La Liga (Week 24): Atletico Madrid Vs Barcelona

You guys probably have noticed the lack of width this game

You're playing very similair to Spain at the moment with Silva-Villa-Iniesta upfront, the width is lacking becouse the 2 players who are supposed to go wide doesn't do that

You basicly looked like this:

--------------------Sanchez-------------------------
---------------Fabregas----Messi--------------------
------Iniesta-----------------------------------Alves
-----------------------------------------------------

You had 3 shots on target and due to your lack of width Atleti had a easy time defending

Pep's player selections lately are surprising and I'm curious to why he insists on using both Sanchez and Fabregas upfront becouse none of the 2 are really width providers

I think this is a big part of why you're underperforming this season compared to last, Messi is having 0 space with every team defending narrow against you

Well Pedro is playing like utter crap and we have Cesc scoring goals, so he has no real choice but to play like this.

I would drop Cesc regardless of how he is scoring or assisting, but this is the problem of the season and nothing new.

Shouldnt of bought him as I said.

Barcelona have no aerial threat therefore there is not much point in defending the wings against them. They always cut inside from the flanks any way (recently we've seen some crosses with pretty good outcomes though). To defend against Barça you need to block the middle of the park and intercepting their tiki-taka.

Not to mention teams defend with 11 men against Barcelona and rely on counters. Even a team like Atlético Madrid, the 4th placed team in Liga playing at home does that nowadays. Frankly, it is a working tactics against blaugrana and I don't think Barcelona deserved to win against them because the rojiblancos created more chances. But this keeps getting harder and harder for Barcelona. They are getting too predictable. For Madrid, it is the same story with teams they come up against, but they have a lot more tricks in their arsenal to deal with different situations. They can shoot, they can cross. They have speed and aggression. Their game is so much faster and requires much more running when attacking while Barcelona's game requires more running while defending.

free_cat wrote:

BarcaLearning wrote:

CBarca wrote:

BarcaLearning wrote:

CBarca wrote:Just like any direct free-kick, you can take it quickly, you don't have to wait for a whistle.

A correct ref will make you wait to ask (or obviously signal) you want 10 yards (getting the players out from right in front of the ball).

The players failed to stand right in front of the ball, and the keeper failed to understand this rule.

Messi capitalized, simple as. Great free kick too.

How about indirect freekick?

And I just dont understand, so often we see players do this but the ref pulls it back and says need to whistle..

That would be because the ref will say "wait for the whistle", and the player will take it before the whistle. Player screws up- retake it.

That is what often happens. What happened today never really happens much because most players have the common sense to stand right in front of the ball when it's in shooting distance, forcing the 10 yards.

Indirect is the exact same, except ref will have his arm up (to signal indirect) and when a second player touches it the arm goes down.

Thx... indirect as in why some freekicks u see a player roll the ball or touches it slightly so another player can strike it?

And what kind of foul results in direct and indirect? Or the ref just decides whatever he likes?

Shet im dumb....

Indirect free-kicks are free kicks that you can't score directly off them. Another player has to touch it. There are some sort of actions that award an indirect free kick instead of direct, for example dangerous play or a pass to the GK. The reason of this, I have no idea.

Thx...well as for direct freekicks, I guess players can try to take advantage of the situations if no one blocks it.... it seems its not exactly clear and depends on the situation and what the ref signals....

danyjr wrote:Barcelona have no aerial threat therefore there is not much point in defending the wings against them. They always cut inside from the flanks any way (recently we've seen some crosses with pretty good outcomes though). To defend against Barça you need to block the middle of the park and intercepting their tiki-taka.

Not to mention teams defend with 11 men against Barcelona and rely on counters. Even a team like Atlético Madrid, the 4th placed team in Liga playing at home does that nowadays. Frankly, it is a working tactics against blaugrana and I don't think Barcelona deserved to win against them because the rojiblancos created more chances. But this keeps getting harder and harder for Barcelona. They are getting too predictable. For Madrid, it is the same story with teams they come up against, but they have a lot more tricks in their arsenal to deal with different situations. They can shoot, they can cross. They have speed and aggression. Their game is so much faster and requires much more running when attacking while Barcelona's game requires more running while defending.

I have not seen real madrid play that much this season but last season that was not true or atleast not to the same extent. Remember their game against milan? well, iirc milan had more possesion sometime in the 2nd half, yes ac milan, the same team that parked the airplane against barca this season, and ajax aswell this season had as well more possesion than real madrid in the in the game when ajax had two goal wrongly disallowed. Those two thing would never happend against barca, in the last 4 years I only remember one game in which barca has not had more possesion than their opponents after the first half and that was against valencia..

harhar11 wrote:I have not seen real madrid play that much this season

Exactly. That makes your argument void.