In the Zone: Barcelona 2-1 Porto performance analysis

Barcelona qualified for the knockout stage of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in three seasons with Tuesday's 2-1 home win over Porto.

In this analysis brought to you by Fedex, the UEFA Technical Observer Panel highlights how Barcelona profited from attacking Porto out wide, with Player of the Match João Cancelo particularly productive on the left side with a goal and an assist.

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Barcelona progressing outside Porto's narrow shape

The UEFA match observer identified Barcelona's good work in progressing the ball in the wide areas, playing around the opposition's narrow shape with the help of long passes to switch the play.

Clip 1 above offers an example with centre-back Jules Koundé aiming a long switch pass out to Cancelo on the left. Named the Player of the Match, the Portuguese full-back was a key reference point in Barcelona's attack. He had begun Barcelona's three previous group games on the right of their defence; now he was on the left.

The match observer said: "Normally from a switch of play he would come in to play inside with his right foot to link up with Raphina across the pitch, or with Joâo Félix close by or with his individual quality as per the first goal." In this example, he takes the Raphinha option and the Brazilian gets in a shot on goal.

The second clip shows another switch out to Cancelo on the left with the heat map of his average position emphasising his attacking impact on an evening he had licence to get forward. The sequence ends with him stepping inside to score the equalising goal – his first in the competition for Barcelona.

If Cancelo's starting position was at left-back, when Barcelona had possession Frenkie de Jong dropped deep as he pushed high up the wing. Clip 3 offers an example and also underlines the narrow defensive shape of the visitors – and it ends with the two Joãos combining for Félix to score his first goal since September.

As well as the cross for the winning goal, Cancelo produced four key passes – a total bettered only by Lazio's Luís Alberto in Tuesday's matches.

Porto advance centrally through overloads

The focus of this second video above is Porto's attacking play. As the first clip shows, they were able to create overloads centrally when building from the back. With one of Barcelona's midfield trio, Pedri, stepping high to press, we see Porto create a 3 v 2 in the space behind him.

"They created lots of problems centrally for Barcelona," said the observer. "They were able to break well," he added, and this is clear as the sequence ends with four Porto players advancing at high speed, centrally, in the attacking third.

Clip 2 highlights how Porto's 'box midfield' was instrumental to their midfield overloads and as the action pauses, the attack map on the screen shows that more than one-third (35.6%) of their attacks came down the central channel.

This focus on the middle of the pitch is reflected by the fact that on Tuesday only two teams – Newcastle and Atlético de Madrid – produced fewer crosses from open play than Porto's six. Yet their approach bore fruit, helped by some clever rotations as we see in Clip 3 where they are able to get players in between the lines in the move that produced Mehdi Taremi's offside goal.

The visitors ended the night with five shots on goal to Barcelona's seven – but beaten for the second time by Xavi's men in Group H.

João Félix celebrates his decisive goal for BarcelonaGetty Images

Coaches' assessments

Xavi Hernández, Barcelona coach: "We played a very good game against a top team who are intensive, aggressive and press you high.

"[On his half-time message] We had to be more bold. When they came out to press us, we had to look behind the press and not go back to Iñaki [Peña, the goalkeeper]. The free man was Cancelo. We knew we had to get in behind and with Cancelo we had options in the one v one and he had a great game."

Sérgio Conceição, Porto coach: "In football the game is made up of offensive and defensive duels and we lost the game today on those details.

"We played a good game with personality and character. We got the goal but it was a shame we conceded the equaliser straight away. In the second half we played the same way as in the first. We lost a couple of duels [and] allowed an opponent with a lot of quality into the final third."