A new role for Jordi Alba. Will he find himself in the centre of Barcelona’s midfield?

Jordi Alba left Barcelona in 2005 as a striker and returned seven years later from Valencia as a left-back. The Catalans paid 14 million euros for him. After ten seasons, he has sixteen titles and 514 games for the first team. The spirit of the striker still remains in him, so it often happens that he is used as a left winger and is one of the biggest weapons.

Jordi Alba has a great rapport with Messi and it is hard to count the goals that have fallen as a result of their collaboration. However, the Argentine is no longer at Camp Nou and the effect of the collaboration between the two has gradually faded away. Barcelona are therefore developing a new plan for Jordi, which we have already seen in the games against Elche and Sevilla.

In the first of these clashes, the player appeared practically in the centre of midfield. He didn’t play on the edge because he would have literally tied up with Abde there. So he retreated to the middle, supporting the midfielders and leaving the outer spaces to the strikers.

Jordi Alba – a way to give the midfield more creativity

Alba concentrated on creating play with Gavi and Ferran, often putting the opposition under pressure and creating 3-on-2 situations in Barcelona’s favour. This increased the superiority in attack and the chances of scoring a goal. It opened up a lot more quantity and free space after the midfielders had played.

With his individual dribbling ability, Barcelona can conquer the opponent’s defence more easily. Jordi is good with the ball – against Elche he had 112 contacts with the ball. However, he has to remember that he is in a new position and any loss can end in a counter attack. In this match he scored six of them.

So far it has been Alba who has been running out into open space to receive a pass, but now he is the author of these passes. Xavi’s idea is also to press hard to win the ball back. It’s definitely a risky tactic, as Jordi is not in the last phase of the offensive game, but closer to his own goal.

It’s worth noting that he recovered six balls in the Elche game. He did even better against Sevilla. He had 99 contacts with the ball and got on well with Abd, Gavi and Busquets. He managed to shoot twice on goal, which shows that he hasn’t completely lost his attacking touch.

Is Xavi emulating his coaching role model?

The whole idea is not entirely new. Just look at how Manolo Jimenez turned Dani Alves into a central midfielder in 2007/08. Later, Pep Guardiola did something similar with Joshua Kimmich at Bayern Munich and Kyle Walker, Zinchenko and João Cancela at Manchester City. At Barcelona, on the other hand, Alves is expected to be involved in attacking action from January. We’ll see how this experiment works out for Xavi and Alba.

Source: FC Barcelona