Those through balls from Barca

We have to watch out for them, because many of the goals we conceded in the past several meetings were from those defense splitting through balls.

Maybe have a sweeper alongside a CB that goes forward to close down?

One of the most relevant posts ever! Those are the "difference makers", often! Aside from those, REAL has all the edges, in my opinion! The lateral passing is harmless, if those "dagger balls" ( Ray Hudson) are prevented!

El Pipita wrote:Defense stay deep = problem solved. making offside trap for Barca is like making a trap for yourself.
Cutting the link from their defense to midfield is the key. if our forwards press effectively they won't have a proper passing game.

Playing deep will isolate our two man midfield, just saying

but isnt it important to our gameplan of causing pressure and attcking, to have a high line?

1st goal in super cup, messi beats it
2nd goal same
3 goal carbon exemplification
4 back heel by pique so doesnt count
5th goal meh

3 of 5 goals, and mostly all attacks that led to all goals had to do with messi either providing or socring and barca ripping the high line.

something has to be done to fix this.

That's why we need to set Coentrao and Lass to stop their Ineista and xavi.
Against barca, we need to use strength and speed against their midfield. Khedira should bench for Lass.

That's barca's specialty, their through balls from the middle and the wings is there goal signature move.

High Line or a deep line both have there consequences, its pretty hard stopping those balls since there players know when to launch, they also handle offside traps pretty well. Playing deep means bringing barca forward which isn't good at all, you would force yourself to park the bus.

In the supercopa it was a mixture between the two, we played in between. We cannot eliminate the risk but we can minimize it by removing carvalho who really is slow in these situations.

We also have our pressing game which also stops these passes, since we're pressuring them high up the pitch they can't attack fluidly. The defenders would stick in the middle of the pitch to make sure no one passes through. The problem though with this is that if a winger goes loose it would be bad, hence fast defenders.