Return of the Top Defenses of the Top 5 Leagues 2014-2015 (stats)

Obviously Barca don't have the best "defense" but definitely the best defensive system: pressing + possession + opponents can't commit too many men forward and leave space behind against Barca's front three if they don't want to get rekt. Individually Pique and Alves stepped it up and the goalkeepers have been great and Rakitic and Iniesta have sacrificed their games for some serious hustling. Mascherano and Alba are improveable (even though I don't have clue who aside from Alaba, who is not getable, would be a serious upgrade on Alba, fullback position is lacking these days).

Bayern have the best back 4: Alaba-Boateng-Benatia-Lahm with Neuer behind them. Fortunately agent Pep turned Lahm into an average midfielder, moved Bayern's defensive line 70 meter further forward and Alaba doesn't want to be a fullback anymore (Boateng probably doesn't want to be a defender anymore either after what Messi did to him, Pep can turn him into a midfielder now ). So there is that.

Offence is the best defense, Barca has three attackers which make every team more defensive, which is why they create less danger. Also Barca's midfield is currently more defense oriented than before, and long gone are the days with one breakaway per game heart-attack.

Harmonica wrote:Offence is the best defense, Barca has three attackers which make every team more defensive, which is why they create less danger. Also Barca's midfield is currently more defense oriented than before, and long gone are the days with one breakaway per game heart-attack.

meaning barca nowadays is care about its fan health

Fußball wrote:Obviously Barca don't have the best "defense" but definitely the best defensive system: pressing + possession + opponents can't commit too many men forward and leave space behind against Barca's front three if they don't want to get rekt. Individually Pique and Alves stepped it up and the goalkeepers have been great and Rakitic and Iniesta have sacrificed their games for some serious hustling. Mascherano and Alba are improveable (even though I don't have clue who aside from Alaba, who is not getable, would be a serious upgrade on Alba, fullback position is lacking these days).

Bayern have the best back 4: Alaba-Boateng-Benatia-Lahm with Neuer behind them. Fortunately agent Pep turned Lahm into an average midfielder, moved Bayern's defensive line 70 meter further forward and Alaba doesn't want to be a fullback anymore (Boateng probably doesn't want to be a defender anymore either after what Messi did to him, Pep can turn him into a midfielder now ). So there is that.

man for man the best defense goes to juventus not bayern.

REWB wrote:

Fußball wrote:Obviously Barca don't have the best "defense" but definitely the best defensive system: pressing + possession + opponents can't commit too many men forward and leave space behind against Barca's front three if they don't want to get rekt. Individually Pique and Alves stepped it up and the goalkeepers have been great and Rakitic and Iniesta have sacrificed their games for some serious hustling. Mascherano and Alba are improveable (even though I don't have clue who aside from Alaba, who is not getable, would be a serious upgrade on Alba, fullback position is lacking these days).

Bayern have the best back 4: Alaba-Boateng-Benatia-Lahm with Neuer behind them. Fortunately agent Pep turned Lahm into an average midfielder, moved Bayern's defensive line 70 meter further forward and Alaba doesn't want to be a fullback anymore (Boateng probably doesn't want to be a defender anymore either after what Messi did to him, Pep can turn him into a midfielder now ). So there is that.

man for man the best defense goes to juventus not bayern.

I'd say their CBs are on level with each other but Lahm and Alaba are far better than Lichsteiner and Evra. Well that would be the case if Agent Pep played them at fullbacks.

Not going to say anything about Juventus' defense until after the 6th of June. lol But one thing's for sure. Baresi, Maldini and Nesta are a distant second to prime Chiellini in Italian defense history.

You conveniently forgot Borussia M'gladbach who allowed 0.77 goals/match, with the goalie saving 84.25% of the shots against him (of 146 shots on goal, that is)  

More stats: http://www.goallegacy.net/t36463-return-of-the-top-defenses-of-the-top-5-leagues-2014-2015-stats

(I'll probably merge the threads shortly)

Alaba isn't " far better " than this year's Evra .

Alaba had an absolutely outstanding season until he got injured.

Comparisons are tricky though as Alaba didn't play as a traditional fullback, he played a very fluid, versatile hybrid role depending on whether we played 3 man defense or 4 man defense.

In my opinion he upped his game this season to a new level, especially since he was paired with Bernat who stayed wide as a complementing wingback.

Let's not forget Alaba always had a very special understanding with Ribery who sadly was absent so much this season.
In earlier seasons, he always looked a bit more lost and ineffective when Ribery wasn't playing.

i'm not disagreeing Hans .

but Evra had such a great season that you can't possibly rate anyone as " far better " than him .

farfan wrote:Alaba isn't " far better " than this year's Evra .

Yeah your right he's miles better

But too be fair to Evra, he's actually been pretty and surprisingly good this season from what I've seen of him.

Agreed farfan.

Evra lol, not exactly hard to look good when there's at least two players covering your every move.

We all saw how crap he is at Yanited when even slightly isolated, the man used to be Aaron Lennon's playtoy ffs

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Evra lol, not exactly hard to look good when there's at least two players covering your every move.

We all saw how crap he is at Yanited when even slightly isolated, the man used to be Aaron Lennon's playtoy ffs

did you even watch more than 3 juventus games this season ?

and since when is playing in wingless formations like the 4-3-1-2 and 3-5-2 " easy " for fullbacks ?

When Pogba, Vidal and Marchisio are covering your ass it's easy yes.

these 3 are usually preoccupied with covering for Pirlo's wasted balls . .

Just in to second the agent Pep thing. Destroyed that defense in just two seasons. Outstanding work!

VivaStPauli wrote:Just in to second the agent Pep thing. Destroyed that defense in just two seasons. Outstanding work!

You have become such a broken record. Bring the old awesome viva back

Our CBs are better than Bayerns overall individually, their fullbacks are better. But our defence also works together as a much, much better unit than Bayerns.

I think our CBs are better than our CBs tbh

Disagree


Good point though. Have to agree on that one

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:Just in to second the agent Pep thing. Destroyed that defense in just two seasons. Outstanding work!

You have become such a broken record. Bring the old awesome viva back

Not really Pep's fault tbh. The teams he has lost to in CHL have been amazing. Nothing to fault him from. We hit our stride last year and so did Barca this year.

Freeza wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

VivaStPauli wrote:Just in to second the agent Pep thing. Destroyed that defense in just two seasons. Outstanding work!

You have become such a broken record. Bring the old awesome viva back

Not really Pep's fault tbh. The teams he has lost to in CHL have been amazing. Nothing to fault him from. We hit our stride last year and so did Barca this year.

That's the thing. With 18 goals conceded, we are on par with our 12/13 record defensive season under Jupp, with one game to go. That after playing lackluster for a while now, we had 4 goals conceded in winter lol.
Last season, 3rd best in history with 23 goals against.

Obviously, Pep completely destroyed that defense.

And then Viva complains that I call the gist of his attacks on Pep bollocks and nonsense.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:Our CBs are better than Bayerns overall individually, their fullbacks are better. But our defence also works together as a much, much better unit than Bayerns.

I actually have to disagree a bit, and also agree a bit with Freeza (and Hans in that regard), even if it pains me: the Bayern defenders have for the most part been great individually, they've conceded very few goals, and if you think back to Bayern in the group stages especially Boateng and Badstuber had some awesome last-ditch tackles, as well as Alaba and Lahm.

It's just that there isn't much opportunity to look all that great as a defender against teams like Barca, so that's right in that regard.
Then again, Messi has been kept silent by other teams, though never by just the defense. It always also took the midfield helping out, a lot - and I don't see the unity between attack, midfield, and defense anymore with Bayern, the balance that made them great under Don Jupp.

More credit should be given to the defenders though, Pique I think has regained some of his best form, Alves as said many times already, Alba improving, and Mattieu has been a very strong addition. Rakatic's defensive work also deserves regonition.

Evra has always been good no?

I'm not a big believer in the concept of defender form. Defenders are good or they suck in essence, but their actual performance depends mostly on team form, tactics, and squad cohesion; if the transitions aren't clean, or the forwards don't feel like helping out defensively, even great defenders can look like shit.

This is especially obvious with average defenders, who can look absolutely great when the team is working, and horrible when it isn't, just think bad on Demichelis and van Buyten, those guys were accurate indicators on whether Bayern was coached defensively or not - with Demichelis we even got the instant comparison when he left Bayern while being regarded as horrible, and instantly had a great season at Malaga.

So while I happen to think that Pique sucks, the far greater influence on his performances than his own suckery is the system employed by Barca and Spain; as long as he gets help from Biscuit, the midfield takes pressure of the defense, and the forwards properly occupy space in defensive situations, he'll look good.

There's only a few key moments every couple of matches where you can really tell if a defender is something special, other than that, it's down to squad chemistry.