How Joao Cancelo has given Barcelona the tactical freedom they were missing | OneFootball

A couple of weeks ago, Barcelona had a lot of eyeballs on them as they welcomed Levante to the Spotify Camp Nou. A season that seemed to be sailing smoothly hit an unexpected road bump as recent stumbles saw the Catalan club drop to second in the La Liga table.

The 1-2 loss to Girona, coupled with a 4-0 annihilation at the hands of Atletico Madrid in the Copa del Rey, ruffled quite a few feathers in Hansi Flick’s camp. However, Barcelona beat the Valencian club 3-0 in a clean and controlled performance.

However, the scoreline isn’t the story of the night. Bobbing below the surface was a performance on the left touchline, where Cancelo spent the afternoon turning a “defensive position on paper” into Barcelona’s most expressive instrument.

Against Levante, the Portuguese international showed Barcelona they have been missing all along: a full-back who attacks like a playmaker and allows the rest of the team to camp further up the pitch and play closer to goal.

It was an individual display that made Barça look like Barça again.

A match settled by the left-back’s intent

Much was said of Cancelo’s time at Barcelona ahead of the Levante game. Having moved to the club on loan from Al Hilal in January, the ex-Manchester City star had found minutes hard to come by as he had to build up his match fitness.

Meanwhile, the Spanish media, in typical fashion, set the rumour mill spinning on how Flick might not trust the veteran star completely. In many ways, the manager’s XI seemed to be a direct response to these baseless claims.

Levante threatened seconds into the game, but Barcelona responded swiftly. In just the 4th minute, Marc Bernal gave the Catalans a lead by turning a low cross from Eric Garcia home.

The key detail here is that Cancelo provided the through ball with pinpoint precision to Eric for the Spaniard to cross it in.

While this gave Barcelona the early advantage, Cancelo’s moment of the match came in the 32nd minute. He provided a delicately chipped ball to Frenkie de Jong, who made the perfect run into the box and bundled the ball into the net.

It was the kind of pass Barcelona fans had forgotten that a full-back can make.

Both Jules Kounde and Alejandro Balde come with their limitations and reminded everyone of what exactly the club was lacking: runs, line-breaking passes and crosses that catch the opposition defence unaware.

Cancelo changed Barcelona’s source of attack from the final third to the flanks. He made the left flank his own and changed the entire perception of Flick’s attacking structure.

A left-back who thinks like a midfielder

The most important takeaway from the night was not Cancelo’s performance but the kind of threat that he provides. His natural intelligence means that it is difficult for opposition defenders to minimise him into one bucket.

He isn’t just overlapping like a runner following instructions. He chooses his routes and the angles that he wants to exploit. He knows when to step inside and when to step outside. He understands when to use his right foot and when to cross it with his left.

In many ways, he shaped the tempo of a flank in the same way a midfielder would do in the centre. When he stays wide, he pins the opposition full-back wide and has the trickery to get past him in a 1v1 situation, more often than not.

When he drifts inside, he creates an overload in the left half-space and forces the opponent into deciding whether to follow him and leave space on the flank or to let Cancelo have the ball. Neither solution is good, from the defending team’s perspective.

That’s what elite attacking full-backs do. They don’t just provide width to the team. They present dilemmas to the opposition and look to thrive in the chaos.

“My best game since coming back”

After the match, Cancelo didn’t shy away from the fact that this game was a personal turning point for him. He called this performance his best since returning. He said:

“My best game since coming back? Yes, for sure. It’s about taking advantage of the opportunity. I was training very well, and I felt that the coach was going to play me.”

This is revealing because it’s not about Cancelo’s talent. Everyone knows that he has it. It’s about his attitude, which has often been called into question. It’s about him being trusted. It’s about a footballer who thrives when his football is allowed to be instinctive and not cautious.

Barcelona have spent the past few seasons worried about stopping transitions than attacking through their full-backs. Cancelo is the antithesis of that fear. He is unapologetically forward-facing, even if it often comes at the cost of his defending. For him, the risk is not optional.

Proving his worth. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

This is the tactical truth Barcelona have been circling for years: the best way to break a low block isn’t by just having more possession, it’s by having more creators.

Sometimes, those creators come in the form of Cancelo, who wears a defender’s number but plays with a winger’s imagination.

The double-down against Atletico Madrid

If the Levante game was a teaser of what was to come, Cancelo took it to the next level against Atletico Madrid this week.

In Barcelona’s 3-0 win over Diego Simeone’s side at the Spotify Camp Nou, the Portuguese international started the game on the left and finished it on the right.

His clearest moment came in a short-corner routine, where Cancelo whips in an outstanding delivery that Marc Bernal turns home for his second goal of the night.

Although Barcelona fell agonizingly short of the fourth goal on the night, Cancelo showed everyone why he is one of the better weapons to break open a low block.

The Atletico Madrid game also offered a glimpse of how he could combine with Lamine Yamal on the right, and this is a pattern we could see repeat itself in the coming weeks, with Jules Kounde sidelined with a hamstring injury.

Cancelo as a microcosm of the club’s next step

Barcelona’s iconic teams of the past have always had full-backs who mimicked wide forwards. The name that springs to mind almost immediately is Dani Alves.

In recent seasons, though, the identity of a Barcelona full-back has changed. They have become merely functional pieces and not tactical weapons. Cancelo is a step in the right direction to break this monotony.

Cancelo allows Barcelona to transition from a team that minimises mistakes to a team that maximises moments. Yes, the ex-Man City star is not the perfect player. The attacking full-back archetype always comes with a gamble, but when it pays off, it could be massive.

The solution isn’t to ask Cancelo to be less. It’s to build a system around him that allows players like him to thrive without compromising on defence. Going forward, whether it’s him or someone else, this is the profile that they need to seek out.

For years, Barcelona’s full-backs have often felt like punctuation marks: necessary but not decisive. Cancelo, on the other hand, has become a statement.

And that, if the club listen intently, is a roadmap right there for the present and the future.