I saw the game. Real Sociedad's blueprint of 'how to beat Barcelona' seems to get used more and more by other teams now. Basically, they line up like this:
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They leave two players in pure attacking positions, and use the AM as a link between midfield and attack. Instead of having dedicated wingers to help their fullbacks, they move one of the midfield trio out there for support. They defend deep, minimizing space between back 4 and midfield, and look to play on the counter. Because they have two attackers on the pitch, Barcelona are always prone to be under pressure on the counter attack since they throw so many bodies forward, and their midfielders are quite poor at tracking back I have to say.
The two own goals were flukey, and Barcelona were very lucky here. The midfield trio of Villareal got really tired in the last 20 minutes, which proved to be decisive. Them tiring is understandable in this system, but I feel Villareal were undone by having to make 2 subs in the first 25 minutes down to injuries. In fact, up until the 70th minute Villareal had created more chances, and more quality chances, than Barcelona despite having the ball about 25 percent of the time. IMO Barcelona have been found out, and more and more teams are capable of coping with their possession football.
