Copa del Rey QF 1st leg: FC Barcelona 1 - Atletico Thugdrid 0

21.01.2015 21:00 CET
Camp Nou

Simeone's men advance from the round of 16 with an aggregate scoreline of 4-2 against their inferior city rivals.

Lucho's men advance from the round of 16 with an aggregate scoreline of 9-0 against Elche.

The last game between Barcelona and Atletico ended 3-1 but one has to think that Simeone wouldn't be Simeone if he didn't have something up his sleeve to correct the mistakes and get a much better result this time around. In any case the likelihood of a quality side like Atletico getting #REKT in similar manner twice in a row is small. At the same time Messi and Neymar are in superb form and the midfield 3 of Busquets-Iniesta-Rakitic is starting to look cohesive so getting #REKT in Camp Nou isn't totally out of question right now. But then again Torres is back. Anything can happen.

Predicted lineups:

Barcelona:


Thugdrid:

Fubball, from your own evaluation, has messi actually being playing right wing as against the center..? Or is he playing a semi free-role?

Fußball wrote:

21.01.2015 21:00 CET
Camp Nou

Simeone's men advance from the round of 16 with an aggregate scoreline of 4-2 against their inferior city rivals.

Lucho's men advance from the round of 16 with an aggregate scoreline of 9-0 against Elche.

The last game between Barcelona and Atletico ended 3-1 but one has to think that Simeone wouldn't be Simeone if he didn't have something up his sleeve to correct the mistakes and get a much better result this time around. In any case the likelihood of a quality side like Atletico getting #REKT in similar manner twice in a row is small. At the same time Messi and Neymar are in superb form and the midfield 3 of Busquets-Iniesta-Rakitic is starting to look cohesive so getting #REKT in Camp Nou isn't totally out of question right now. But then again Torres is back. Anything can happen.

Predicted lineups:

Barcelona:

Neymar Suarez Messi
Iniesta Rakitic
Busquets
Alba Mascherano Pique Alves
ter Stegen

Thugdrid:

Torres Mandzukic
Koke Tiago Gabi Arda
Siqueira Godin Miranda Juanfran
Oblak

on a serious not its time for the young german talent to show that he deserves to be Barca No.2 keeper over la masia talent

Bankz wrote:Fubball, from your own evaluation, has messi actually being playing right wing as against the center..? Or is he playing a semi free-role?

Against La Liga fodder he does what he wants. Against Atletico he was mainly on the right and kept playing there.

Diego Simone:

On the recent league defeat at Camp Nou: “We have to start the game better than we did, because our beginning was not good. We didn’t play with our usual intensity and pressure. Against an opponent like Barça, who played really well in the opening half hour, we had problems.”

The importance of the first leg: “We are coming up against a Barcelona in form at the moment. I value a lot how they have improved without the ball. That’s an important area for them. They have a lot of attacking options and when the ball is lost they react quickly and that doesn’t give you much chance to bring it out. It’s clear that it will be 90 very tough minutes and every minute that goes by will be important with regards to the second leg.”

On whether stopping Messi will be vital: “The key will be understanding how and where to attack. If we can take the game to where we want to go and attack where we want to then we have a chance.”

On the difference in style between Real Madrid and Barça: “[Real] Madrid and Barcelona have extraordinary qualities. Perhaps one side is stronger in spaces, whereas Barcelona are much more dangerous in confined spaces. While against Barcelona you are closer to your own goal and there is more risk that they can combine and form triangles that surprise you day after day.”

Will miss the game. Viva Messi

same starting lineup but this time with MatS i guess lucho finally figured his starting lineup.

--------------MatS
alves---pique----masch----alba
-------------buscuit
-----rakitic---------iniesta
messi------suarez--------neymar

So our "starting" 4 man defense really is Alves-Pique-Masch-Alba?

50m spent in depth signings

i don't really think we'll stick to this starting lineup very oftenly but we essentially spent 40m on adding more dimensions to our game.
we can play three at the back or well supposedly we can with verm or mathieu in the LCB
like when we saw vs psg
and depth was much needed i never wanna see adriano playing cb again...

so i cannot be entirely mad at the amount we spent.

also to be fair mascherano and pique have been playing at a much higher level then previous seasons..
if they played like last year mathiue would probably be starting by now.

22m on Mathieu - a bit overpriced but at least he has played, not mad
20m on Vermaelen - bought a broken player, might be a ghost, I'm mad
4/8/12m on Douglas - where do I even start?

15 minutes gone by and the intensity is great winning the ball high up a lot.

Suarez..

The first 20-25 minutes were great, and after that we were playing like in 3rd gear. Suarez needs to calm down and not get in biting mode. I was happy with Pique, he showed some glimpses of his old self. The rest were good, but the whole team lost intensity after the first 20-25 minutes.

Not the greatest result, but a decent one!

It's a great result with a clean sheet at home. Definitive advantage for the second leg, if we score they have to score 3.

I would not call a 1-0 going to Atleti as a great result, but that is just me.

I remember that last season CL quarter finals return leg Atleti played the first 20 minutes at an unbelievable intensity, pressing very high and created a lot of chances including hitting the posts 3 times other than Koke's goal so I expect them to do the same in this return leg.
It's going to be interesting how Barca will contain the impact this time with LE.

Godin will also miss the second leg, which is good.

Not like Dominguez-Miranda is a significant downgrade, though.

Well Godin is better, and it's the system which protects them anyway, which they can't really use next leg if they want to win the game.

What's with Suarez? I am happy with every aspect of his game, but his shooting compared to last season is like night and day. I figured by now he would of already started to settle in

and people said suarez could replace messi.. please..

It seems Suarez is not good under pressure. He missed sitters in all big important games this season. If he didnt miss barca would be ahead madrid by now

Second leg will be easy. Atletico is horrible when they attack. They are world class only at one thing: Parking the airplane.
So no airplane=no atleti

windkick wrote:What's with Suarez? I am happy with every aspect of his game, but his shooting compared to last season is like night and day. I figured by now he would of already started to settle in

Compare it with his first season at Liverpool and it's not such a shock.

I'm not worried though, the goals will come.

atletico is never easy, we just cannot pull a madrid and give them a early goal.

also interesting thing about or last fk of the game.
with xavi in the ptich it was messi and neymar discussing who to take it not xavi.. maybe we're finally moving on.

Busquet's cat-like reflexes in avoiding that punch were not enough against thugtletico