Doing The Rondo: A Practical Analysis Of Barcelona’s Secret Weapon

 rondo

When Pep Guardiola brought his Barcelona team to Wembley in 2011, the television cameras captured one of the most mesmeric sights in the game. In the studios before kick off, pundits around the world were busy scratching their heads at the team news. Amazingly, Sir Alex Ferguson had decided to field Park Ji-sung and Michael Carrick against the three-man Barcelona midfield of Sergio Busquets, Xavi, and Andres Iniesta (the second time Ferguson had made this 2-against-3 mistake, the first being in the 2009 Champions League Final in Rome). Out on the Wembley turf, the warm up told you everything you needed to know about what would happen next.

Most players are now familiar with the Rondo. There are different variations of players and numbers of touches, but most commonly you will see two in the middle, surrounded by a circle of eight or nine players. Other popular combinations are 3v1, 4v2, 5v2, and 6v3.  The players in the middle must press to win possession of the ball. The players on the outside must keep possession using just one touch. If they lose possession, the guilty player goes in the middle. That’s how you do it. But to understand the why of the Rondo is to understand the essence of the game itself.

Johan Cruyff once said, “Technique is not being able to juggle the ball 1000 times. Anyone can do that by practicing. Technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the correct foot of your teammate.” Barcelona legend has it that Rondos were first applied in training by Laureano Luiz, the founding father of Barcelona’s La Masia academy. They’re an incredibly useful tool because they train a number of core aspects simultaneously:

  • Combinations between players
  • Clean passing while under pressure
  • Body shape when receiving a pass
  • Use of different parts of the foot to control the ball
  • Passing through defenders (the split pass)
  • Making the most of numerical superiority
  • Defensive pressing mechanisms
  • Defensive anticipation

What most people don’t know about the rondo is the goal. If you could put a microphone next to a Barcelona Rondo, you would hear the players keeping count of the number of successful passes. They are fiercely competitive. But the goal of the Rondo is more nuanced, because although they do keep count, the goal is never possession for the sake of possession, as Pep Guardiola has made clear: “I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It’s so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition’s goal. It’s not about passing for the sake of it.” There are three categories of pass in the Rondo:

  • First Line Pass – a pass between exterior players that doesn’t bypass a defender
  • Second Line Pass – a pass between exterior players that goes past a defender but doesn’t go through the space between them
  • Third Line Pass – a pass that goes through the space between two defenders. Also known as a ‘split pass’

The split pass is the goal, but the players learn the importance of not rushing towards this goal and waiting for the right moment. If they get it wrong, they are shamed and enter the middle of the circle. The stakes are high because the consequence of a similar mistake in a real game is conceding possession, and perhaps a counter attack. If a team can understand the four ‘Whys’ below, then the Rondo explodes in value as a training exercise.

  1. The Rondo improves players ability to receive and distribute the ball under pressure with one or two touches.
  2. It teaches defenders how to press intelligently together. The two need to work in coordination to be successful. This includes non-verbal communication.
  3. The turn in the middle builds fitness tailor made for a team that wants to press aggressively.
  4. Building team spirit and responsibility – the  exterior circle players work together to keep the ball from the defenders.

What happened next at Wembley is well documented. Barcelona imposed themselves with total authority. They had 19 attempts on goal to United’s four, had 67 per cent of the possession and completed 667 passes to United’s 301. They won 3-1 and lifted their fourth European Cup.