QF: Opponents for Barcelona

On the other hand, the final is in Berlin, surely that will give them some 'home' advantage?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:On the other hand, the final is in Berlin, surely that will give them some 'home' advantage?

Didn't help them against Chelsea lol.

Didnt consider that.

We still get 50% of the seats though right? It could actually be a pressure of them to if its seen as a home game.

They did lose to Chelsea at home in the final.

We beat Utd in London.

And going further back, Juve did lose to Ajax in Roma I believe.

I'm not sure about the tickets. Doesn't the general public get some or are all of them split amongst the two clubs?

Playing 'home' is by no means a guarantee to win, but I think it has shown that the larger crowd influences ref decisions + the lower travel time makes the teams better rested.

Also I think in Italy only Juve supporters cheer for them in the CL whereas in Germany people are taught to support Bayern in Europe, so I'm not sure Juve at Roma is a good comparison.

The Franchise wrote:Alex you think we would beat Bayern?

I think we would stand a fair shot at it, I am sure our front 3 will cause them our problems with the midfield being competitive defensively.

But how we will cope with them circulating the ball and making us run, with Neymar sometimes helping Alba (and in turn killing our main source of speed in behind the defence) and nobody helping Alves?

How do we go about trying to find our way from the back and into the midfield consistently?

We would really be relying on Messi putting in an incredibly strong performance which includes work rate and defending to go with him controlling the game as much as possible.

Well,as I mentioned in the other thread,I am not overly impressed with Bayern's midfield play recently.They have been fielding the likes of Alaba and Rode in midfield.I assume Lahm will be back so he should play.Even then,if Enrique goes for it,I think the possession could be fairly even.But knowing Enrique,we will probably play on the counter.
And yes,then what you mentioned is a problem.I assume when defending,Rakitic will go right and help Alves while Neymar drops back occasionally to help Alba.I dont think we can do that consistently well enough against a team so strong on the wing as Bayern.
I am worried for both of our wings.If Alaba and Bernat play,they will keep interchanging.Bernat is more the overlapper while Alaba underlaps.With Ribery there too,Alves would find it really difficult without help.
On the other side,Robben against Alba.Enough said.
But I do think we can hurt them too.Pep is a Cruyffist through and through so he will play a high line.Assuming Enrique plays on the break(which I am 100% certain we will),MSN will be extremely dangerous.Especially if Badstuber plays LCB. He is going get smoked by Messi if he plays.
I can talk more tactics all night but as I said,this ultimately comes down to Messi.He is in form of his life and unplayable right now.Tactics go out the window when he is playing like this.How do you stop Messi in this sort of form?Would like your thoughts.
The only fathomable way imo is to park an AIRBUS in front of goal.But with Suarez bringing an added dimension,we now have that plan B.And Pep will never ever park the bus.Hence why I believe we can beat any team with Messi playing like this.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I'm not sure about the tickets. Doesn't the general public get some or are all of them split amongst the two clubs?

Roughly 70 000 seats are available, of those both clubs will get 20 000 respectively, about 24 000 will go to 'sponsors', 'event organisators' and associations, and 6000 are avalaible for a 'neutral' public.

Those can be ordered already and there will be a lottery.

alexjanosik wrote:


Well,as I mentioned in the other thread,I am not overly impressed with Bayern's midfield play recently.They have been fielding the likes of Alaba and Rode in midfield.I assume Lahm will be back so he should play.Even then,if Enrique goes for it,I think the possession could be fairly even.But knowing Enrique,we will probably play on the counter.
And yes,then what you mentioned is a problem.I assume when defending,Rakitic will go right and help Alves while Neymar drops back occasionally to help Alba.I dont think we can do that consistently well enough against a team so strong on the wing as Bayern.
I am worried for both of our wings.If Alaba and Bernat play,they will keep interchanging.Bernat is more the overlapper while Alaba underlaps.With Ribery there too,Alves would find it really difficult without help.
On the other side,Robben against Alba.Enough said.
But I do think we can hurt them too.Pep is a Cruyffist through and through so he will play a high line.Assuming Enrique plays on the break(which I am 100% certain we will),MSN will be extremely dangerous.Especially if Badstuber plays LCB. He is going get smoked by Messi if he plays.
I can talk more tactics all night but as I said,this ultimately comes down to Messi.He is in form of his life and unplayable right now.Tactics go out the window when he is playing like this.How do you stop Messi in this sort of form?Would like your thoughts.
The only fathomable way imo is to park an AIRBUS in front of goal.But with Suarez bringing an added dimension,we now have that plan B.And Pep will never ever park the bus.Hence why I believe we can beat any team with Messi playing like this.

I will leave most of it for the thread, but last nights game is exactly why I have trouble believing in this team, despite the win.

I will start with defensive organisation. For the first 60 minutes Messi gave basically nothing, Rakitic is constantly drawn out wide to help and the middle is left free.

Because Messi does nothing out there on the wing, disconnected, Suarez obviously up high and Rakitic doing defending out on the wing...there is no connection when we recover the ball, the options are limited and we end up going direct. This gives us some positive things (Suarez general play is enhanced in this situation) but it also leads to more lost balls and for the first 60 minutes, we had no control at all. At times we looked all over the place, that last 10 minutes for example were a showreel of calamity and we were lucky not go go multiple goals down.

After we scored on that direct ball, Madrid wilted and had no ideas, we defended alot hard and everyone put in a shift. We also started keeping the ball alot better, Xavi helped, Busquets helped.

Offensively, before that point we didnt even create many chances at all. Madrid had the better chances at that point honestly.

As for Messi, its the same...he is by a distance the best in the world when he has the ball. But like that first half, you can keep him silent because you can keep him off the ball. It will be up to our ability to play the direct ball to Suarez and him to do what he has been doing most of the time.

But that option is no more dangerous than Robben against Alba, Muller's ability to find spaces in the box and the wing threat they have on the left.

The scary part with Bayern is they've been pretty much playing this whole season without a CM ala like Xavi.

However if we allowed Madrid to dominate possession I don't know what to expect when Bayern do it.

The Franchise wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:


Well,as I mentioned in the other thread,I am not overly impressed with Bayern's midfield play recently.They have been fielding the likes of Alaba and Rode in midfield.I assume Lahm will be back so he should play.Even then,if Enrique goes for it,I think the possession could be fairly even.But knowing Enrique,we will probably play on the counter.
And yes,then what you mentioned is a problem.I assume when defending,Rakitic will go right and help Alves while Neymar drops back occasionally to help Alba.I dont think we can do that consistently well enough against a team so strong on the wing as Bayern.
I am worried for both of our wings.If Alaba and Bernat play,they will keep interchanging.Bernat is more the overlapper while Alaba underlaps.With Ribery there too,Alves would find it really difficult without help.
On the other side,Robben against Alba.Enough said.
But I do think we can hurt them too.Pep is a Cruyffist through and through so he will play a high line.Assuming Enrique plays on the break(which I am 100% certain we will),MSN will be extremely dangerous.Especially if Badstuber plays LCB. He is going get smoked by Messi if he plays.
I can talk more tactics all night but as I said,this ultimately comes down to Messi.He is in form of his life and unplayable right now.Tactics go out the window when he is playing like this.How do you stop Messi in this sort of form?Would like your thoughts.
The only fathomable way imo is to park an AIRBUS in front of goal.But with Suarez bringing an added dimension,we now have that plan B.And Pep will never ever park the bus.Hence why I believe we can beat any team with Messi playing like this.

I will leave most of it for the thread, but last nights game is exactly why I have trouble believing in this team, despite the win.

I will start with defensive organisation. For the first 60 minutes Messi gave basically nothing, Rakitic is constantly drawn out wide to help and the middle is left free.

Because Messi does nothing out there on the wing, disconnected, Suarez obviously up high and Rakitic doing defending out on the wing...there is no connection when we recover the ball, the options are limited and we end up going direct. This gives us some positive things (Suarez general play is enhanced in this situation) but it also leads to more lost balls and for the first 60 minutes, we had no control at all. At times we looked all over the place, that last 10 minutes for example were a showreel of calamity and we were lucky not go go multiple goals down.

After we scored on that direct ball, Madrid wilted and had no ideas, we defended alot hard and everyone put in a shift. We also started keeping the ball alot better, Xavi helped, Busquets helped.

Offensively, before that point we didnt even create many chances at all. Madrid had the better chances at that point honestly.

As for Messi, its the same...he is by a distance the best in the world when he has the ball. But like that first half, you can keep him silent because you can keep him off the ball. It will be up to our ability to play the direct ball to Suarez and him to do what he has been doing most of the time.

But that option is no more dangerous than Robben against Alba, Muller's ability to find spaces in the box and the wing threat they have on the left.

I agree.If we play like that against Bayern,we will be lucky to get 35 % possession.And this is why I hate this system.The midfielders are too far apart from each other,which means that the passes are longer which leads to difficult and more risky passes.

I noticed Bayern lost btw, did you see the game?

I only saw the highlights and I heard Robben tore an abdominal muscle.

The Franchise wrote:I noticed Bayern lost btw, did you see the game?

I only saw the highlights and I heard Robben tore an abdominal muscle.

I saw the game. Bayern were awful. They started Alonso and Bastin together and that just never works because they do the same thing. They had 0 penetration once Robben went off and Gladback just sat back and countered on the flanks similar to what Madrid did. It was the same game plan. Bayern just passed side ways and Rode offered nothing, Gotze was disappointing and they had no penetration. TBH, this CL is the most open I've seen in a while. All the remaining teams have serious problems. If Robben doesn't play as well as Ribery, Bayern are there for the taking.

There was no pace in the passing and it was just pointless possession most of the time. Alaba was the 3rd mf and offered nothing as well, so Lewa faced a block by himself essentially and had to keep dropping deep to see the ball and Muller was crap.

Didnt see the game.Thanks for the update jibers.