How we beat Barcelona: Alaves boss Mauricio Pellegrino explains Nou Camp win
Tuesday 13 September 2016 00:45, UK
Newly-promoted Alaves stunned Barcelona with a 2-1 win at the Nou Camp - but how did they do it? To find out, we asked their manager Mauricio Pellegrino.
The former Liverpool assistant manager only joined up with the club in the summer but, after an overhaul of the playing staff, he has already overseen draws with Atletico Madrid and Sporting Gijon as well as Saturday's shock success.
Among the pre-season favourites for relegation, Alaves are surpassing all expectations in the early weeks of the season.
Here, in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports' Spanish football expert Guillem Balague, Pellegrino discusses the secrets to his team's success…
Thorough preparation
Pellegrino spent the days leading up to his team's trip to the Nou Camp stressing the importance of discipline, hard work and belief to his players.
"To play against Barcelona is not easy work," he said. "The most difficult thing is to convince the players that we would have our chance. We can see Barcelona winning a lot of games 5-0 or 6-0 and for the confidence of the player we had to convince them we'd have our moment.
"The main thing for me is to translate to them our thinking, our idea and the players were working really, really hard [to play that way in the game]."
Smart tactics
Pellegrino helped Louis van Gaal's Barcelona win the league in 1998/99 and the former centre-back used his experience of playing for the Catalans to come up with a solution for stopping them.
Employing a 5-4-1 formation, Alaves denied Barcelona space on the flanks and through the middle of the pitch. Luis Enrique's side could conjure up just two shots on target all game.
"When I was a player in Barcelona I was thinking always that Barcelona were 25 years playing in a way to play against 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 but against a team that play five players in defence there were really big problems. When I was a player I remember the Valencia of Claudio Ranieri or, later, Club Estudiantes de La Plata (in the final of the 2009 Club World Cup) when they had some problems working in that way.
We were working really hard because they are quicker, better technically and physically.
"For me the most difficult thing is to protect the line between the defence and the midfield, behind the midfielder, beside the midfielder, behind the full-back and the space of the corridor between the full-back and centre-back.
"We were working really hard because they are quicker, better technically and physically. The difficulty is to do this job for 90 minutes. They did get the goal from a corner and that's something we have to improve for the next game. But at the end, we had our moment."
A little bit of luck
While Barcelona barely worked Alaves 'keeper Fernando Pacheco, they did have opportunities, with Mathieu, Neymar and Ivan Rakitic all guilty of spurning chances. And Pellegrino conceded his team did have the rub of the green at times.
"Ok, we were lucky in some moments," he said. "If we think about the last chance for Lionel Messi and Mathieu… But in defence we were more or less correctly [set up] and in attack we had some effectiveness.
"It's not just about good luck. It's about the hard work of our players."
