We played very good, better than in the first leg ( Yeah, for real!)
Ramos or other defenders didn't give too much room or make obvious mistakes combined with little protection from midfield. Casillas was a wall as well. I would never blame yesterday's loss on our defence. They did what they could.

Now, the attack...
The team was designed to outscore the opponent. We went for high pressure game with little midfield presence.Our downfall had 2 reasons in general. CR7 had too much of the ball and didn't do anything of notice all the night= fail attack. Benz' finishing was crap again. Khedira gave him the ball in front of the open net... I don't even want to comment on it. Then he found himself absolutely free on the left edge of the box 4 times, one time he crossed for the goal the other time not even a shot on target. His volley from the right sucked as well, very slowish when latching onto through balls. You may say, the situations were difficult, half chances etc. but we were playing Farca! If you don't finish off your chances, they finish you off.I don't care whether Benz scores with his head,legs or d!ck, his job is to score!
All the discussion about the midfield the other day... Their strikers are clearly better than ours. It's not even funny. They don't have a Benz who misses clear cut chances for some 'strange' reason and a selfish prick called CR7 who goes in 'I= the team' mode each time he faces a top side.

Overall, we made a huge leap in progress compared to last season as Mou figured out a way to offset their possession game but we may struggle all over again if our finishing doesn't improve magically over time.

Knee jerkers, Mourinho wasn't on the field to score the goals, I wish he could, our strikers have to do the job. His plan was alright.

P.S. I was very disappointed with Marcelo. He kicked Messi in the ribs and then chopped Fabregas. The game is called football not UFC. Zealous, our boy disgraced us.

Agreed Babun, except I think the defence deserves abit of the blame. I think it's time to replace Carvalho, I think we can be good after that.

Us 25 chances = 4 goals, them 7 = 5 goals. That was the difference.

As for Marcelo what he did was stupid and I hope he learns from it. But are we just supposed to let their entire bench and team surround him and give him abuse? *bleep* no.

Had this been against any other team Marcelo would have got a red and left the pitch and that would have been the end of it but they always have to turn everything into a big deal.

Anyway disappointed in Marcelo but we all know him he's not that type of player so something was really wrong last night.

(BTW both Messi and Fabregas were 100% OK, don't fall for their act. Marcelo deseved red though no question)

babun1024 wrote:
The team was designed to outscore the opponent. We went for high pressure game with little midfield presence.Our downfall had 2 reasons in general. CR7 had too much of the ball and didn't do anything of notice all the night= fail attack. Benz' finishing was crap again. Khedira gave him the ball in front of the open net... I don't even want to comment on it. Then he found himself absolutely free on the left edge of the box 4 times, one time he crossed for the goal the other time not even a shot on target. His volley from the right sucked as well, very slowish when latching onto through balls. You may say, the situations were difficult, half chances etc. but we were playing Farca! If you don't finish off your chances, they finish you off.I don't care whether Benz scores with his head,legs or d!ck, his job is to score!
All the discussion about the midfield the other day... Their strikers are clearly better than ours. It's not even funny. They don't have a Benz who misses clear cut chances for some 'strange' reason and a selfish prick called CR7 who goes in 'I= the team' mode each time he faces a top side.

Zealous wrote:Us 25 chances = 4 goals, them 7 = 5 goals. That was the difference.

As for Marcelo what he did was stupid and I hope he learns from it. But are we just supposed to let their entire bench and team surround him and give him abuse? *bleep* no.

Had this been against any other team Marcelo would have got a red and left the pitch and that would have been the end of it but they always have to turn everything into a big deal.

Anyway disappointed in Marcelo but we all know him he's not that type of player so something was really wrong last night.

(BTW both Messi and Fabregas were 100% OK, don't fall for their act. Marcelo deseved red though no question)

There's a reason why I concentrated my analysis around our attack a lot more than usual
Also, I don't wish any player to be injured but the he did foul them. Whether injured or not, the conducted act was highly inappropriate...

I think our finishing can improve, but honestly I think CR is a big cause for it. Everytime we try to play build up he just shoots it away

babun1024 wrote:
P.S. I was very disappointed with Marcelo. He kicked Messi in the ribs and then chopped Fabregas. The game is called football not UFC. Zealous, your boy disgraced us.

He is your boy too. Don't pretend like he isn't a part of this team that you support. Anyway I'm not justifying his dumb tackle but he was on the end of some racist abuse from the fans.

Zealous wrote:

babun1024 wrote:
P.S. I was very disappointed with Marcelo. He kicked Messi in the ribs and then chopped Fabregas. The game is called football not UFC. Zealous, your boy disgraced us.

He is your boy too. Don't pretend like he isn't a part of this team that you support. Anyway I'm not justifying his dumb tackle but he was on the end of some racist abuse from the fans.

Ok, I love him, the disappointment was bigger because of it

Same here

Anyway I hope he learns from it. If you want to really hurt somebody make sure you don't get caught

Babun... for the first time, i saw a completely different game than you.

Babun, I completely agree with you. The announcers were saying the same thing, that although our game had improved significantly, we were still missing the finishes.

But there is a lot of good in this. Not many of us were expecting to win this copa. When you compare to last year and recognize it is almost all the same line-up, (regular line-up not the crazy defensive line-up), we are a vastly improved team. It's the chemistry that is making this a better team. There is still work to do, but we have progressed a long way and we CAN COMPETE with them, the best team in the world right now.

Sure that last goal was hugely disappointing, but it does show why Messi is #1 and Ronaldo is not.

I'm more disappointed in how we finished the game. Marcelo was an idiot and I suspect it was under Mou's orders. Mou's attack on Vilanova was a disgrace. It destroyed, what was a fantastic game, two excellent teams playing all out attack. and now there will be implications!!

There will be suspensions lengthly ones for Marcelo and Mou, single game probably for Ozil. Heck maybe Mou should just turn the reins over to Karanka now since he is already doing all press conferences and with this suspension and the UEFA one, he not around for good portion of the season!!!

Hey bill do you think Villa slapping Ozil was a disgrace? Or are you going to forgive him because he is from Spain

What Jose did was wrong but that guy hit him in the back of the head straight afterwards. Was that a disgrace? He's not some poor victim and Jose is not a bully in this situation.

Ozil got a red for getting slapped FFS.

sportsczy wrote:Babun... for the first time, i saw a completely different game than you.

You saw through Benz focused glasses

Here's my take:

First half - tactical fail on Mou's part. He put Coentrao at LB, took Marcelo out and played a 4-2-3-1 with a midfield of Xabi and Khedira and Di Maria on the right wing. No midfield is good enough to handle the Barca midfield, which has been one of the best in history, if you play them at even strength. You try and get help from the CBs and the forwards. But to ask 2 midfielders to handle 3 Barca midfielders is just mind-boggling. It failed miserably and we took 2 very easy goals (1 breakaway and a messi 1-on-1). A lot of other opportunities too. To boot, Di Maria was awful... so we had no attack. it was also clear that Mou asked his forwards to play with less pressure to conserve their energy in the second half. We were dead men walking the last 20 mins of the first game.

Second half - Mou makes the adjustment early, brings Marcelo in and takes Coentrao out, and switches to a 4-3-3. Immediate impact. We started playing as a team as opposed to two disjointed pieces. Started getting opportunities and playing better defense because we had midfield support on D and better midfield support on offense.

Individual performances:
- CR7 - he was ok. But he has a mental block against Barca. He wants to be spectacular to match Messi. He doesn't realize that you can only be spectacular against Barca if you play collectively, not individually. He started well and kept fading as the game continued. He needs to work on his mental makeup going into these game.
- Pepe and Ramos - Huge games. Basically shut down the entire right side of our defense once the midfield was sorted. All the dangerous actions from Barca came from the left.
- Coentrao - Again, huge. Played well as a LB and well as a midfielder. Once he gets experience as a midfielder, i have a feeling he will become one of the best out there as a b2b.
- Ozil - Largely invisible because, as i've mentioned before, he plays very close to the forwards. In fact, for me, he's more of a SS than a AM. So when the midfield was failing, he was not help to them and was often in no man's land. This problem only happens against Barca. No need to panic. He just needs to play closer to the midfield against them and stick to his role as a AM. Got better, of course, as our midfield improved.
- Di Maria - just shit. no need to expand.
- Casillas - Did his job. Made a couple of spectacular saves
- Benzema - This is where i don't get you people. The open net? Where??? He was on the side... 2 feet from Khedira with two defenders in front of him. Khedira made a quick pass that was behind him. Two defenders were lunging in front of him. All he could do was try a toe poke quickly. with the ball behind him, which is awkward, and missed. Happens. He created the first goal. Dominated the left wing position when he moved there (did more in 10 mins than CR7 did the whole game). He missed some tough chanced (volley, long range). But in the end, he scrapped and scored. Not the most efficient of nights. But he was our offensive MOTM easily. Superstar emerging in front of our eyes.
Kaka - Did well. His actions led to the second goal and he almost forced a big opportunity right at the end.... all in very few minutes.
Carvalho - Worrisome is all i can say. He whiffs too much, which creates all sorts of problems.
Marcelo - You take the good and the bad with him. It's been mostly very good lately. Last night, it was bad. Shameful two challenges by him. I hope he learns from them.

That's my take. Just an opinion.

sczy your the only one who didnt notice benz missing the open goal lmao

Di Maria was extremely disappointing TBH, in both games.

Sportsczy, I agree with most of your analysis, but it was our finishing that cost us the game. And for that you have to look at the valid criticism we have seen in posts today of Di Maria, Ronaldo and Benzema. I would also add Ramos for his missed opportunities with headers. I know he was tired but he usually nails them and there were at least 2 failures yesterday.

Ramos is a defender though, him scoring would have been a bonus.

There isnt much to be said to be honest guys, you went over everything when i was sleeping lol.

I agree with Czy mostly, the one performanced that upset me the most was that of Di Maria, very disappointing. It sucks to see that we still lose in the midfield in part and we arent doing much to improve that.

Im very much pleased with the performance overall, there is room for improvement, hopefully we would make those moves forwards. we have everything to gain.

Our midfield will be more dominant than it is with the return of Sahin. He was bought for specific reasons and one of those is to help dictate the tempo. We will come back stronger than ever in the league classicos.

If we drop the silly 4231 against them, then we increase our chances to be more productive on the ball, and that's what we should focus on against them, a 3 man midfield.

Then adding depth to it would be nice.

Go to minute 4:08. Benz had just missed the "open look from Khedira" and ended in a corner. The corner resulted in the Benz assist to CR7. Really a zero sum game. I still can't find the actual video of the miss... just the goal that immediately followed as a result of the corner.

From what I understood Mou is using 4 attackers to pressure their backline more instead of focusing on the midfield. Which I agree on.

Focusing on matching the 3-man midfield won't take you anywhere, becouse that is where they are gonna win.

However, our tactic has been proven to be good, and once again, our finishing was the only thing that stopped us (and somewhat the defence IMO)

sportsczy wrote:

Go to minute 4:08. Benz had just missed the "open look from Khedira" and ended in a corner. The corner resulted in the Benz assist to CR7. Really a zero sum game. I still can't find the actual video of the miss... just the goal that immediately followed as a result of the corner.

That's the miss we are talking about. It lead to a goal, but LOL worthy finishing there. It's just not possible to miss that

There were other chances he could have done better with TBH. Especially when you include the Bernabeu game.

Again he did alright but it's disappointing because he could have done so much better.

I wish someone would post a video so i could see it lol.

The biggest problem our forwards have is they have a chip on their shoulders against Barca... especially Benz and CR7. I'm hoping Benz' is off now and he can relax. CR7 still has his.

They key to being a great finisher is the absolute belief that you will take every opportunity and take confident risks.... doubt and/or self-pressure = likely to fail due to anxiety.

The don't have that problem against anyone else... only Barca.

As they get more success, that mental factor should improve. CR7's problem is bigger. For him, it starts from the approach. For Benz, it's the final touch... his approach is perfect now.

Remember though: First competitive games.