La Liga: Girona vs Athletic Bilbao! Tactical dominance? Here are several reasons why I’m rooting for Bilbao

Today, let’s start with the first La Liga match: Girona vs Athletic Bilbao!

Girona’s style of play is very attractive; they are highly proactive and always focused on offense, offense, and more offense.

As a result, among the 10 teams in the lower half of La Liga, Girona leads in goals scored.

They are a typical Spanish possession-based team, creating chances through numerous short passes.

Currently, they average 392.5 successful passes per game, ranking third in La Liga, even surpassing Sevilla and Real Sociedad, two other possession-focused teams.

I have emphasized many times that there is a clear hierarchy among possession teams, with stronger ones clearly dominating the weaker ones.

Possession, possession, but the key is the “control” part behind it.

When two possession teams face off, the one who controls the game will make it difficult for the opponent to perform.

Objectively, Girona’s overall squad value is limited, and their individual quality is somewhat lacking.

When facing strong possession teams, lacking both tactical advantages and individual skills makes it hard to maintain possession or control, making the game very difficult.

We can see that Girona’s results this season against possession teams like Real Sociedad, Celta, Betis, and Valencia have been quite poor, demonstrating the dominance within possession teams.

On the other hand, Athletic Bilbao has performed well against other possession teams this season, except for Barcelona.

They have beaten Villarreal, Rayo Vallecano, Valencia, and even won a friendly against Real Sociedad.

Valverde, who led Barcelona to two La Liga titles, clearly understands possession teams well.

He relies on two main tactics against possession teams:

First is top-level high pressing and ball recovery.

So far, they have made 89 high pressing recoveries, ranking first among the big five leagues, even ahead of Manchester City.

This ability is especially effective against possession teams because they pass frequently and spread out, so once possession is lost, it’s hard to recover defensively.

The second tactic is rapid counter-attacking.

According to official La Liga data, Athletic Bilbao leads the league in long-distance counter-attacks.

Possession teams usually push up to organize attacks in the opponent’s half, so they struggle against such quick counters.

Coincidentally, Girona’s defensive style is man-marking.

Man-marking systems have very clear advantages and disadvantages.

The most obvious drawback is that it often leaves large spaces for the opponent.

It works better against opponents with similar individual strength.

But when facing players stronger than themselves, it’s often hard to keep track of them.

Valverde’s weakness is his poor training of set pieces; when coaching Barcelona, their set pieces were disastrous.

Now at Bilbao, it’s even worse—this season, out of 20 goals, none have come from set pieces!

Therefore, when facing defensive counter-attacking teams, they struggle a lot.

Look at their poor results against Getafe, Atlético Madrid, Espanyol, Mallorca, and others.

There’s no denying that tactically they are being suppressed.

But today, facing Girona… it’s really a “match made in heaven”!

Will Bilbao satisfy their fans? What do you think? I’m looking forward to them earning three points!

Alright, for today’s other matches, I will still send out written analyses in the evening. If anything is unclear, feel free to ask me. Let’s “watch and understand the game” together, don’t miss it!

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