Yash Thakur
Nov 14, 2025, 08:33 AM
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Barcelona have made the UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) final in each of the last five seasons, winning it three times. And at the heart of their success has been the three-pronged midfield of Patri Guijarro, Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí.
The trio have dominated women's football in recent years, scoring goals, creating assists, controlling games and pressing the opposition into submission. But while Putellas and Bonmati have won five Ballons d'Or between them, Guijarro has often been left to work in the shadows. The underrated 27-year-old may not get the plaudits of her teammates, but she is the glue that melds Barcelona's attacking unit and defensive structure together.
However, Patri suffered a broken bone in her foot against AS Roma in October which will keep her out of action for 12 weeks. And with Saturday's El Clasico against rivals Real Madrid followed by a UWCL trip to big-spending Chelsea, filling the void at the base of the midfield will be a big challenge for an already thin squad.
Patri's two-way presence from midfield is difficult to replicate, so how reliant are Pere Romeu's side on her?
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Influence in possession
Barcelona are the embodiment of a possession-dominant side; they like to control games with the ball and force the opposition deep into their own third. Romeu's side averaged 72% possession in the UWCL last season, the highest share by any side over the last three seasons.
Patri is at the heart of everything Barcelona do in possession. Stationed deep in her own third, she is usually the target of the first ball out of defense during their build-up phase. She is then tasked with progressing play up the field with her excellent distribution and vision. Indeed, last season in the UWCL, only Arsenal's Mariona Caldentey (95) had more progressive passes than Guijarro (94) and no player had more passes into the final third than her (90).
The Mallorca-born maestro is excellent at circulating possession and finding her targets -- she boasts an impressive 87% pass completion rate, while averaging over 100 passes per game last season. And she has a range of passes in her repertoire from crossfield switches, to long balls over the top, to defensive line-breaking passes on the ground.
Patri is also excellent at providing support in different phases of play, providing a safety net to recycle possession for her side while under pressure. She is able break through opposition press while retaining the ball, and is excellent at turning away from incoming opponents to manufacture space.
"Centrality" is a measure of how influential a player is within their team's possession structure, and shows the share of a player's touches in their team's total, highlighting how often the team funnel possession towards them.
As shown by the graphic above, Patri ranked 10th for "centrality" across the UWCL last season. She accounted for 11.1% of Barcelona's total open-play touches, and has averaged over 100 open-play touches per 90 minutes across the last two UWCL seasons. In fact, her and Bayern Munich's Georgia Stanway are the only central midfielders in a list full of center backs and full backs -- positions which are typically the target of the first pass out in the buildup.
Beyond her ball progression abilities, Patri (who won the U20 World Cup Golden Boot in 2018) is equally adept at chance creation and long-range shooting as well, as shown by the fact that she was the leading assist provider in the UWCL last season (5).
Key in defensive workrate
Barcelona play a brand of slow, controlled, possession football that few teams in the world can replicate. The idea is to dominate the ball and territory, keeping the opposition as far away from their goal as possible.
The reason it works so seamlessly is because they have an octopus at the base of the midfield who can do anything. Patri is a metronome on the ball and an omnipresent entity off it, who covers every blade of grass twice in the same game.
She provides a screening presence in front of defense and is excellent in both her positioning and understanding of space. And she is able to plug any gaps in the team's structure making it difficult for the opposition to play through them, often dropping outside her center backs to get the full backs more involved.
Beyond her tactical traits, she also is an immovable object in duels. Patri has a large radius of control, allowing her to claw back possession even in precarious situations, and she often bullies her opponent off the ball.
In the UWCL semifinal first leg against Chelsea last season, Patri neutralized all threats posed by the London side -- she finished the game with over 100 touches, winning eight of her 10 ground duels, recording five interceptions and making five tackles along the way.
In general, Barcelona create less and concede more in her absence. Across the UWCL and Liga F, the team average 0.5 fewer goals per 90 minutes and average an xG difference of -0.45 per game, which shows how opponents have more threat when she is not present.
Since her injury, Barcelona have already lost their first game of the season, against Real Sociedad in Liga F, and have a tricky November ahead, with Real Madrid and Chelsea next up.
While former Manchester City defender Laia Aleixandri has reprised her previous role as a deep-lying midfielder to help fill in, Barcelona will miss Patri's synergy and all-round ability in their upcoming games. For all the talk of Bonmati and Putellas, they are missing their lynchpin, and their invincible midfield has a major hole in it.