In recent history Barça has always had a lot of possession, but that has to be converted into goals. Guardiola has improved the formula each season and this season the team is getting a better performance than ever from the Barça style triangulations.

95% of goals from open play

The proportion of goals from open play is the highest since Guardiola took over the team. Barça has scored 75 of the 79 goals in the league with the type of football that has captured the admiration of everybody in football, and only four goals have been from set pieces. This figure continues to reaffirm the superiority of the Barça game.

The effectiveness of the club’s style of play continues to grow with Guardiola at the helm, as in his first season his players scored 82 goals from open play and in the previous season, 77. These figures, however, were achieved after playing the entire league, while the 75 current goals have been scored with 10 games remaining.

Corners are also moves

Since his arrival, Guardiola has made strategy one of the team’s stronger points. In his first season Barça scored 7 goals from corners in the league and in the second 8 were scored, whilst in the current season we can count only 1.

This is because this season Barça usually take short corners, to take advantage of their superior combination play. These corners are turned into planned moves. Barça has already scored 3 goals in the league from these plays, and in the stats they count within the 75 goals from open play.

Penalties and free-kicks

In previous seasons, the players had scored 10 goals from free kicks in the league, whereas this season they’ve only scored 1, mainly because some of the specialist free-kick takers have left, like Marquez, Henry, and Ibrahimovic and because no goal has been scored from a cross from a free-kick as in previous seasons. Moreover, in the first season 6 goals were scored from the penalty spot, in the second season 3, and this season so far only 2.