Paris Saint-Germain vs F.C Barcelona

Fußball wrote:Some gifs:

Alba's lack of a brain (this is how the 2nd goal comes about):



Thinks he is Maradona:



Dani "if Alba is Maradona I'm Pelé" Alves (1st goal):



Sergi "what about my Cruyff turn then" Busquets:



Alves' hoofing the ball upfield (I refuse to call this a cross even):

Does Alba think he is Maradona?I am just spitballing here but maybe just maybe its down to Enrique's tactics.Maybe just maybe he is allowing the fullbacks more creative freedom and more liberty to take risks.
The Alba gifs you posted.Now pre Enrique generally you wouldnt see our FB dribbling there just past the center circle.Guess who would be driving the ball forward from there.Normally it would be Iniesta who drives the ball forward from midfield.And it would come off because he is an out of the world dribbler compared to Alba.Not going to come off when Alba tries to dribble near the halfway line.
And that gif also highlights one of the other problems I have with the spilt CM's.It leaves Busquets to cover too much space through the center.The CM's are busy covering the flanks.It leaves a free run at Busquets.He knows that so he tries to win the ball early.He fails.Had the CM's been closer Busquets would have been better covered.
now you might point out that Rakitic did try and move central.
But then doesnt that make him staying so far out wide redundant?To me it should be the other way round.

And its again no use criticizing Alves for the hopeless cross.Blame falls squarely on Enrique.You are always singing Enrique's praises on how he has balls and benches everyone and is a drill sergeant and all.If Alves was ignoring Enrique's orders and putting aimless crosses in game after game,do you think he would still play game after game.I dont think so.We are putting in aimless crosses because that is what Enrique wants and thats his style.
To me its obvious.Enrique is clueless.We have become Crosselona not inspite of him,but because of him.

sportsczy wrote:Every goal is avoidable  that's my point.  But to say that they were 100% a result of Barca not doing its job is completely false...  PSG's tactics were designed to specifically cause the errors that Barca made.  Namely, put high pressure and force the defenders to make passing/dribbling decisions as opposed to the midfielders BECAUSE defenders are more error-prone with the ball.

As far as the Verratti goal...  there were 4 PSG guys on the far post for only 1 Barca defender and the keeper.  It wasn't a 1on1 mistake... it was a complete zonal mistake.  It just happened to land on Verratti as opposed to the others.  BUT AGAIN, everyone knows that Barca is weak on set pieces.  Been like this for years.  So they emphasize getting FKs and taking advantage of them.

To me, something is reasonably avoidable if it's mostly random.  None of the goals by PSG were random.... not one. Other than Ter Stegen badly coming off his line and having a better chance of saving Verratti's header if he didn't, the rest were a result of PSG taking advantage of Barca's specific areas of weakness.

There is a difference between avoidable like Messi gives the ball away, doesn't press, and the opposition springs a pass that Pique doesn't read well enough and Falcao scores a chip on Valdes or something like that.....and what was going on in the game against PSG.

We both know this.

pos1, pos2. Thanks for your thoughts. The part about the automatisms makes a lot of sense. Often I see exactly that. Opponent already in possession and only then some Barca players start to press (usually Pedro like a headless chicken). But at that point the opponent can already pass it around. Wonder if this will improve over time. Also wonder if players like Messi and Iniesta can regain that mentally consistently and players like Nerman will ever adopt it in the first place. Don't get me wrong, Nerman does his fair share of defensive duty. But it doesn't come natural to him as for Suarez for example (hasn't even played 1 game yet but I'm dead certain he will run nonstop).

I have no idea if they will regain it. To his credit, I still see that Busquets has it, Dani Alves has it, Mascherano seems to have it (maybe he is just a lunatic and goes forward anyway, hard to tell) but generally speaking its missing. I cant speculate what happens in training, but I feel it needs to be drilled over and over.



@Alex RE: CM

Indeed, I agree, that is a big reason why the ball doesnt switch sides. But I couldnt help but notice when Xavi came into the game yesterday the ball did switch sides alot more. Its funny that while some people may not like it, Xavi is better suited to the role Enrique wants than anyone else. Of course when it comes to pressure and covering bigger spaces maybe not, but just in terms of the structure of attack I think even in limited time he has shown he is.

Its strange to me how often I see the fullbacks more infield than the midfielders. Obviously its not constant, but there are isolated incidents on both sides where this happens.

If they made underlapping runs, It might make more sense but I really dont understand when I see them on the ball being a playmaker while the CM stands wider and at times lateral/even behind. I feel like Enrique is trying to create overloads on the flanks using CM, FB and FW to suck over more defenders to the sides. I would think after those overloads we could transfer the ball to the middle but it doesnt seem to be happening very often.

I find that Barca have just 3 clear ways to score goals (especially the first goals in games before the the opponent opens up) this season.

1. High pressure, win the ball before the opponent is organised.

2. Messi individual magic for a through ball to Neymar

3. Neymar comes into space more centrally and does some kind of combination play with Messi/someone. Like the 1st goal vs PSG.

Saw the game now.And to Enrique's credit the midfield play did to me look a bit better.More combination play through the middle initiated by the midfielder.Like for the first goal.Something that I have rarely seen from Iniesta this season.
And the midfielders did seem closer together than previous games.

Coming to pressing,I am no expert like dani and my analysis is not going to be as detailed.But for me our problems in pressing start and end with Messi.Yes,he has been putting in more effort and yes he is moving more than the last 3 years but still it is not consistent and varies widely both across and within games.
I mean some plays he can be seen busting a gut(scored a goal last game by pressing) and yet other plays he just walks around and does nothing.There are 2 problems as far as I see it.
Firstly,pressing from the front like say Dortmund requires corrdinated effort and needs to be done game after game to be executed perfectly.It is not like turning on a tap.If you dont press for 3 years,then it wont come back magically in a game.Also cant press one game,not press 5 games and then again decide to press another game.I am no expert and I may be wrong but as far as I see it,there is no way to press effectively from the front if the central player is lazy and does nothing.

Second reason also has to do with Messi but this time its not tactical.If I am a player,and I see one player walking around as if he owns the pitch,there is no way I will be persuaded to do his job too and press for him,no matter what the coach says.

Nope I agree, you cant press on and off at a whim. I dont believe in it.

It has to be consistent, it has to be all the time, it has to become something which isnt a thought, but a reaction. It has to be autonomous. Thats my opinion.

As for Messi specifically, its intresting. I think with Messi because he does so much with the ball some players are willing to press for him and work for him, while others arent.

I saw one situation which I dont think I have ever seen in a high level football match before.

Messi was the closest man to the ball (I think Luiz) and he was the closest man by at least 5-6 meters. But it wasnt him who pressed the ball, Pedro sprinted from at least another 5m away from Messi's position, past Messi and then another 5m to the ball. It was an incredible sight.


All that being said, I think even when Messi has his stand-still lazy moments he could be more effective than he is. I said it on during the game somewhere.

If he isnt going to actually press, why cant he just man mark David Luiz? That way he doesnt have to move and everyone knows exactly where he is and you can coordinate your movements around that. Against PSG he kinda just floated around, sometimes in a light jog, sometimes in a walk and did nothing. It was easy to play around him because he was in the middle of nowhere. If he just stood next to Luiz all game it would have at least stopped the ball being switched across so easily.

I've seen teams 'turning on the tap on pressing' before. For example I'd never seen a Mourinho team press high but he did that against Barcelona in Copa del Rey second leg (2011-12) after they lost the first leg 1-2 in Madrid.



I'm sure some will point out the scoreline to debunk my argument but Madrid dominated Barcelona in that match and deserved to be 3 goals up in the first 15 minutes.

Well that really isnt what I mean. Thats turn on for one specific situation and never again.

They came up with a gameplan and they clearly worked on it. I think thats very possible.

You could see the flaws in their pressing regardless, even though they did well in the game overall:

By the way, another Whoscored curiosity. Apparently Alba had 0 turnovers and got dispossessed 0 times.

Fußball wrote:By the way, another Whoscored curiosity. Apparently Alba had 0 turnovers and got dispossessed 0 times.

lol.
More evidence their data is simply not to be trusted at all.

Alba against PSG with an overall rating of 6.81, Alaba against Moscow with an overall rating of 6.85.

Classico is more important than the PSG clash. Atleast now Lucho will not make the same mistake of using both Alves and Alba together exposing our defense. Mathieu can play there and Pique and Barta/Mashcherano would be good to pair in CB.

Nothing is set yet, tbh mathieu didn't really impress TOO much in the LB position.
so can't say he is forsure the starter in the LB spot.

Me neither saying him a sure starter. but atleast we are now considering that option which seems to be better if not the best than using Alba against teams like PSG/Real Madrid.
I personally felt him slow when in attack but that would restrict his total freedom something Alba enjoys causing us problem ...

Whatever be the case but i'm pretty certain that slowtra shouldn't play in el classico.

Bartra hasn't really played bad..
alba should be used against Madrid though in my opinion..
he is a risk but he counters bale really good, bale would take advantage over mathieu easily with speed.. where as Alba runs bale out of the field.
it's a risk because ronaldo can switch with him but yeah.

Would rather Adriano before either.

Alba has the speed sure, but how many times will he give the ball away doing non-sense?

After seeing Mascherano play on the CRB of a 3 man defense at pretty much Pedro's position I fully expect to see:

Mathieu - Verm - Pique - Masche

One of these days. He did play there once or twice for liverpool right?

Barta was solid in Rayo game. cleared some of the aerial balls very well. I think we can pair him with Pique if Mathieu is played as FB. But i have the feeling that Lucho will use Mash/Mathieu as CBs.

I thought Bartra looked shaky. He still doesn't have the natural serenity I expect from a top class defender. Everything he does looks hasty and rushed. In the first half he easily went to ground from a little nudge. Not every referee will call that, the likes of Viktor Casai in Europe for sure won't, and he's giving away a complete 1 vs. 1 with Bravo. Needs to be much stronger than that. At the beginning of the season half he gave away a very preventable shot (luckily from an angle) on the left side because he didn't stay close enough. He certainly makes bucketloads of little mistakes. The only thing he got over Mascherano as of now is aerial ability.

give the guy a break.

he's still nursing a torn anus after what happened last year.

Lol.. Slowtras career finished before it already started.