Ferguson was at Nou Camp yesterdayOriginally Posted by Devarajan Master
moovybuf liked this post
Fabregas alla machane prashnam. Yesterday even Messi couldn't make an impact. In the first half of this season, I felt when abregas came on we played more attacking football. Here, the problem is always clear. Teams are beginning to apply it nicely against Barca. Stay back, defend, and attack on the counter. As our defence is getting weaker by every day that passes. Or so I feel.
Its good to know that other teams are steaming their heads to find solutions against Barca play. AC Milan blocked Barca's fluidity in centre-field and prevented the accurate goal-scoring passes to Messi. Madrid did not play their game, they did not try any of their moves, instead they gave Barca time and ball (62% possession) thereby inviting all of Barca slowly into their own half and then attacked swiftly which could not covered by the defense. Basically, the strong centre-field play and the weak defense were surgically dissected by two different teams. Well managers of Italian and Spanish teams are intelligent unlike the pompous English ones. Now, if Barca finds solutions to the plague inflicting them, which is possible considering the talent pool in hand, everything will be back to Viva Blaugrana.
Boney liked this post
I agree. If they are playing Cesc, they should link him up wid either of the two. Allel athumilla ithumilla ennu paranja pole aavum. From what I have seen, I feel Cesc links up wid Messi better, in direct play. Won't be pretty, but the outcome was better, in the initial days of Cesc. I think that is the solution for Barca. When teams restrict their passing play, they need to change their style a bit. And I think utilizing Cesc is the best way to do that.
Madrid is back...
killer passes kodukaanitu onnamathu opposition team aaa passage link cut cheyunnu+pressuring him and he is not that gud at holding the ball+ oru reference point illa frontil if he is played along with Xavi n Iniesta ,a Striker is sacrificed n as messi also dropping deep no one to make those runs..niether he is allowed too !!
From Barcelona to 'Farcelona': What has happened to the best team in the world?
The Catalans lost 3-1 at home to bitter rivals Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey on Tuesday, less than a week after losing badly at AC Milan - so just what is amiss at Camp Nou?
ANALYSIS
By Ben Hayward | Spanish Football Writer
If there is one thing Barcelona fans enjoy more than beating Real Madrid, it is defeating Jose Mourinho. And if there is one thing those same supporters like less than being beaten by the capital club, is it losing to the Madrid team coached by the Portuguese. Tuesday night's loss, then, was particularly painful.
Following their latest disappointment, Barca have gone from being the world's best to a team in turmoil - seemingly in the space of just a few weeks. Last Wednesday's damaging defeat at AC Milan set the alarm bells ringing for the Catalan club. By Tuesday night, the fires were blazing. "There is no point in dramatising," stand-in coach Jordi Roura remarked after losing to Madrid. Few fans will share that sentiment.
So where has it all gone wrong for Barcelona?
Milan and Madrid used similar tactics to frustrate the Catalans, breaking Barca by soaking up pressure and hitting the Blaugrana with quick counterattacks. Have Barca been found out? Not exactly, because most sides opt for such strategies against them, yet Milan and Madrid are better than the majority of those and the Catalans have looked less adept at both scoring and saving goals in recent times. Previously, however, such obstacles were often overcome with relative ease.
February is invariably a tough month for Barca and Roura admitted as much afterwards, although he also alluded to three tough fixtures in six days. True enough, and the reality is that the Catalans' conditioning and training programmes plan for them to peak in the later months of the season after a dip in winter. By that time, however, there may be nothing left to play for.
More worrying than fitness for Barcelona right now is form - particularly in defence. Having conceded goals in their last 11 games before the Clasico, the Catalans shipped three on Tuesday and, worse still, captain Carles Puyol looks to be losing his powers. Wholehearted, but pulled out of position against Milan, the veteran defender was turned too easily by Angel Di Maria for Madrid's second on Tuesday and looks to be approaching the end of a wonderful career, despite recently signing a new deal which will keep him at Camp Nou until the age of 38.
It had been hoped that Barca's defence would improve after early-season injuries to both Puyol and Gerard Pique, yet the back four is still struggling and this is partly due to the team's two attacking full-backs. Previously, Dani Alves' attacking was counter-balanced by Eric Abidal staying back on the left and Sergio Busquets dropping deep into defence, but with Jordi Alba starting on the left this term, both men seem to spend more time in advanced positions and that leaves the defence vulnerable to quick counterattacking football - as Madrid showed on Tuesday.
Tactically, Roura has been unable to organise the defence and the team looked fragile on the right side of the back four on Tuesday, as Alves and Pique were caught out of position and Puyol was dragged across. Pique also gave away the penalty which handed the initiative to Madrid and failed to jump high enough to stop Raphael Varane from making it three in the second half.
Meanwhile, with Pep Guardiola gone and Tito Vilanova recovering from cancer in New York, Barca have been stripped of the two men who led this project from the outset in 2008 and Roura is looking less like a man who can lead this team to further triumphs.
Indeed, many Barcelona fans feared the worst when they saw the team for Tuesday's match. Ever since the Milan game, it had seemed as if David Villa would at last get his chance. The Spain striker played and scored on Saturday, has been praised all week by the Catalan press and was even lauded by Messi. Yet come Tuesday night, his name was not on the teamsheet. It should have been.
By the time Villa was introduced, Barca were already two goals down. It was too late. With Messi disappointing for the second big match in a row and isolated both times, the striker would have given Barca something different, an added threat. Having remained at the club in January amid speculation he could leave, he will wonder what exactly he needs to do in order to start at the moment.
With Villa on the bench, Cesc Fabregas began alongside Xavi in midfield and Andres Iniesta started on the left of the side's three-man forward line. But Cesc was anonymous again, Xavi struggled and Iniesta is never quite the same player when he is fielded further forward.
Whatever happens now in the remainder of 2012-13, the Catalans' commanding lead in La Liga means they will likely have a trophy to celebrate come the summer, yet the Primera Division has seemed a foregone conclusion for some time and will feel something of a hollow triumph if they cannot turn around their first-leg deficit in the Champions League against Milan.
The Copa del Rey is gone now, while the club's European hopes hang in the balance. Play like they did on Tuesday and Barca will not make it beyond the last 16. In order to beat Milan, defensive adjustments must be made, while Villa needs to come into the side with Iniesta returning to his rightful role alongside Xavi. Against the bigger teams, Barcelona appear to have forgotten how to do what they normally do with their eyes closed. They need some of the magic back quickly, because if not, what promised to be an all-conquering campaign will merely finish in farce.
two loses n people are reacting like anything...
We will still win Liga most probably n that wont be a bad season @all..compared to last one...hopefully we will adres the defesive issues next season with a proper CB+Abi back+ True striker..
Its clear that not every one can coach barca n lead them to success even with this great time... thats for people who undernmine peps success staing we have best generation n all !!
Barcelona 1-3 Real Madrid: Real comfortable defensively and ruthless on the break
February 27, 2013
The starting line-ups
Barcelona suffered their second major defeat within the space of a week, and Real are through to the Copa del Rey final.
Jordi Roura brought in Jose Pinto for Victor Valdes in goal – as always in this competition. The rest of the side was the same as against Milan with both Cesc Fabregas and Andres Iniesta in the side, despite David Villa’s impact against Sevilla at the weekend.
Jose Mourinho chose Raphael Varane and Sergio Ramos at centre-back, with Pepe on the bench. Gonzalo Higuain, as expected, started upfront.
Real outplayed Barcelona. Their defensive shape was good, their breaks were typically direct and efficient. 3-1 didn’t flatter them.
Real positive without the ball
In previous Clasicos Real have pressed heavily from the start of the game and dominated the opening ten minutes by forcing Barcelona to concede possession cheaply. Real’s approach was a little less aggressive here, and they followed Milan’s lead of pressing in midfield rather than sitting deep and inviting continual pressure – at least at the start of the game.
The danger with this approach, however, is that a reasonably high defensive line was necessary. Real were torn apart in the 5-0 Clasico because Barcelona ripped their high line to shreds – Lionel Messi coming deep and threading the ball through the defence for the wide forwards. In this match, there was surprisingly little threat in behind the defence from Barcelona, primarily because of the Andres Iniesta-Cesc Fabregas problem on the left, which continues to frustrate.
On the opposite flank, Pedro Rodriguez offers speed and clever runs, but he stayed in a very wide position and therefore wasn’t a direct goal threat – he only got in behind the defence once, in the second minute when creating a chance for Messi, and even this was after he’d checked back and beaten Fabio Coentrao.
Real midfield play
The midfield strategy was similar to Milan’s in theory, if not in actual positioning. Milan played a 4-3-3, Real are 4-2-3-1, which meant the format of the midfield was different, but considering that Milan (like Chelsea and Celtic) often brought their deepest midfielder forward in advance of the other two, maybe it didn’t make that much difference.
There was another familiar theme – Real’s happiness to leave space between their defence and midfield lines, seemingly confident no Barcelona player would move into that zone unattended. Sami Khedira was given the freedom to press the player in his zone – generally Fabregas, who played deeper than against Milan, while Xabi Alonso got tight to Xavi Hernandez, forcing him into backwards passes.
Messi tried to drop into that zone a couple of times, particularly towards the right, but Ramos moved up and stuck tight to him, with Varane becoming the spare man. Messi had a couple of opportunities to turn and run at the Real defence, but overall they limited his influence.
Alonso positioning
Alonso deserves a huge slice of credit for Real’s performance. He’s struggled in many Clasicos, unable to live with Barcelona’s rondos because he’s not a natural tackler, and unable to assert his influence on the game in an attacking sense because of Barca’s pressing. For such an elegant midfield creator, he often becomes a scrapper in these fixtures.
But this was an absolutely superb display. Alonso managed to help nullify two Barcelona players simultaneously – he positioned himself cleverly in front of the defence to prevent forward passes being played into Messi’s feet, yet also stayed alert to the danger of Xavi, always in a position to charge up the pitch and pressure him. Then when Xavi had distributed the ball, Alonso would drop back and get in front of Messi. That freedom to move vertically stemmed from Real’s willingness to leave space in front of the defence.
Again, when Real lost 5-0 at the Camp Nou, Alonso was told to stay deep and Ozil was given the responsibility of tracking Xavi – Xavi moved higher up, Alonso had to react late, Messi became free. Tonight’s tactic – albeit after several subsequent experiences of facing Barca – worked much better.
Equally vital was Alonso’s communication. It’s worth re-watching the first 15 or 20 minutes of the game and solely concentrating on Alonso – not just for his positioning, but for his constant pointing and shouting at his centre-backs. That was crucial considering the partnership at the back – Varane, a youngster who has been primarily used in home matches, and hadn’t played at the Camp Nou before, and Ramos, a terrific defender but one who can be dragged out of position too easily by Messi and Barcelona.
Alonso dispossessed Xavi on the edge of the Real box for the first goal, which summed up his dominance of that contest.
Wide positions
In wider areas, Angel Di Maria sat deep while Cristiano Ronaldo stayed higher up – in fact, he was Real’s most advanced player over the course of the game. This has always been the case for Real, but Barcelona’s shift in full-back play has actually played into Real’s hands – Jordi Alba is now more permanently involved in attacks than Daniel Alves, and Di Maria is the better player to take care of Barcelona’s attacking threat. Previously, Mourinho had sometimes felt obliged to switch Ronaldo and Di Maria, allowing the Argentine to deal with Alves, but forcing Ronaldo away from his preferred position. That is no longer necessary.
Ronaldo’s battle against Alves is always key in these matches. Early on the Brazilian broke past Ronaldo to provide an overlap and cross, but even when this happened Real weren’t hugely concerned – they had a spare defender, after all, and Alves’ advanced positioning meant Pedro had moved central to be looked after by the centre-backs.
Counter-attacks
Besides, it left Ronaldo free to break. Barcelona gave him too many opportunities to run one-against-one on counter-attacks throughout the game – sometimes against Alves, but often against one of Real’s centre-backs instead, in more central areas. Considering Ronaldo is unquestionably Real’s main attacking weapon, it was somewhat surprising Barcelona found themselves so exposed to his runs, but there was some subtle, good movement and passing from Higuain and Ozil.
Higuain didn’t have a superb game, but he either stayed towards the right side of the pitch, forcing Barca’s centre-backs towards that side, or started left and made runs across them, moving them away from Ronaldo. That’s something Real do very cleverly, as explained here.
Ozil, meanwhile, played an understated role but made typically clever movements throughout. Those two players’ contribution for the move that resulted in the penalty for Barca’s first (Ozil’s lob over Sergio Busquets’ head, Higuain’s through-ball past Puyol for Ronaldo to chase) may be simple technically, but showed a great understanding of what Real needed to do when they won possession – get the ball past their opponent as quickly as possible, taking players out of the game.
Average position diagram, courtesy of WhoScored.com, for Barcelona (left) and Real Madrid (right). Three interesting features include Iniesta (
and Fabregas (4) so close together, Ronaldo (7) being Real's highest player, and Ramos (4) slightly higher than Varane (2) as he moved towards Messi
Iniesta – Fabregas problems
At the risk of repeating what was said following the Milan game, Roura’s continued use of Fabregas and Iniesta in these roles was hugely surprising. Iniesta stayed nearer the touchline while Fabregas floated around in a more central position, but they often got in each others’ way, and Iniesta seems unable to influence the game significantly while Fabregas is taking up his space.
There was one perfect example of the problem, after 10 minutes. Pinto claimed the ball and immediately chucked it long to Iniesta, for Barcelona to break three-against-three. Fabregas started slightly inside of Iniesta, but then made a lazy, casual run into the same ‘vertical’ piece of space as him. He needed to either burst through the middle to provide the potential for a forward pass in behind the defence, or charge to the outside (as Ozil would certainly have done) to stretch the play and allow Iniesta to come inside. In the end, he offered nothing, and Iniesta had to check back, winning a foul from Khedira.
That problem – two players on top of each other – would never have happened under Pep Guardiola. He was insistent on training drills involving ‘boxes’ which forced Barcelona to always cover space effectively – when one man came into your zone, you moved out into another zone. It provides the man in possession with a number of options on the ball, it stretches the play and therefore the opposition defence, and it distributes players across the pitch evenly so Barcelona can press effectively immediately (something also lacking this season). It’s far from unique, and in many ways very basic, but clever spatial distribution was a key part of Guardiola’s strategy, yet so absent here.
Amazingly, using Fabregas and Iniesta so close seems to constrain Barcelona in three separate ways – it doesn’t provide a permanent third central midfielder to help dominate the middle of the pitch, it doesn’t stretch the opposition enough laterally, and it doesn’t offer penetration in behind the defence. Alvaro Arbeloa stuck tight to Iniesta – getting booked towards the end of the first half, which made that approach less possible after the break, but generally coped with him well.
Villa was desperately needed on the left. It was interesting that Messi had commented on Villa’s impact against Sevilla at the weekend, saying, “With Villa up front in the second half, Sevilla’s centre backs couldn’t move forward, which gave me more space.” He hasn’t always worked well with Villa, but would surely have been disappointed to see him on the bench here.
Pattern continues after the break
It was odd that Roura left Barcelona unchanged for the start of the second half, but entirely predictable that the pattern would continue. Barcelona didn’t make the angles for incisive passing, while Real continued to counter-attack. Ronaldo’s second, on 57 minutes, came after another break and before Barcelona had made a change. Barca now needed to score three goals.
At last, Villa replaced Fabregas – but Barcelona quickly conceded another goal, this time a Varane header from a set-piece. Tello replaced Pedro on the right, and now Barcelona had two direct, fresh wide forwards trying to run in behind. Real sat deeper as a result.
But Barcelona now needed four goals, and the tie was effectively over – Mourinho made three logical substitutions, each time introducing a more defensive player in place of the man he was withdrawing. Alba scored an 89th minute consolation, significant only because he was offering forwards runs in behind the defence from the left, something Barcelona should have offered from the outset, through Villa.
Conclusion
It’s worth remembering why Barcelona find themselves in this situation – their manager is recovering from cancer, and Roura haw found himself in a job he doesn’t want, forced to cope with pressure and responsibility without warning. It would be extremely harsh to criticise him strongly considering the circumstances – it’s more polite, perhaps, to simply say that Barcelona are missing Tito Vilanova and his tactical ability, particularly his ability to change matches in-play, which was apparent even in Guardiola’s reign.
That shouldn’t take anything away from Real’s performance: they defended with a brave high line and the midfielders pressed energetically, with Alonso helping to stop both Messi and Xavi with superb positioning. They, like Milan, scored their goals in the expected fashion against Barcelona – two from counter-attacks, one from a set-piece.
And how important is experience of playing Barcelona? Barca’s two key defeats this week have come against sides now accustomed to facing them – Milan played them four times last season, Real Madrid six times. After ‘aggregate’ defeats in 2011/12, maybe Allegri and Mourinho have learnt lessons for 2012/13.
Fabregasine okke oru maathiri thara vela kaanichu Barcayil kondu vannittu ippol madhurichittu thuppanum pattilla kaychittu irakkanum pattunnilla enna reeethiyil aayi Barcayude sthithi....
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