Xavi plans a key tactical change for Barcelona’s UCL clash vs PSG

In over a week, Barcelona play one of their biggest matches of the current season when they take on PSG in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals.

The first leg will be played away at Parc des Princes on April 10 before hosting the Parisian giants at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys a week later on April 16.

With no matches to be played between now and the PSG game next week, Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez and his coaching staff have plenty of time to prepare for the blockbuster encounter.

A key tactical tweak

Building up to the game, SPORT’s Toni Juanmarti reports that Xavi and his staff are working to implement a key tactical tweak for Barcelona’s game against PSG.

As per the report, the idea would be to avoid playing too many short passes inside their own half and look to launch long passes upfield in order to bypass PSG’s press.

In Paris, what Barça will be looking for is to ‘travel’ in the opposition half but avoid over-exposing themselves in their own half with too many short passes.

Luis Enrique’s side will host Barça next week. (Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP via Getty Images)

The Barça coaching staff highlight PSG’s astonishing high and post-loss pressing, which increases the risk of losing balls in the creation of the play.

Faced with such a scenario, Xavi’s main instruction is to quickly change the direction of play in order to escape from the accumulation of players.

That is to say, after a couple of passes in a few metres, to look for another area of the pitch quickly, either on the opposite side or to look for a long delivery for the attacking players.

From there, wait for the defence and midfielders to gain metres to set up in the opposition half and attack with more pace.

It will be a departure from the usual way Barcelona like to do things, starting out moves from the back, but Xavi and his staff see it as the best way to deal with PSG’s high press.

Barça are expecting PSG to press high up the pitch and the the aim is to use that option to get out of the suffocating pressure and from there to be able to control.