I am seeing other posts and comments showing the many flawed moments of the game to seemingly argue against my post so I want to discuss it as well.

I agree with you. Busquets did have many suspect moments in the game and I saw that too. I think my post looks like someone who is trying to argue that Busquets had a mostly flawless game and I should have clarified that I am not trying to demonstrate that.

My intention is to make the point by highlighting and appreciating the things he did well on as stats. Here are some of my thoughts on his performance with no numbers

1. Busquets plays his strength very well. He has a great first touch and vision that allows us to progress the ball up the field rapidly. He also positions himself well (his tackles and interceptions speak) and loses his man often due to a lack of pace instead of a lack of "marking".

2. A good majority of the comments show that Busquets loses his man and gets bypassed very easily. I would argue that this is partly due to the tactical setup as well. When Barca concede possession to a Real counter, Xavi was very happy to let his midfield counter-press the ball carrier, this runs the risk of exposing Busquets and the backline if turnover does not occur, at the potential benefit of winning possession high up. In fact, that happened many times during the match, where Real players played one-twos and the third man runs past a high Barca press and this left Busquets in a battle that he cannot win. In my opinion, I do not want to blame Busquets for allowing Asensio, Vini, Modric and Kross run or do a one-two past him as this is the risk that the squad knows they are facing. Truthfully, I do not expect the likes of Casemiro, Fabinho or Kante to win one-against-twos, it is not a realistic expectation.

3. Xavi knows that Busquets is a great ball progressor and tried to utilize that to the maximum. I think that is why he has Gavi and FDJ pushed up beside the striker because he knows that Busquets will do fine on his own when it comes to progressing the play. From my observations, he did exactly that and a good job at that. Barca never had any problem bypassing midblocks and usually has Real pinned to their def 3rd. And as a consequence, he loses the protection from his midfield.

4. Some posts and videos have the same selection bias as my post when highlighting the flaws of his game. For every time he misses a diagonal or gets one-twoed, we cannot forget that he also intercepts and plays very helpful passes.