Real Madrid are now passing the ball more than Barca

When Barcelona won the Champions League in 2011, their midfield maestro Xavi Hernandez completed a mammoth 148 passes out of his team’s 777 passes in the final against Manchester United.

Pep Guardiola’s Barca had set the standards for attacking with the ball and in every match, they had the lion’s share of the possession. In their 5-0 mauling of Real Madrid, in what was Jose Mourinho’s first clasico in charge, Barca recorded 684 passes to Madrid’s 331.

Things have however changed since the Guardiola days as the midfield of Xavi-Iniesta-Busquets has been replaced by Rakitic-Coutinho-Busquets. Barca do not attack with as much thrust through the centre as they used to and ball retention is not the major point of focus. In that regard, Real Madrid have been changing drastically in recent years. Packed with midfield talents like Toni Kross, Luka Modric, Isco and Casemiro, they have been focusing on the midfield and it paid dividends with three back-to-back Champions League titles in the last three seasons.

With Julen Lopetegui, they have a manager who has always favoured rhythm, pattern and synchronizing the team with passes – a manager who is very much in the mould of Guardiola, and Real are actually starting to pass more than current Barcelona under Ernesto Valverde.

Mourinho was seen as the antithesis to Guardiola and Real had 27,366 fewer passes than Barcelona overall while the Portuguese was in charge.

However, under Lopetegui, Real have made 1,505 passes this season compared to 1,470 by Barca. They also have a higher pass success rate, 90.76 percent to Barcelona’s 87.89 percent.

Kroos has completed 220 out of 226 passes so far this season (97% success rate) and it is apparent that Madrid’s focus on starting things from midfield is only going to intensify this season.