Paris Saint-Germain vs F.C Barcelona

Mats should be used for the cl and la-liga games (its high time, regardless of what happened/happens), Mash should be used in place of biscuits to serve as a wake-up call, alves is still our best right back (sue me), alba should be benched in place of matt (who can actually stay in defence and defend), verm and pique should play cb's, (batra should keep his snail ass on the bench), as long as rak starts(which is a given at this point) xavi should pair him, messi and neymar are constants, munir to compliment the 3 man attack (pending when el vampito arrives)..iniesta should/can be interchanged with xavi..this should pretty much be our line up..*NOTE* Alba is just plain horrible even moreso than alves, and that says alot. On the game, its normal, there'll always be reasons we lost no matter how we try to paper rectify it, thats just life, it has not goten to the stage where its become an issue this season. it was just one of those games, no big deals there! meanwhile special shout-outs to messi, neymar, & mash. Congrats to psg, who are no slouch's either!

farfan wrote:seriously , nobody is gonna adress Gil calling Matuidi a pub footballer ?

it's like you all agree you POS's

Idk if you haven't read much of Gil lately but i wouldn't take more then 3/4 of what he said seriously

Another positive I can find from this game is that we are able to come back from a goal, or atleast come very close.
last season when a team would score against us it seemed like we just lost all motivation, yesterday we scored shortly after they did which is re-assuring
granted we have a lot to fix.

farfan wrote:seriously , nobody is gonna adress Gil calling Matuidi a pub footballer ?

it's like you all agree you POS's

he's a trash gimmick.

Fußball wrote:Some gifs:

Alba's lack of a brain (this is how the 2nd goal comes about):



Thinks he is Maradona:



Dani "if Alba is Maradona I'm Pelé" Alves (1st goal):



Sergi "what about my Cruyff turn then" Busquets:



Alves' hoofing the ball upfield (I refuse to call this a cross even):

Gif

1. Why not pass it backwards to Mathieu who is totally free and start over again? Everyone in the world knows Lucas is incredibly quick in the first few meters, why are you trying to dribble him and more importantly why are you going towards the middle? Just pass it back, keep your position and maybe we can switch the play to the other flank or even get Busquets on the ball.

2. Who the hell do you think you are? Iniesta is right there, pass the ball and do your job you pos.

3. Less obvious options but holy hell how many touches do you want to take? Busquets is there signalling to calm the play down so people can get into positions. Could of simply waited (Pastore was retreating back, not trying to press) a second for the play to devolp around you. Or at worst, knock the ball down the line.

4. So arrogant. He was trying to draw a foul, I understand that perfectly. But Motta was not committing fully. Mascherano is totally available for a pass, count to 3 and if Motta still hasnt fouled you make the simple pass. This is a stupid stupid mistake because it totally out of trying to be too clever.

5. Dont know what's worse, the ball or the idea to play the ball.


The reason im quoting all this is to say how easily avoidable this was and again to say how it has nothing to do with anything special PSG did.

farfan wrote:seriously , nobody is gonna  adress Gil calling Matuidi a pub footballer ?

it's like you all agree you POS's

Dont worry man, noone can bothered arguing with something so stupid. With Gil, if you argue too much with he will bring you down to his level of stupidity and defeat you with experience.

Not even Gil believes what he is saying. For some reason saying things for attention interests him, which is odd considering he is no longer 15 years old (though his taste in women is still around that age)

Fußball wrote:Funnily enough Mascherano didn't do anything wrong. He got outmuscled by Luiz and later on when Lucho told him to become a right winger Pastore knocked the ball past him but whether Bartra who is a stick and has no physicality would have handled that situation against a tank like Luiz much better I don't know. What happened beyond the 75 minute mark was pointless as Barca threw everything forward.

I agree, he didnt do anything really wrong but his lack of size was again a clear problem in a key game. I dont think Bartra would have done any better, Pique wouldnt have been brushed aside so easily. He wouldnt outmuscle Luiz either but I dont think Luiz would be so balanced to shoot as he did.

Dani, can you explain why this team is still pressing only half-heartedly (1 or 2 players running like headless chickens and the rest staying where they are which makes it easy to play around us)? Tito already talked about getting the pressing back after the Milan first leg loss so it was an identified issue. Obviously he had to step down but Martino said the same, "we must get the pressing back". There were some signs in the first few games and then it went downhill. The explanation was that he was too soft and couldn't motivate / command the players. Now Lucho too is talking about putting pressure non-stop. Unlike Martino he is also not a soft guy at all, makes decisions like benching Xavi and Pique for extended periods, dares to give rookies playing time in big matches ... So he definitely demands pressing and he definitely has balls. I'd say the pressing has become better than under Martino for sure, especially in the league, Bravo had pretty much nothing to do. But against PSG it was still anything but pinning PSG back consistently except for the last 15 or so minutes when a result was needed. But why? Lack of coordination? Lack of fitness? Lack of motivation? What is the reason?

The loss was more of us being awful than psg being clutch. Not exactly rocket science.

Fußball wrote:Dani, can you explain why this team is still pressing only half-heartedly (1 or 2 players running like headless chickens and the rest staying where they are which makes it easy to play around us)? Tito already talked about getting the pressing back after the Milan first leg loss so it was an identified issue. Obviously he had to step down but Martino said the same, "we must get the pressing back". There were some signs in the first few games and then it went downhill. The explanation was that he was too soft and couldn't motivate / command the players. Now Lucho too is talking about putting pressure non-stop. Unlike Martino he is also not a soft guy at all, makes decisions like benching Xavi and Pique for extended periods, dares to give rookies playing time in big matches ... So he definitely demands pressing and he definitely has balls. I'd say the pressing has become better than under Martino for sure, especially in the league, Bravo had pretty much nothing to do. But against PSG it was still anything but pinning PSG back consistently except for the last 15 or so minutes when a result was needed. But why? Lack of coordination? Lack of fitness? Lack of motivation? What is the reason?

I really dont know, the only thing I can talk about is tactics and training. What I mean is, motivation I cannot say and lack of fitness I dont know (but doubt highly as a problem). This will be a bit all over the place, but this is my thoughts.

In the general sense, alot of people talk about pressing but in my experience (me pressing, me coaching) its not about the idea of pressing so to speak and thinking about working hard. Its about the level of autonomy. When we (my teams) did it best it was automatic, we didnt have to think about it, as soon as the ball lost we didnt stand still or retreat...we didnt jog forward, we sprinted forward. Even before the ball is lost you press forward, if someone makes a pass you are 100% sure will work you already begin to move forward.

And thats the important part, when people talk about pressing people often confuse transitional pressing and pressing like at a goal-kick or when the opponent has safe possession (for example someone does a bad long ball and the CB collects it with nobody near him). If a team already has safe possession, its too late. We can press and win the ball, but this is the hard way.

The "easy way" starts in possession, it starts with the ball. The second a pass goes wrong, people should be moving forward. Second, the pass from CB to fullback should be an automatic trigger to ambush the fullback. Half the pitch is out of reach from a single pass and if he is pressed quickly he doesnt have the time to lift his head and "load up" for an accurate ball to switch out of the pressure. You can sprint at him at an angle which cuts off the passing options and use the sideline. In my opinion if the ball goes out to the fullback inside his own say 40m, it would take something for him to not give the ball away or at best win a thrown in by kicking it off you.

So, in training this has to be practiced over and over and over again. It has to be drilled into so its automatic. Its not fun but there are many ways to do and once you get the basic feeling of autonomous movement forward you can relatively easily do the tactical things (closing down players at the correct angle, what position the weak-side players should be, the angle of the last defender to provoke a possible offside).


But the PSG was something different and I have to admit I was totally confused. We pressed in a shape I have no seen Barca do since...I dont remember.

Pedro at times was covering two different positions (always a fail, cant ever work) and I am starting to think he was chosen soley for that reason (and taken off in part because of the physical effort).

The position you take up is always predicated on where the ball is, so that naturally means you change the players you "mark". But I saw many strange things I didnt expect.

When the ball was with Van Der Wiel-

Neymar goes to him, Messi floats around not really marking anyone. He should be sprinting at Marquinos at RCB..or even in walk-mode Messi he at least could man mark Luiz and stand still and that way when Marquinos gets the ball he cant switch sides and use the leftside of the pitch where the Barcelona players had naturally left with less players. Anyway, Messi does neither but there was times he did jog over to Marquinos and that wasnt the biggest problem.

The odd thing was, normally in a 433 Pedro could have left Maxwell free and go over towards David Luiz making it impossible for PSG to safely pass along the backline. But he doesnt, instead he man marks Matuidi many different times. I guess this was his job, he did it so often it must have been asked of him but it didnt happen the entire game so I dont know if Enrique changed or Pedro wasnt disciplined or what.

Iniesta basically was near Motta, but who was supposed to get Verratti? On one occassion the Italian drops into the back line is is allowed to turn totally 180 and switch the ball to the left. Is Busquets supposed to come forward and take Motta and Iniesta Verratti? Was the plan confused in that Enrique thought Motta would drop the deepest and Iniesta could get him and Busquets Verratti? In any event, Busquets naturally was afraid to run past Iniesta (he did this once I remember and was easily turned by Verratti because there was too much space for his slow ass to cover) and Verratti was able to switch the ball to the left.

Now, the second confusing thing. Because Pedro inside in the midfield next to Matuidi, Maxwell was free. So he Verratti could directly switch it over to him, or the more likely situation, with Luiz and/or Marquinos not under much pressure they could pass across the backline to Maxwell.

Now, maybe Pedro should sprint over to Maxwell and leave Matuidi to Rakitic? Makes alot of sense. But Matuidi is a smart player, seeing all this happen he doesnt try and get the ball from the back, he drags Pedro all the way into the other half. Now Rakitic is the closest man to Maxwell and he comes all the way out to the right flank to press him.

Totally confusing situations here.

This was out basic shape at times when the ball when the ball was at RB or RCB.


Find your football tactics app at this11.com

As you can see, once the ball reaches Maxwell (via Luiz, Marquinos, Verratti, whoever) Rakitic is probably going to close him down which often happened.

Twoism wrote:As neutral fan, gotta say I was underwhelmed and a bit confused by Iniesta and Rakitic performance. It seems like their role is specifically support Alves and Alba who were not that effective going forward. Especially Rakitic whose 1st instinct was always pass to Alves. I rarely saw those two connected with each other hence the midfield in front of Biscuit was stretched out and Messi ended up drop back occupy it.

It looks like Lucho tactics since Xavi did the same when he replaced Rakitic. If it's tactic from Lucho, I don't really like it.

You are welcome to read my long rants on the matter.Basically he has the CM's playing wide apart and very deep.Their job is reduced to covering the fullbacks.Iniesta one of the all time greats is reduced to covering an average fullback.
Our basic play is.CM releases FB,who sends in an aimless cross.
Now cue the spinmaster to come in and post gifs.Forget the eye test.He will convince you that the CM's are still involved in playmaking.

The Franchise wrote:

RealGunner wrote:Mathieu has to start big games at LB in the future.

Alves------Vermaelen/Masch-----Pique-------Mathieu

Also I think Midfield has a big problem which has been going under the radar for some time. I don't understand Rakitic's role and I don't know what's Iniesta's role either? It seems to be some sort of understanding issues between Rakitic-Busquets or just that Busquets is used to start the play from deep but he isn't doing that anymore? I didn't see him having the ball as much as he used to in the past.

I might be making too much out of this but the midfield isn't looking right.

Do you mean in attack or defence? In attack, I find we spend way too much of the game on one side of the pitch and it doesnt go across to the other. Once Dani Alves touches the ball on the right past the half way line, it almost never reaches Alba on the other. And the same the other way around.

Once its on the right, it stays there or gets forced into the middle for Messi/Neymar coming inside. But we hardly ever go from rightback to Rakitic to Busquets/Iniesta to Alba. Or the other way around. Ball doesnt circulate.

Even against ptb teams it doesnt, it ends in a cross.

Its difficult to switch the play dani when the CM's are 100 meters apart.Previously when the CM's were playing closer,we could easily switch play through the CM's exchanging passes.Now that option is not there.When Rakitic has the ball,90% of the time,the only reasonable pass he has is to Alves out wide.The cross field pass to Neymar or Alba to switch play is risky and wont come off more than half the time.

Fußball wrote:Some gifs:

Alba's lack of a brain (this is how the 2nd goal comes about):



Thinks he is Maradona:



Dani "if Alba is Maradona I'm Pelé" Alves (1st goal):



Sergi "what about my Cruyff turn then" Busquets:



Alves' hoofing the ball upfield (I refuse to call this a cross even):

Does Alba think he is Maradona?I am just spitballing here but maybe just maybe its down to Enrique's tactics.Maybe just maybe he is allowing the fullbacks more creative freedom and more liberty to take risks.
The Alba gifs you posted.Now pre Enrique generally you wouldnt see our FB dribbling there just past the center circle.Guess who would be driving the ball forward from there.Normally it would be Iniesta who drives the ball forward from midfield.And it would come off because he is an out of the world dribbler compared to Alba.Not going to come off when Alba tries to dribble near the halfway line.
And that gif also highlights one of the other problems I have with the spilt CM's.It leaves Busquets to cover too much space through the center.The CM's are busy covering the flanks.It leaves a free run at Busquets.He knows that so he tries to win the ball early.He fails.Had the CM's been closer Busquets would have been better covered.
now you might point out that Rakitic did try and move central.
But then doesnt that make him staying so far out wide redundant?To me it should be the other way round.

And its again no use criticizing Alves for the hopeless cross.Blame falls squarely on Enrique.You are always singing Enrique's praises on how he has balls and benches everyone and is a drill sergeant and all.If Alves was ignoring Enrique's orders and putting aimless crosses in game after game,do you think he would still play game after game.I dont think so.We are putting in aimless crosses because that is what Enrique wants and thats his style.
To me its obvious.Enrique is clueless.We have become Crosselona not inspite of him,but because of him.

sportsczy wrote:Every goal is avoidable  that's my point.  But to say that they were 100% a result of Barca not doing its job is completely false...  PSG's tactics were designed to specifically cause the errors that Barca made.  Namely, put high pressure and force the defenders to make passing/dribbling decisions as opposed to the midfielders BECAUSE defenders are more error-prone with the ball.

As far as the Verratti goal...  there were 4 PSG guys on the far post for only 1 Barca defender and the keeper.  It wasn't a 1on1 mistake... it was a complete zonal mistake.  It just happened to land on Verratti as opposed to the others.  BUT AGAIN, everyone knows that Barca is weak on set pieces.  Been like this for years.  So they emphasize getting FKs and taking advantage of them.

To me, something is reasonably avoidable if it's mostly random.  None of the goals by PSG were random.... not one. Other than Ter Stegen badly coming off his line and having a better chance of saving Verratti's header if he didn't, the rest were a result of PSG taking advantage of Barca's specific areas of weakness.

There is a difference between avoidable like Messi gives the ball away, doesn't press, and the opposition springs a pass that Pique doesn't read well enough and Falcao scores a chip on Valdes or something like that.....and what was going on in the game against PSG.

We both know this.

pos1, pos2. Thanks for your thoughts. The part about the automatisms makes a lot of sense. Often I see exactly that. Opponent already in possession and only then some Barca players start to press (usually Pedro like a headless chicken). But at that point the opponent can already pass it around. Wonder if this will improve over time. Also wonder if players like Messi and Iniesta can regain that mentally consistently and players like Nerman will ever adopt it in the first place. Don't get me wrong, Nerman does his fair share of defensive duty. But it doesn't come natural to him as for Suarez for example (hasn't even played 1 game yet but I'm dead certain he will run nonstop).

I have no idea if they will regain it. To his credit, I still see that Busquets has it, Dani Alves has it, Mascherano seems to have it (maybe he is just a lunatic and goes forward anyway, hard to tell) but generally speaking its missing. I cant speculate what happens in training, but I feel it needs to be drilled over and over.



@Alex RE: CM

Indeed, I agree, that is a big reason why the ball doesnt switch sides. But I couldnt help but notice when Xavi came into the game yesterday the ball did switch sides alot more. Its funny that while some people may not like it, Xavi is better suited to the role Enrique wants than anyone else. Of course when it comes to pressure and covering bigger spaces maybe not, but just in terms of the structure of attack I think even in limited time he has shown he is.

Its strange to me how often I see the fullbacks more infield than the midfielders. Obviously its not constant, but there are isolated incidents on both sides where this happens.

If they made underlapping runs, It might make more sense but I really dont understand when I see them on the ball being a playmaker while the CM stands wider and at times lateral/even behind. I feel like Enrique is trying to create overloads on the flanks using CM, FB and FW to suck over more defenders to the sides. I would think after those overloads we could transfer the ball to the middle but it doesnt seem to be happening very often.

I find that Barca have just 3 clear ways to score goals (especially the first goals in games before the the opponent opens up) this season.

1. High pressure, win the ball before the opponent is organised.

2. Messi individual magic for a through ball to Neymar

3. Neymar comes into space more centrally and does some kind of combination play with Messi/someone. Like the 1st goal vs PSG.

Saw the game now.And to Enrique's credit the midfield play did to me look a bit better.More combination play through the middle initiated by the midfielder.Like for the first goal.Something that I have rarely seen from Iniesta this season.
And the midfielders did seem closer together than previous games.

Coming to pressing,I am no expert like dani and my analysis is not going to be as detailed.But for me our problems in pressing start and end with Messi.Yes,he has been putting in more effort and yes he is moving more than the last 3 years but still it is not consistent and varies widely both across and within games.
I mean some plays he can be seen busting a gut(scored a goal last game by pressing) and yet other plays he just walks around and does nothing.There are 2 problems as far as I see it.
Firstly,pressing from the front like say Dortmund requires corrdinated effort and needs to be done game after game to be executed perfectly.It is not like turning on a tap.If you dont press for 3 years,then it wont come back magically in a game.Also cant press one game,not press 5 games and then again decide to press another game.I am no expert and I may be wrong but as far as I see it,there is no way to press effectively from the front if the central player is lazy and does nothing.

Second reason also has to do with Messi but this time its not tactical.If I am a player,and I see one player walking around as if he owns the pitch,there is no way I will be persuaded to do his job too and press for him,no matter what the coach says.

Nope I agree, you cant press on and off at a whim. I dont believe in it.

It has to be consistent, it has to be all the time, it has to become something which isnt a thought, but a reaction. It has to be autonomous. Thats my opinion.

As for Messi specifically, its intresting. I think with Messi because he does so much with the ball some players are willing to press for him and work for him, while others arent.

I saw one situation which I dont think I have ever seen in a high level football match before.

Messi was the closest man to the ball (I think Luiz) and he was the closest man by at least 5-6 meters. But it wasnt him who pressed the ball, Pedro sprinted from at least another 5m away from Messi's position, past Messi and then another 5m to the ball. It was an incredible sight.


All that being said, I think even when Messi has his stand-still lazy moments he could be more effective than he is. I said it on during the game somewhere.

If he isnt going to actually press, why cant he just man mark David Luiz? That way he doesnt have to move and everyone knows exactly where he is and you can coordinate your movements around that. Against PSG he kinda just floated around, sometimes in a light jog, sometimes in a walk and did nothing. It was easy to play around him because he was in the middle of nowhere. If he just stood next to Luiz all game it would have at least stopped the ball being switched across so easily.

I've seen teams 'turning on the tap on pressing' before. For example I'd never seen a Mourinho team press high but he did that against Barcelona in Copa del Rey second leg (2011-12) after they lost the first leg 1-2 in Madrid.



I'm sure some will point out the scoreline to debunk my argument but Madrid dominated Barcelona in that match and deserved to be 3 goals up in the first 15 minutes.

Well that really isnt what I mean. Thats turn on for one specific situation and never again.

They came up with a gameplan and they clearly worked on it. I think thats very possible.

You could see the flaws in their pressing regardless, even though they did well in the game overall:

By the way, another Whoscored curiosity. Apparently Alba had 0 turnovers and got dispossessed 0 times.

Fußball wrote:By the way, another Whoscored curiosity. Apparently Alba had 0 turnovers and got dispossessed 0 times.

lol.
More evidence their data is simply not to be trusted at all.

Alba against PSG with an overall rating of 6.81, Alaba against Moscow with an overall rating of 6.85.

Classico is more important than the PSG clash. Atleast now Lucho will not make the same mistake of using both Alves and Alba together exposing our defense. Mathieu can play there and Pique and Barta/Mashcherano would be good to pair in CB.

Nothing is set yet, tbh mathieu didn't really impress TOO much in the LB position.
so can't say he is forsure the starter in the LB spot.