Real Madrid CF 3 - FC Mehcelona 1

Referee transitioning back in position quicker than Xavi and Iniesta.

You speak about Cristiano being allowed to cross the ball after a simple side step...but surely someone who plays know its not easy to stop a guy from crossing the ball if he has a speed advantage and the ability to go down the left?

Alves did very little wrong in that defensive play, I dont know how anyone can say different. He was pretty close to Cristiano, I dont think you can ask for more than that. Its not like he was standing 10m off him and just let him cross the ball. He contested the cross and was by a split second late to block it.

The bigger issue in that scene is why is he in that position in the first place and why do Madrid have numbers in the box to start with? If they score from a counter attack, you can understand it, but why do they have numbers? Also, why dont we talk about how Benzema totally destroyed Mascherano in the box there?

Can I also say, its clearly not a 2 v 1 situation, Xavi cannot go help Alves because Marcelo is right there ready to be passed to in a dangerous position.

Why is Xavi even so far over to that side? We are all over the place and its so early in the game. Why dont we have numerical superiority in the box, where the actual danger comes from?

The Franchise wrote:

The bigger issue in that scene is why is he in that position in the first place and why do Madrid have numbers in the box to start with? If they score from a counter attack, you can understand it, but why do they have numbers? Also, why dont we talk about how Benzema totally destroyed Mascherano in the box there?

Because Madrid are one of best attacking teams in the world and on form and playing at home and were chasing the score which made them even more aggressive going forward and the last thing stopping them was a washed up, old, slow, unphysical Busquets-Xavi-Iniesta midfield. Otherwise I don't understand the question.

What should have happened was Barca should have counterattacked the shit out of Madrid after taking the early lead when Madrid were putting so many bodies forward and leaving space behind but obviously Iniesta and Co. need to take 5 touches, exchange 10 passes between each other and do 3 pirouettes until the opponent regroups before releasing the ball forward and no one in the backline and in midfield is capable of defending. Not positionally closing down spaces, not in individual duels. Except Mascherano of course.

We are talking about Mascherano getting destroyed. I have said he should be moved forward and not defend aerials against 10 cm taller players and Lucho got the lineup wrong.

It's really simple and Dani said it before... you can't defend good teams with a defensive base shape of 7 (that includes Xavi and Iniesta, neither of which can defend).  I mean, if you had Nesta/Silva as CBs and Maldini/Abate as fullbacks, fine... but we're talking about a back line of Alvez/Pique/Mascherano/Mathieu.  In what world did Enrique think that back 4 could survive with only Busquets as midfield defensive cover?  That's just being stupid or naive.  Madrid have the most potent attack in the world right now and you're expecting that to work?

Defending is about managing real estate.  You want players to receive balls in the most advantageous areas for you... yet Barca let Madrid get balls in excellent positions for them.  When you're deal with WC attacking players, that's just a death sentence. The shape was set up in a way that it made it easy for Madrid to get the ball in optimum conditions.  

It was first and foremost a tactical fail by Enrique defensively.

On the attack...  too many cooks in the kitchen, which is going to be an ongoing problem until a pecking order is established and all 3 forwards play fully towards it.  Passing the ball to one of the forwards and then spectating is not an attack.

I guess I should rephrase or something then.

Didnt you think Madrid have some good spells of possession in this game? Because I did. I would say they had better possession than us. And I think it tells in why we ended up covering more distance than them.

I felt that our midfield was scared to death to push up the pitch because if they were beat, there was too much space to recover back into...perhaps because they know there are only 3 players of them who are coming back. Because of that, because Mathieu doesnt have the mentality to press and because of some laziness/lack of energy/lack of mentality from the forwards our team became broken. I felt like our forwards were quite separated from our midfield and it allowed Madrid to play the ball easier.

Why we are having a "who's coming back" discussion is worrying, why are we coming back and not pushing forward...anyways..

If Madrid break our pressing with some direct play and some counter attacking speed, get 1 v 1's against the CB's with space behind them, you hold you hands up and say...well, thats what they do, they are really fast and really good. But thats not just what happened, they had the ability to keep the ball and get numbers into the attack.

Im also a little tired of hearing how slow and un-athletic our midfield is..it was always slow and un-athletic..and in this game, Barca covered more distance than Madrid, and it surely wasnt the forwards who did the majority of that. Pressing isnt even about running, its about space.

As for Barca counter attacks. That was impossible, but not because of what you say. Iniesta and Xavi can play passes forward, but to who?

Neymar was often back trying to help (or more accurately, trying to make his way back) and he is the only one you can pass to and expect him to go on a run. But he was tired from defending and further away from goal than he should have been.

Suarez clearly is no counter threat in his current state, he wanted the ball to his feet. Messi was not playing like a 10, he wasnt dropping deep, the movement we all praised him for recently...I saw very little of.

If there ever was a game where Messi gets too close to the midfield and makes them redundant, this was the game for him to do it.

I was thinking during the game myself, every time we are intentionally not counter attacking..but why? Every time we got the ball, we intentionally slowed it down. This wasnt just because they want to waste time and pirouette for the sake of it as you say. Its because the counter attack threats we have were recovering their energy from defending (Neymar), not on the pitch (Alba), not offering himself for the ball (Messi) or not in physical condition to do so (Suarez).

Our lack of counter attack game is like a cycle.

We dont have enough defensive cover so forwards have to get back. If they dont, we dont win the ball or worse give chance, if they need the team to keep ball possession so they can get their energy back.

Why is it Madrid, with less possession (and therefore theoretically less able to recover energy) are able to counter and dont have to slow it down? Because Benzema offered himself countless times to hold up the ball and link the play, because their midfield 4 move forward and backwards as a unit..whereas we get back in bits and pieces. Not just because the midfield is slow, but because the roles are totally wrong. 3 players cant cover the entire width of the pitch, you need at least 4 and better is 5.


I know we did mention Mascherano, I am not saying his faults are being ignored. I am saying, if we want to pick out defensive problems in certain situations, we should start there, especially in that play.

Enough rambling, to sum up what I am trying to say is. What kind of defensive plan do we have? Because I dont know.

We can have some defensive mi-communications and mistakes, they will happen over the course of the game and there is nothing Enrique can do about that. That's on the players. But the actual structure of the team and their roles, thats on him...and I have no idea what he is trying to do defensively.

What about a 4-2-3-1 with Rakitic on the right ? It could also change in a 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3

Not sure if mentioned, but Iniesta was injured and will be out 3 weeks.

btw at your sig. Our Masia players and Valencia's Masia player. Lovely player he is, always liked him

The Franchise wrote:I guess I should rephrase or something then.

Didnt you think Madrid have some good spells of possession in this game? Because I did. I would say they had better possession than us. And I think it tells in why we ended up covering more distance than them.

I felt that our midfield was scared to death to push up the pitch because if they were beat, there was too much space to recover back into...perhaps because they know there are only 3 players of them who are coming back. Because of that, because Mathieu doesnt have the mentality to press and because of some laziness/lack of energy/lack of mentality from the forwards our team became broken. I felt like our forwards were quite separated from our midfield and it allowed Madrid to play the ball easier.

Why we are having a "who's coming back" discussion is worrying, why are we coming back and not pushing forward...anyways..

If Madrid break our pressing with some direct play and some counter attacking speed, get 1 v 1's against the CB's with space behind them, you hold you hands up and say...well, thats what they do, they are really fast and really good. But thats not just what happened, they had the ability to keep the ball and get numbers into the attack.

Im also a little tired of hearing how slow and un-athletic our midfield is..it was always slow and un-athletic..and in this game, Barca covered more distance than Madrid, and it surely wasnt the forwards who did the majority of that. Pressing isnt even about running, its about space.

As for Barca counter attacks. That was impossible, but not because of what you say. Iniesta and Xavi can play passes forward, but to who?

Neymar was often back trying to help (or more accurately, trying to make his way back) and he is the only one you can pass to and expect him to go on a run. But he was tired from defending and further away from goal than he should have been.

Suarez clearly is no counter threat in his current state, he wanted the ball to his feet. Messi was not playing like a 10, he wasnt dropping deep, the movement we all praised him for recently...I saw very little of.

If there ever was a game where Messi gets too close to the midfield and makes them redundant, this was the game for him to do it.

I was thinking during the game myself, every time we are intentionally not counter attacking..but why? Every time we got the ball, we intentionally slowed it down. This wasnt just because they want to waste time and pirouette for the sake of it as you say. Its because the counter attack threats we have were recovering their energy from defending (Neymar), not on the pitch (Alba), not offering himself for the ball (Messi) or not in physical condition to do so (Suarez).

Our lack of counter attack game is like a cycle.

We dont have enough defensive cover so forwards have to get back. If they dont, we dont win the ball or worse give chance, if they need the team to keep ball possession so they can get their energy back.

Why is it Madrid, with less possession (and therefore theoretically less able to recover energy) are able to counter and dont have to slow it down? Because Benzema offered himself countless times to hold up the ball and link the play, because their midfield 4 move forward and backwards as a unit..whereas we get back in bits and pieces. Not just because the midfield is slow, but because the roles are totally wrong. 3 players cant cover the entire width of the pitch, you need at least 4 and better is 5.


I know we did mention Mascherano, I am not saying his faults are being ignored. I am saying, if we want to pick out defensive problems in certain situations, we should start there, especially in that play.

Enough rambling, to sum up what I am trying to say is. What kind of defensive plan do we have? Because I dont know.

We can have some defensive mi-communications and mistakes, they will happen over the course of the game and there is nothing Enrique can do about that. That's on the players. But the actual structure of the team and their roles, thats on him...and I have no idea what he is trying to do defensively.

Will read this in a few hours after finishing my homeworks.

Skip to the last two paragraphs lol

futbol with the isolated gifs again trying to prove something.
I dont need gifs to know that what I said is true.I watched the game.
Or is this like couple of weeks back when we were discussing about us becoming Crosselona and how you posted a couple of gifs to try and convince me that we still play as much through the middle and dont cross.
After that discussion,its ironic what you have as your sig.

Bottom line,we defended with 6 and a half players and the fullbacks were left to the wolves.Couple of gifs wont change that.Thats solely on Enrique.You say its not Enrique's fault but that of the players on the pitch and that with different players on the pitch,it would have been different.Picking players is the coach's job so if picked the wrong players,thats again on Enrique.He could have picked a midfield of Masch and Rakitic with a thrid CM as you claim.But he didnt so the blame falls on Enrique.
And if we defended like we did,Masch and Rakitic in midfield wouldnt have made a difference.Would have still gotten slaughtered out wide.Cant defend a team like Madrid with 7 players.The midfield will be stretched too thin.Want proof.Watch the WC final again.Argentina were in the game and fairly comfortable playing with 2 banks of 4.Then Sabella decides to take off a midfielder for Aguero which leaves just 3 in midfield.the Germans start stretching the play out wide and the Argentine midfield gets stretched.Masch was playing in midfield but he could do nothing about Germany pounding Argentina out wide,and the winner came from a cross from the right wing.

Long story short,Enrique screwed up and the blame falls squarely on him.

The Franchise wrote:I dont think either are great solutions, with both you lose one thing and you gain another.

I understand, Mathieu can actually defend his position even if he gives the ball away 9 of every 10 passes. Whereas Alba himself gives the ball away almost as much and cant defend the position. So I understand.

But within Enrique's system (which I assume he wont change) I would have preferred Alba for 2 reasons, 1 being that he gives the away a bit less and the more we keep the ball, the less Madrid have it. Second to that, I dont know if you noticed but when Mathieu lost the ball, he gave up on it and got back to his position, even when he had the chance to instantly pressure and win it back. I think his mentality is still that of a Valencia player.

Also something else I noticed, in the second half, Messi especially, but also others..they stopped passing to him when he made runs forward. In the second goal, he ran forward, they didnt pass to him, we quickly ran out of options, Madrid countered and got a corner which they scored from. I think everyone has no problems passing to Alba and they always pass it in front for him to run onto. So a counter is harder to start.

If its me, I play 3 at the back for that game. Mathieu being a left of the back 3, but in Enrique's system I would have preferred Alba...and believe me, you wont find someone who rates Alba less than I do.

3 at the back?How would you have played?The players at the back and in front and the tactics to negate Madrid's attack.Curious to hear.
They were playing a modified 4-4-2 so 3 CB's makes sense but then CR was moving wide to the wings all game so would it have made sense?

I think I would have considered


-------Dani Alves-------Pique---------Mathieu--------

-----------------------Busquets---------------------

Pedro----------Xavi/Rakitic------Iniesta----------Alba

------------Messi--------------------Neymar-------


Perhaps Dani Alves for Pedro and Mascherano to RCB.

Depending on the positioning of Cristiano, it could be adaptable. Perhaps if he tries to play wider, Dani Alves could play as a rightback and Busquets drops in (but only in the defensive phase.

Bring Suarez on at some point, depending on the scoreline. Could revert to a normal back 4 with Alba dropping back and Suarez coming in for Pedro. Or swap Neymar for Suarez and use him as a reference point to occupy the CB's and give Messi more space.

But this idea is not based on how we actually play at the moment, its based on how I think we could play. Messi would have to drop back here and try and form a diamond in the midfield when we are building up play, giving the Madrid midfield alot of questions.

I have no faith in our squad/manager this season.

I feel similar windkick, but I'm willing to give it some more time first.