Copa del Rey | SF (Second leg) | FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid

Date: Tuesday, 02/26/2013 21:00

Competition: Copa del Rey

Referee: Undiano Mallenco

Stadium: Camp Nou, Barcelona

Probable Line ups

Barcelona

Pinto
Alves Pique Puyol Alba
Busquests
Xavi Fabregas
Pedro Messi Iniesta

Real Madrid

Lopez
Arbeloa Ramos Varane Cacktrao
Alonso Khedria
Di Maria Ozil Ronaldo
Benzema

1-4

2-2.

Couldn't give a score really. This game is going to be so unpredictable considering the form of both teams.

Should be really interesting. The team that goes through could ride the momentum of the win till the end of the season.

50/50... whoever gets luckier will go through. These games have all been even for over a year now.

Team that scores first will have a better chance.

Sadly Barca’s overall height don’t allow them to exploit Madrid’s weakness (set pieces).
We will see. I expect us to field a sub optimal line up… meh…

considering the form of both teams this will be a cracker in mehness

@billy, even a little kid would score a set piece vs us and the amount of fouls arbeloa, alonso and ramos give out in dangerous areas it would just be a question of how long into the game the goal will come.

our strikers have been meh as well so unless higgy steps up a notch we will most likely rely on ronaldo for goals again. secretely hoping iniesta starts on the lw and sanchez on the right, might give us a chance then

predicting a narrow victory ar a high scoring draw

Iniesta to score the winner with a header

Same old, same old.

Whichever player makes the biggest error, his team loses.

Second to that, some kind of combination of which teams make the most errors and which players punish those errors.

Team selection, tactics and so on barely matter anymore. Both teams coaches will probably make some choices hindering their chances in some way.

The Franchise wrote:Team selection, tactics and so on barely matter anymore.

Tactics matter greatly tbh. For example Madrid's most recent approach in Clasicos is to play a ridiculous highline. 4-2-4-ish to stop Barca building from the back. Now if Barca utilized 2 inside forwards like Villa and Alexis / Pedro to make runs behind that highline and pin the fullbacks back, Madrid would find it much harder to press high up the pitch. However Barca are shooting themselves in the foot by playing Iniesta out wide who constantly moves into the midfield anyway. This means that the space Madrid is leaving open at the back isn't threatened at all with only Pedro upfront + it allows Madrid's rightback to track Iniesta and the middle gets even more congested than it already is with only Alba making the occasional forward run on the left flank. You can't rely on a single fullback to run the whole flank on his own, unless it's a prime Alves. Not to mention how isolated Messi gets in the middle with 2 centrebacks and 2 DMs around him. Messi's impact in big games is vanishing more and more. 0 shots on target against Milan, 0 shots against Madrid. How does the coaching staff not see this? It's beyond me. And what does Pedro actually add to the team nowadays? Dude is literally hiding and not getting into any meaningful positions. Alexis fails infront of goal but at least he doesn't hide and works to get into meaningful positions.

i hope iniesta plays on the wing again!!!

Ramos - pepe - Varane - Coentrao
.............Khedira.....Alonso.........
Ozil..............Kaka.............CR
.....................Benz

The Franchise wrote:Same old, same old.

Whichever player makes the biggest error, his team loses.

Second to that, some kind of combination of which teams make the most errors and which players punish those errors.

Team selection, tactics and so on barely matter anymore. Both teams coaches will probably make some choices hindering their chances in some way.

^^^^^
this. Both teams are set in their tactics and it never changes against each other. It will come down to the players unless the managers try to be "original" (which always fails).

The good news is that Madrid needs to score and the game should be more open than usual unless Barca decide to go conservative.

futbol wrote:

The Franchise wrote:Team selection, tactics and so on barely matter anymore.

Tactics matter greatly tbh. For example Madrid's most recent approach in Clasicos is to play a ridiculous highline. 4-2-4-ish to stop Barca building from the back. Now if Barca utilized 2 inside forwards like Villa and Alexis / Pedro to make runs behind that highline and pin the fullbacks back, Madrid would find it much harder to press high up the pitch. However Barca are shooting themselves in the foot by playing Iniesta out wide who constantly moves into the midfield anyway. This means that the space Madrid is leaving open at the back isn't threatened at all with only Pedro upfront + it allows Madrid's rightback to track Iniesta and the middle gets even more congested than it already is with only Alba making the occasional forward run on the left flank. You can't rely on a single fullback to run the whole flank on his own, unless it's a prime Alves. Not to mention how isolated Messi gets in the middle with 2 centrebacks and 2 DMs around him. Messi's impact in big games is vanishing more and more. 0 shots on target against Milan, 0 shots against Madrid. How does the coaching staff not see this? It's beyond me. And what does Pedro actually add to the team nowadays? Dude is literally hiding and not getting into any meaningful positions. Alexis fails infront of goal but at least he doesn't hide and works to get into meaningful positions.

My point was not that tactics themselves dont matter, rather, we and them will make selections and decisions, some of them positive, some of them negative and in the end, the other things (errors, individual performances in certain areas be it finishing chances for Pedro for example) are bigger factors.

The games follow the same pattern, Madrid press hard and high and we foolishly dont recognize the ways out of it. Then we start to find solutions and advance, towards the end its back and forth.

Would be hilarious now to see the game go a completely different direction after all of us agreeing on the type of match we're going to see lol

Zealous wrote:Would be hilarious now to see the game go a completely different direction after all of us agreeing on the type of match we're going to see lol

probably will.

Madrid have been good in recent clasicos, as long as they carry on with that ball over the defense tactic, which seems quite effective against Barcelona, I can really see them winning this one. Hopefully this match will be entertaining to watch unlike some recent clasicos.

Prediction: Madrid 3-2 Barca

Hopefully we win.

2-2 or 1-0 to Real Madrid. We kinda play better at the Camp Nou too.

Zealous wrote:Would be hilarious now to see the game go a completely different direction after all of us agreeing on the type of match we're going to see lol

we really don't know another way lol

can't park it even if you offered us billions in bonuses, can't keep the ball against teams that press us and lastly aren't very efficient against barca

so basically we will just see our usual high pressing-attack performance and pray that our forwards will keep their misses to a minimum

btw will pinto start? apart from his poor footwork the guy is heads and shoulders better than baldez

halamadrid2 wrote:

Zealous wrote:Would be hilarious now to see the game go a completely different direction after all of us agreeing on the type of match we're going to see lol

we really don't know another way lol

can't park it even if you offered us billions in bonuses, can't keep the ball against teams that press us and lastly aren't very efficient against barca

so basically we will just see our usual high pressing-attack performance and pray that our forwards will keep their misses to a minimum

btw will pinto start? apart from his poor footwork the guy is heads and shoulders better than baldez

Pinto starts EVERY CDR game so don't expect anything different.

Barca 1- Real 3.

messi 32 min
c.ronaldo 43 min
c ronaldo 65 min
ramos 86 min

Highlights of the game

C.Ronaldo to get a yellow and therefore to miss the final against Athletico (a final in which Athletico will rape Real by 4-1, Falcao hatrick!!)

Pique will get sent off at the 65 min mark.

Fabregas to come off after that sending off, at the sound of 90 000 boooos and 1000s of banana peelings, empty beer cans and used tampons, thrown at him by angry fans!!

Adriano to get injured after coming on as sub, ofc.

Would be nice to get to the final because if we fail in CL at least there will be a chance to get a trophy at the end.

dat cofidence

Official stats.

gondov wrote:Barca 1- Real 3.

messi 32 min
c.ronaldo 43 min
c ronaldo 65 min
ramos 86 min

Highlights of the game

C.Ronaldo to get a yellow and therefore to miss the final against Athletico (a final in which Athletico will rape Real by 4-1, Falcao hatrick!!)

Pique will get sent off at the 65 min mark.

Fabregas to come off after that sending off, at the sound of 90 000 boooos and 1000s of banana peelings, empty beer cans and used tampons, thrown at him by angry fans!!

Adriano to get injured after coming on as sub, ofc.

I see what you did there.