Barcelona 2010 Possession Totals in La Liga

We’ll update the possession time per game throughout the year. This is for the La Liga season from 2010-2011.

Barcelona is again on track to possess the ball more than any other team in La Liga by a wide margin. Oh how it must torture and frustrate other teams to play again Barcelona, when all they end up doing is running around with their heads cut off trying to win the ball back but with very little luck. It’s one thing to keep losing to Barcelona but have to endure 90 minutes of just chasing? It must get frustrating. It’s getting to the point where Barcelona will have to play with one less player, or have Iniesta, Messi or Xavi play with ankle weights.

The one team so far this year that’s eaten into the Barcelona possession average is Vallencia, where they were luck enough to have the ball 44% of the time. Looks like La Liga coaches with be pulling out that games’ tape to see how they did it. But it was Mallorca that earned a draw against Barcelona this year, and only saw the ball 25% of the time. That game tape we’ll be viewed even more by those who have to face Barcelona.

There’s still a long, long way to go yet in the La Liga season, and the el clasico battle with Real Madrid just around the corner, so we’ll update this page with the possession times as the year progresses. We’re only looking at La Liga games. We are not recording the possession totals for any Champions League or Copa del Rey matches. One thing that would be interesting though is how much the possession time goes up when they’re playing at the Camp Nou.

Here are the possesion totals from last season for Barcelona. I’m guessing there’s no other team in Europe that even comes close to averaging as much time on the ball as Barcelona does. Perhaps Arsenal is the only other team that even comes close to them.