Luis Enrique’s 2014/15 side make 53 long passs per game, compared to 628 shorter balls. This suggests the current side are more likely to play the ball long, but not by too much. For each long pass four years ago, 12.6 short passes were played. That ratio this year is 11.8. So there is now slightly less slow build-up in midfield, but not a huge amount.

Other metrics which you might think can be used to show the current Barca side are more direct than their tiki-taka predecessors are also less than conclusive. The total shots is just slightly higher this year [up from 15.8 to 16.4]. Total dribbles is similar, with the 2014/15 side making marginally more [up from 26.1 to 25.3]. The number of key passes per 90 minutes is the exact same, at 14.2.

So the numbers show that despite the talk of a tactical revolution, Barca are still sticking pretty closely to their traditional style. This year’s team still hit by far more short passes than any other team in La Liga [Madrid second with 477, a full 151 less]. Meanwhile, they also still hit fewer long balls than any of the other 19 sides [again Madrid next with 56, three more than Barca].

This is not to stay that everyone is wrong - that Relaño, Pique and everyone else have been feeding a narrative that does not at all fit with the facts. It could be though that a persistent memory of Pep’s team as boring, just keeping the ball forever without making any chances, has been conditioned by what happened in a few high-profile games, and does not accurately reflect what was happening week-in, week-out during the season.

2014/15 Barca have been incredibly clinical in key moments - especially against the biggest sides, such as in La Liga against Madrid and Atletico, and in the Champions League versus Manchester City and Bayern Munich. One of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez has often come up with a piece of genius to put their team in control.

For the rest of the 90 minutes though their team have been passing the ball all around not that differently to before. Barca may have opened a new chapter this year, but Luis Enrique has definitely not thrown the old book out the window.

How does this year's Barcelona team stack up to the best of those under Pep Guardiola? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below