"It looks dangerous, but it's not," Barcelona coach Hansi Flick said of the high defensive line that has become one of the main talking points at the moment.
That was Flick's statement after the impressive 4-0 victory on October 26 against Real Madrid in El Clasico at the Bernabeu. In that match, the Blaugrana were extremely successful with a high defensive line, forcing Los Blancos into offside positions 12 times. Of those, Kylian Mbappe was caught offside 8 times.
A week later, Barca won the Catalan derby against Espanyol to claim their 11th win in Flick's first 12 La Liga games. Nine points ahead of Real Madrid and 10 ahead of Atletico Madrid at the top of the table, they looked almost unstoppable.
However, since then, Flick's team has been in an unusual slump. After winning 33 of their first 36 points, they have accumulated just 5 points from 18 since then.
The Blaugrana have won just one of their last six La Liga games. That alarming run continued last weekend with a second successive home defeat in La Liga, this time to Leganes.
This adds to the importance of the match against Atletico Madrid at the Olympic Stadium. The 10-point gap between the two teams has disappeared. Coach Diego Simeone's team, after six consecutive wins in La Liga, will visit Barcelona with the same number of points and a game in hand.
Now the spotlight is on Barca's high line after a series of recent mistakes. Have they been truly exposed? Has Flick's magic worn off? How did Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo, Las Palmas, Real Betis and Leganes all manage to take points from them?
"At the moment, Atletico Madrid are the best team, really. They have 11 consecutive wins in all competitions. It will be a difficult game, a good game and we are waiting for it.
"But this is not a final. When we started this project, if someone had said that we would be first in La Liga and second in the Champions League on December 20, I would have accepted it immediately," Flick said before the match against Atletico Madrid.
The match between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid takes place at 3:00 a.m. on December 22 (Vietnam time).
