Surely other nights may not be like this, but the placid night in Mallorca gave a glimpse of how Setién wants to organize Barça for the next five weeks. “There will be many variations. There are many games and very concentrated. There will be players who rotate less, but they will all be changing and it is normal when there are so many games and so often,” explained the Spaniard after the Visit Mallorca game, where he moved the team at his whim with the prospect of a tough schedule in which he expects, beyond Leganés, a tremendous visit to Sánchez Pizjuán next Friday.
Setien gave clues to his modus operandi. He reserved players (Umtiti), dosed (Griezmann-Suárez), oxygenated (Busquets, Sergi Roberto), protected (Vidal for his card) and allowed his leader, Leo Messi, to shoot until the point that his goal came in the last minutes, the sign that nobody measures better than the Argentine.
The Excel, then, was successfully activated and, although the statements of the Cantabrian make it clear that there will be more regular players and more substitutes than others, it did give clues to the areas that will move more. With the centrals, Piqué and Araújo, firm for ninety minutes (it is one of the positions that suffers least physically), Setién moved the laterals. It was sensed that Sergi Roberto and Semedo will share the minutes in the remaining ten games and that Junior, although a substitute, will protect Alba, who was decisive at last this season with his goal and assistance. In Mallorca, Junior already had a few minutes with a view to his ownership against Leganés.
In the midfield, Rakitic and Arthur were not starters but it is clear that they will have minutes and that they are ahead of the youth squads (Puig, Collado, Monchu …). De Jong held 83 minutes, Busquets 70 and Vidal, 45. The midfield will move a lot.
Like the front. The incorporation of Braithwaite allows Setién to give Suárez and Griezmann some oxygen. The Danish scored a goal and was about to make another. He showed that it can be a good replacement for Suárez when the Uruguayan has to rest. The one that, for the moment, has been left out of the equation, is Ansu.
The Leganés game will be the first demonstration of how the Setien tree moves with the Excel in hand. Semedo, Júnior, Lenglet, Rakitic, Arthur and Suárez could enter the eleven. With respect to the pepineros, Setién is aware that he is expecting a very tough match against Sevilla on Friday 19 and, in addition to Alba's loss, he plans to oxygenate players like Sergi Roberto, Busquets and, beware, we could even see Messi rest for a few minutes although the Argentine aims to start.