I would like to start with this fact, that unlike what many said here, we played worse than Madrid. For the first time in a long time in a Clasico, we could say Madrid played better in a game, and the opposite with Barca which is weird. There were many matches where we lost by 2 or more yet we looked better than whatever we did this match. I don't have to mention examples because this is literally what happened with the PSG game, we looked miles better that game.
It's almost like we started the Clasico like we just got out of the PSG game, with the same problems and issues, hell even with less "positive" notes. The problems started very early…
…with the first examples of build up play by Madrid. Barca continued the man to man press just like with PSG and Mourinho outsmarted Flick in the same way Luis Enrique did (close to the same idea in a way). Huijsen here passes back to Lunin
Then Barca with the usual press:
Raphinha leaves Huijsen behind him,
Lamine man marks Cucurella
Gordon on Konate, and depending on where the ball goes next, the FB presses their FB just like with PSG. Meaning:
When the ball reaches Valverde, Cancelo steps up to press him.
And in the midfield, and just like with PSG, man to man, 3 on 3:
And then Bellingham on Rodri. And in the last line, it's 3 on 3 too. Espart with Diomande, Cubarsi on Mbappe and Martin on Guler.
Lunin passes to Konate,
Then Gordon presses him, and here the first tactical details appear.
Madrid intentionally widened the distances as much as possible between the CBs…
…so that the distances widen more in front of Gordon, Raphinha and Lamine. At the same time their intention was to leave the FBs as close as possible to the sidelines:
That's why the right moment comes when Konate passes to Valverde and Cancelo presses him.
(in the first try the full idea doesn't appear clearly 100% because the ball hits Cancelo and changes its direction and goes to Guler)
And as I said, Martin man marks Guler
So Bellingham (who has Rodri with him) makes himself available and gets closer to Guler
He takes a touch and a second, the moment where two issues with Barca appear and will continue to appear throughout the match
First, Pedri is close to Guler and Cancelo is coming back to press him…
…while Martin is also on him
So Guler has 3 players on him and his back is to the sidelines but at the same time, there's not enough urgency or intensity in the press to win the ball even tho it's a perfect situation from where a transition (for Barca) can start.
Secondly, Rodri will leave Bellingham to move behind him and behind Martin (Rodri in general being terrible this game, I'll come back to him later)
So the result is that Guler passes to Bellingham but the pass wasn't accurate and goes out…
…Then after a minute and a half.
Lunin to Huijsen again,
Raphinha presses
Huijsen passes to Cucurella
Then Lamine presses him as expected:
Cucurella to Diomande, with Espart on his back
And you'll notice this time in the midfield that Rodri is awake and cuts off the passing lane to Bellingham
Fermin is also awake and is on Tchouameni
Raphinha as well cutting off the pass back to Huijsen
Pedri and Gordon helping from up there suffocating Madrid. Again, on paper it's a perfect situation to get back the ball from this "perfect" press, or at least ruin Madrid's build up.
But here a third problem appears that will continue with Barca the whole match too.
Lamine, with his never ending pressing weakness, that has been there since even the season before the last (if you remember the Inter match, a very similar build up play):
Basically that the man he should be marking receives on his blind side 8 times out of 10, so Diomande easily passes it to Cucurella, and now you'll see the domino effect and the mess when the Barca players realize that Cucurella is carrying the ball forward comfortably…
…so Espart gets ready to run back to "defend"…
…and Rodri tries to position himself well to stop any possible passes in the middle…
…and at the same time to stay close to Bellingham
Then Fermin tries to press Cucurella
But Cucurella waits and holds the ball then Lamine runs back to help and Fermin too, so it gets overcrowded with Diomande also there
But with a skill move, he easily beats the 3 players pressing him. Until this point, the "match" didn't even start yet, meaning up until this point, Mourinho didn't yet apply his tactical idea
The idea that will appear fully after around 15 minutes, when Lunin passes to Konate…
…and Valverde close to him…
…dropping deep to receive the pass and make the press difficult on Cancelo (the same way with Hakimi in the PSG game)
So Gordon on Konate
Rodri on Bellingham
Fermin on Tchouameni
And as usual, when the ball goes to the side of Gordon…
…Lamine leaves Cucurella and tucks inside.
Konate to Valverde
Cancelo coming up to close down Valverde
But the difference this time is that Madrid will take the initiative or the "counterattack" in a faster and more direct way than PSG did. Because Valverde here will switch the play to the other side of the pitch…
…and here is where we can see the idea
Check where Martin is here and where Espart is.
These are the "fullbacks" (considering Cancelo is still all the way up there, so consider Martin as a FB here) So you can see the massive distance and gaps in the defense here
Second detail in this idea is that Cucurella is the one who gets the ball here
Lamine pushed a bit to the middle but he didn't expect it to Cucurella, so Lamine tried to get to him
So Cucurella will do just like he did in the first ever attack, pass to Diomande and then run forward
Then Lamine of course will just let him run, no problem…
…and here it becomes 1v2, the situation that happened a lot in the first half. This is where the trap completes and Barca falls into it.
Because Cucurella here has a huge gap where he can forward with no issues. Why? Because Cubarsi is far away, but why is he so far away?
Because just 5 seconds ago Cancelo was here…
…and when the play switched you'll see that Guler was behind him and is coming back, while Cubarsi was on the middle with Mbappe…
…so before we even reached this point…
…Madrid was able to stretch the whole back line and cut through it like butter, with massive distances between the defenders. And this is what Cucurella was trying to utilize here. And this is a huge problem with Barca in this situation since the last season, even before the PSG match. This whole "breakup" came from one long pass from Valverde
So Diomande passes it back to Cucurella, since Lamine won't really help and go back with him…
…however, Pedri intervened and rescued the situation at the right time.
Again, Huijsen to Lunin
The Barca's press is the same as always, however Gordon and Raphinha swapped positions here because of the previous play.
However Huijsen and Valverde will both signal to Lunin to play it long to get out of the press. First, because Gordon is very close to him
Second, Valverde didn't yet go back in time, therefore Cancelo is close to him
So Lunin goes long to Guler…
…and here you'll notice the worry of Barca's players because of this play
Guler gets the ball easily, Martin didn't really press him. At the same time Cancelo came back quickly but then Guler passes back to Valverde
This time tho, the play will improve on the last one. Because when Valverde switched the play to other side of the pitch, there were 2 different details this time: Espart is on Mbappe, therefore he couldn't man mark Diomande, hence the play switch will get to Diomande with no one on him.
And this is the only situation where you'll see Cucurella advancing up the pitch: when the play switches from side to side quickly +
Lamine doesn't stay on him or goes back with him
This time it's 3 on 1 (Espart)
Espart here tries to do the impossible: being in two places at once, so of course Diomande with a through ball to Mbappe, and doesn't even wait for Cucurella to advance more.
But Cubarsi with the rescue inside the box
Once again, Valverde to Lunin and you'll notice here that Barca is still organizing its man to man press because it was right after an open play…
…so Raphinha is the one with Tchouameni instead,
Fermin on Konate
And Gordon on Valverde instead
And Lamine still alone between Huijsen and Cucurella and even Lunin
But Lamine didn't wait until Barca's press organizes, and for the players to position themselves well because he got in a hurry for some reason and went all in pressing Lunin in a way that backfired (he didn't even try blocking the passing lanes)
And he'll leave Huijsen and Cucurella and goes directly to Lunin
So Lunin of course passes to Huijsen
Huijsen then steps out with the ball
Rodri in front of him between 2 (Bernardo and Cucurella). Why? Because as we said, Barca still didn't have time to organize the press
All Lamine did was help Madrid play faster
Huijsen hesitates here with who to pass to, you know....it's a big "problem" when you're trying to build up to the goal but you find yourself with many passing options (/s)
So why not, Huijsen passes to Cucurella
Rodri tries to cover but he's outnumbered
Because Bernardo also arrived to the sidelines, then from Cucurella to Diomande
Lamine arrived to help so the play gets suffocated on the side, so from Diomande to Cucurella and then back again to Huijsen. "So what was the point from all this?"
After that immediately, the purpose of all that sequence becomes clear
Because after Rodri, Fermin, Espart and Lamine all gathered on this side
Raphinha and Gordon are all alone in that side on the first line
Between 3 players
So Konate finds the same "problem" as before, too many passing options because both Valverde and Tchouameni are all alone and free to pass because Fermin is still coming back from far away
Because for the millionth time, no team can afford a player pressing like this in a man to man system, and honestly not even in a team that doesn't press at all.
Anyways, when Konate passes to Tchouameni then to Valverde, Balde steps up to press him and Martin starts getting closer to Guler
Ball goes back to Tchouameni in a huge gap in midfield
Between Barca's first and second pressing lines…
…and the play continues and Madrid keeps finding a free man all the time (Bernardo here), because the pressing structure of Barca got destroyed from the first moment with ease.
So this time Bernardo switches the play to Cucurella…
…who has half the pitch to run far and wide…
…because Diomande drifted inside so Espart had to track him instead
But then Espart is forced to go to Cucurella
And behind him are two players running in front of Rodri
And the rest is self explanatory
Cucurella to Diomande…
…and Rodri has to choose either to go with Diomande
Or leave him to Cubarsi and instead…
…mark Bellingham
Then the Cross from Diomande which caused an ugly goal that doesn't reflect a very organized build up. The time this build up took was exactly 36 seconds
36 seconds from this moment…
…to this moment…
…but throughout these 36 seconds, even with Madrid's superiority here, this phase, and especially in Lamine's side from the start of the match…
…Lamine took on the Mbappe role in the press. A poorly timed run at the beginning, after it…
…he dropped back, after that…
…nothing for 22 seconds
He didn't react to the play, here
Nor did he mark Bernardo even tho this should be his role when the ball goes to the other side
Nor here
Nor here
Nor here
And the result is: neither did he stop the pass to Bernardo
Nor did he help Espart…
…where he could've marked Diomande and let Espart try stopping Cucurella's run
Nor did he drop back with Cucurella.
All of the above was the first aspect of Madrid's superiority in the first half: Stretching the distances, switching play quickly from one flank to the other, and testing Barca to the limit in defensive transitions and in the space they had to cover. But of course this wasn't Barca's only problem in the first half, because Madrid's press also had two organized phases:
The first was during goal kicks, then Madrid pressed man to man, this was the only situation (goal kicks) where Madrid pressed man to man
Since Garcia is out of the play, it becomes an opportunity for Madrid, and few as those moments were, Barca's solutions in them were odd. Barca with PSG got out of the press many times with multiple solutions against their man to man press, it's why what you'll see now is "odd" and makes no sense. More importantly, the only one to blame here would be Flick
Against the man to man press, Garcia passes to Martin
Martin plays it long to Gordon directly
Gordon controls the ball under pressure…
…and passes to Pedri, who lost his marker
And as you see here, Lamine alone with Cucurella with a small gap…
…with him, Fermin and Raphinha on Konate and Huijsen
3 on 3 in the middle of the pitch
But quickly, Bellingham, Bernardo and Guler close down Pedri and they suffocate passing options
So he's forced to pass back to Cubarsi
This successfully delays the build up a bit but it didn't solve the situation because Cubarsi goes forward and passes to Fermin
And Espart all alone on the side
And Lamine still alone with Cucurella and Barca therefore played through the press successfully
But in one of the worst performances by Fermin, and the opposite for Tchouameni
He wins the ball back
Man to man press by Madrid will be played again 2 other times in the first half
And both situations, Garcia plays the long ball to Gordon directly…
…and in both, Valverde wins the header
Because for some reason both times Garcia decides to play long (in air) unlike the first time…
…where the ball reaches him closer to the ground and he controls it
So what's the idea in this long ball to Gordon from and after the PSG game? No one knows. I mean, Gordon failed to get the same long balls with the slowest player on the pitch in the PSG game Marquinhos. So where's the logic that he'll be able to get it with Valverde instead? Only Flick knows. But all of the above was one thing, and what comes next is something else entirely. As we said Mourinho decided to press man to man only with goalkicks, meaning in the first half, Madrid was playing mid block to low block. Although all of the above were recurring problems for Barca and Mourinho exploited them cleverly, there was no explanation for Barca's failure to break down Madrid's low and mid block in the first half, other than what Barca's own players said after the match:
Even tho Cancelo said we were superior (and I disagree) but he did describe the problems in the first half
Especially when he said this part "And that's exactly what Real Madrid wanted"
Pedri also talked about it, how "we weren't ourselves" in the first half
In this phase, when Barca are in possession against the low or mid block by Madrid, Mourinho had a clear idea too. The idea was:
Since Mbappe won't help, Barca's backline will have all the time with the ball no matter what (because he won't press)
So Bellingham will stay with Rodri
Bernardo will stay with Pedri
Tchouameni with Fermin. Man to man in the middle + man to man in both sides of the pitch
Meaning Cucurella and Diomande with Lamine and Espart. But how can they afford to do this?
Because they left Mbappe against 2
Cubarsi and Martin, both free from marking, and they focused more on tracking penetrating runs and third man movements. They also had an extra player covering the wide area, depending on which side the attack came from. In this case, for example…
…it's Huijsen, the closest to Cucurella. On paper, this idea looks good and you could ask "why did no one think of this before, it's easy? And you also solve the Mbappe's pressing problem with this alternative". However this has 2 problems (from Madrid's pov): First: it isn't about what happens on the pitch, but this tactic gives a very negative message to their other players. Because in this context, they went from the stage of 'we are suffering because of Mbappe' to the stage of 'we are adapting to this suffering'. Of course, this on the long term will cause more dressing room problems (and hopefully it does). Second: because in practice, rather than on paper, this tactic on the pitch won't look as solid
Because, and simply, Cubarsi is still free
Meaning if Diomande won't press him and will stay back close to Espart like here…
…then Cubarsi would just carry it forward a bit more and force Diomande to press him
After that Pedri will just pass it to Espart who Diomande left to press Cubarsi
After that Espart will just carry it forward…
…and will give Lamine a 1v1 against Cucurella
The thing Lamine wants especially since Cucurella has a lot of space in behind him where Lamine could use his pace. However, "this" wasn't happening, or at least not often enough, and that's probably what Pedri meant when he said "we weren't ourselves". The idea here isn't that Lamine is going to beat Cucurella, or that Cucurella is going to beat Lamine in a 1v1. The idea is that he wasn't even trying often enough in the first place
I mean, it's true that Madrid's individual man marking was excellent
Bernardo here is ready to drop back with Espart…
…if he tried to overlap
And it's also true that Huijsen is ready to cover
But it's also true that if Lamine successfully dribbled past Cucurella, the chaos will open the door for new possibilities. Will these "possibilities" be in favor of Barca? Of course not always but Barca didn't even try to discover these possibilities on the sides, and was always rushing to break through the center by the shortest route the whole time. This is exactly what Cancelo meant. And in any football match, you don't have to be sure the odds are in your favor before you try. Otherwise, why play at all?
In this situation, Lamine decides to pass back to Pedri
Pedri to Martin
Martin just like Cubarsi free from marking, so he'll advance and make Madrid drop even deeper
Bellingham still with Rodri
Tchouameni cut off the passing lane to Gordon
And Bernardo on Fermin
And Guler alert, checking his shoulder just like Bernardo on the other side
Valverde will go and press Cancelo
Guler sticks with Gordon because in Mourinho's structure there is no rotation. The fullback always steps up to the touchline, so the nearest player to him, whether a winger or a midfielder, is the one who tracks the opponent trying to run in behind him
So it gets closed off again here, and Cancelo goes back to Rodri who became free
Because Bellingham and Tchouameni dropped back together
Rodri to Pedri and Bernardo next runs to press him
And in the end, the ball kept getting recycled between Pedri and Rodri, and went back without any breakthrough. That was the first part of what Cancelo said: "we struggled in switching the ball from one side to the other"
The second part of what Cancelo said becomes clear here. The ball goes back to Cubarsi again and suddenly you realize Madrid also suffers from switching the ball from one side to the other, because of the same idea: that Cubarsi is always free and Diomande is caught between him and Espart
So he lets Fermin run in behind, therefore with one forward pass Barca can create the situation they always prefer, the number 10 receiving the ball between the lines
Fermin receives of course, and passes to Raphinha
And if you go back 1 second you'll notice that Bellingham made a huge effort to close down all that space…
…to try stopping Fermin but he's not successful here (an effort a few of our players lack)
The pass gets blocked and falls back to Fermin…
…then to Pedri then to Lamine…
…and as usual in this match, he also loses the ball. This is the second problem Cancelo talked about: "we rushed into trying to play passes to break through the opponent's lines". But how?
Didn't I just say, "one forward pass Barca can create the situation they like"
The problem is the rushed pass that came after it
Raphinha is between 2
But the logical decision here is to pass to Lamine
Because he's in an advantageous position over Cucurella in space, and he's going to run at him head-on. That's regardless of the fact that Lamine, in this match, had a poor game reading the play in front of him. But the point is the idea
Once again, a low block from Madrid and the 3 on 3 man to man in the midfield
Espart to Rodri (Bellingham on him)
To Cubarsi
To Pedri
Who switched it to Martin
Guler takes a risk (a bit like the Lamine one)
He presses Martin and leaves Cancelo behind with a lot of space
And a 2v1 on Valverde
But this time the risk was "calculated" you could say cuz he was close enough and…
…because it led to a counter attack
But he missed. On top of Mourinho's excellent and effective ideas, and Flick's strange and underwhelming ones, you could also see that Barca's players were affected physically, mentally, and emotionally by the PSG's defeat. There was a split-second delay on many plays, there was doubt, there was hesitation, and it lasted the whole match
Once again, Cubarsi to Martin
And Madrid pressing in a 4-5-1.
Martin to Raphinha, with Konate man marking him
Here I want you to take a second and look at the body language of all the other Barca players. Nobody looked ready to make a move for Raphinha to find him, or to start one of those combinations Barca usually run. If anything, the body language was totally passive.
So Raphinha passes back to Rodri. They were trying to draw out Madrid's three midfielders…
…so when it comes back to Martin, that would expose the space between Madrid's defensive line and their midfield
On one hand, Martin rushes the pass
Fermin's body position wasn't set up right yet. On top of that…
…he should have come short to meet the pass, either by getting in front of Huijsen or spinning in behind him, but he was standing there passively, as if he wasn't even with us. So Huijsen simply intercepts the ball
To Mbappe directly
To Bellingham then he switched to Diomande
Diomande takes a step back, passes to Tchouameni to Mbappe
To Guler
And once again Guler shoots from the same angle. Barca stayed lost for almost the entire first half, as if they're still in Paris.
Once again, from Balde to Raphinha
Raphinha beats Konate to the ball, passes to Gordon
Gordon to Rodri
Rodri to Cubarsi
And slips off Bellingham
And advances with Cubarsi
Receives it unmarked in a very good position
But he hesitates and takes a bit too long that Tchouameni gets back to close down the shot
And of course, a terrible shot. That's why there's little to say about Barca in possession in the first half. It was miserable football from a team at its worst. What deserves the attention is Madrid's transitions, which came every time Barca's build up broke down with a rushed pass or a bad touch.
Madrid's transitions in those moments looked a lot like the idea they were trying to do during open play: win the ball, get it out to the flank immediately, and look for a 2v1 against the fullback.
Meaning, after intercepting the ball from Pedri here for example
Guler to Huijsen
Guler receives it again behind Fermin
Drifting all the way in the direction of Diomande
To overload Espart
With Lamine of course in the corner
So Lamine tries to drop back quickly in the time when Guler passes to Diomande forward
Diomande runs forward making use of the space in behind Espart
Diomande passes back to Guler and you'll notice that Lamine is going to him (even tho the logical thing to do is to stay with Guler)
Guler of course gets the ball behind Espart, with only Rodri on him…
…but Martin intercepts the ball
Once again at the end of the first half…
…Tchouameni intercepts the ball and passes to Guler
Guler moves forward,
Bellingham attacks the space behind Pedri
Diomande moves forward too, and once again our fullback (Cancelo now) is on 2v1
Only Cubarsi here is free
Guler with a pass to Diomande
On paper, Barca have a 5v4 over Madrid. But Madrid's positioning is better, because they were already moving into the counter…
…but Diomande misses with a terrible shot.
At first glance, it looked like Barca fixed the first half's problems in the second, or at least some of them. But what matters is how they fixed them. Truth is, the pressing problems were still there, for the same reason: the defensive "shifting". Madrid just couldn't take advantage of it in the second half, for two reasons. The first was Valverde's injury, which put Mourinho in a tough spot: he had Arnold available, who could play the same switches, maybe even more accurately. But he's also the defender Gordon would beat most easily one on one, not to mention his problems on set pieces, in the air and defending in general. So Dumfries was the only real option.
And with the first ball Dumfries gets in the second half, the second reason shows up. The one thing Balde does better than Cancelo as a left back is pure intensity. He's the quickest of the lot when pressing, probably our fastest player, and that pinned Dumfries to the touchline a lot. Like this one: the ball has barely left Konate's foot and Balde is already on him.
Hence Dumfries panics and loses the ball…
…and when Madrid tried to repeat the "shifting" play, it wasn't as effective. Cucurella passes back to Huijsen, Barca with the same press
Huijsen to Konate
Dumfries drops back and scans over his shoulder so he can prepare his next move, with Gordon going forward to Konate.
Gordon here is pressing from the inside out, when it should be the other way round, so as a result…
…Dumfries gets the ball with ease
And this time Balde stays with Guler instead
So Pedri tries to solve the situation by leaving Bernardo and closing down Dumfries, and at that moment Dumfries decides to play the cross to Mbappe directly
Notice here that Mbappe would have been offside…
…if Cancelo weren't the one playing him onside, one of the many problems Cancelo has defensively…
…but Garcia rescues the situation, just like he rescued many situations like these
Once again, the same shifting problem, from Huijsen over to Konate. Note here that we're now in the 80th minute, because Madrid hadn't tried to play out from the back much in the second half anyway
Raphinha and Gordon on Konate and Dumfries
And Huijsen is asking for the ball again…
…so he can step out with Cucurella against Lamine in a 2v1
Konate to Dumfries
Dumfries to Guler, and this is another change Flick made in the second half…
…that Balde doesn't step up as much…
…and stays with Guler
Instead Gordon is the one who presses Dumfries
Guler tries passing it to Camavinga (and this is a planned combination)
However Pedri solves the situation and gets the ball…
…and starts a transition through Gordon
Gordon passes it inside to Lamine, who created what is almost his only positive moment of the whole match on goal.
Back to the Camavinga move earlier, and why I said it was "planned". Simply, because of the second goal we conceded, where the same move happened.
And also because of what Mourinho said in the press conference after the match "To break through that defensive line".
Because with his pace, Camavinga could catch our slow midfield off guard, and once he got away from his marker, good luck catching him. Add Cubarsi's complacency and hesitation to that, and you get the second goal.
But on the other hand, Flick's simple tweak to the press kept Madrid's build up in check for almost the whole second half.
Every time Dumfries got the ball, Adeyemi tracked back onto him, Pedri marked Camavinga in the middle, and Balde stepped out to Guler instead of running the whole distance to Dumfries. That killed it every time.
This play, for example, gets shut down by Adeyemi on the touchline and goes out for a throw in. Which brings us to Barca in possession, because there was a good idea there too against the mid and low block Madrid sat in for most of the second half
If you remember, Madrid let Mbappe stay out of the press in exchange…
…for leaving Cubarsi and Martin unpressed. So Flick pushed the whole Barca structure up by one player to even things out. What does that mean?
Fermin pushes up and plays as a second striker alongside Raphinha.
That pins Huijsen and Konate, so Barca decide where they stand, and they can't slide out to the flanks or step out of the middle like they did in the first half.
But it also leaves Bellingham, Bernardo, and Tchouameni three against just Rodri and Pedri, and…
…here you can see Bellingham with no one for him to mark, standing completely free
So Martin here pulls one of them out. That's different from the first half, when Cubarsi and Martin were trying to draw out the wingers and play in behind them. Now they're trying to solve the 3 against 2 in midfield by dragging one of Mourinho's three midfielders out of position. And of course, Bernardo steps out to Martin, so he plays it out to Balde on the touchline
Balde simply does what he does best, he beats the press from Guler, at the same time as Pedri is drawing Bernardo with him outside to free up space in front of Balde.
Then he drags out Tchouameni as well, and he passes to Raphinha at exactly the right time
Raphinha to Lamine
But Lamine loses the ball right after
Once De Jong came on, he did what he usually does: more movement and fluidity than Rodri, especially in the way he asks for the ball from the defenders. So from Cubarsi to Cancelo
With that movement, Diomande starts to step out onto Cancelo…
…Rodri slides across toward the ball and draws Bellingham with him…
…and Tchouameni lets De Jong go and steps up a couple of yards…
…leaving Camavinga caught between two men
Cancelo to Cubarsi
From there to Martin
Tchouameni keeps pushing up, ignoring the space behind him
Camavinga stays with Pedri
Hence he passes the problem to Huijsen, and now he's between 2…
…Martin plays an excellent pass to Jesus, who drops in to receive in a huge pocket of space, and now there's a real chance, because Barca have a one on one against every Madrid defender…
…but you know the rest: recklessness…
…the ball won back,
And Madrid are off in transition from a dribble by Bellingham
And as usual in transitions, Madrid head for the flanks this time, unlike the past, when they looked straight for Mbappe
Even after all that, this shouldn't be an impossible situation for Barca to handle. Cubarsi is the nearest man,
Even Cancelo could've done something but once again the hesitation that Barca suffered from all match hands Madrid a deserved win.
And with this the tactical analysis ends. A few more notes:
- Considering the expectations for Gordon, he played a really good match (again, for his expectations and his level). Sometimes people put unrealistic expectations for some players and end up expecting a lot more than what the player could do. Gordon in this match made more line breaking passes than any other Barca player. On the other hand, it also speaks about the miserable level Barca showed attacking wise
- When it comes to Lamine, the fatigue is only one part of the story imo. His mentality has to change a lot for more improvements. I'm not gonna talk about this a lot because people freak out and get very defensive when it comes to this point for some reason. "What more does he need to improve?" People freak out as if someone says a player should improve, it means he's saying that the same player is shit which is not the truth. Lamine is the best player in the world sure, but his phenomenal numbers (10 goals and 10 assists already) aren't the only side of the story, you'll have to also consider: his shot accuracy, his pass completion %, dribble success %, how many times he's been dispossessed and how many of these terrible decisions caused a transition etc. More importantly, he should not be the first weakness teams exploit when we're pressing man to man, else he'll just be another Mbappe.
- The third thing is Rodri, who still isn't close to his best. Forget his peak, he isn't even near his usual City level. Part of it imo is a lack of match rhythm. He also looks physically down, and I think the other part is that he hasn't found his place in this team yet. The reason is simple, and a lot of people said it when the deal happened: the tempo. It's not about his fitness itself, because he's played at much faster tempos than City's, as a pivot chasing the ball and the opponent for 90 minutes in Simeone's Atletico. But the last time we saw him shine in a setup like that was seven seasons ago. So the question is: did Flick sign him to get him used to a faster tempo at 30? Since the start of the season, Barca's football has been direct and vertical, breaking through the middle all the time, and accepting transitions and dealing with them. That's still a clear weakness in our recent games, and it looks the worst with Rodri. And whether Flick signed him for the opposite of that, we still don't know. Which brings me to the last point.
- In just 90 minutes, Mourinho managed to hand all the problems he's had since the start of the season over to us. That's how the Clasico works: if the favorite doesn't win, it suddenly finds itself in the other team's shoes. So the doubts that were hanging over Mourinho since the start of the season will now fall on Barca, for the first time: doubts about whether our style works and can win big games, and doubts about the summer signings, which will only grow for two reasons. First, Barca didn't handle the summer well enough. Second, the opposite happened at Madrid, where the other side of their summer signings finally showed up. Players like Konate, Bernardo and Diomande got mocked all season, whether for their form, for needing time to adapt, because people thought Madrid were already out of the title race, or simply because after two seasons of crazy spending with nothing to show for it, Madrid players became easy targets for the press and for jokes. And that's not just my opinion, it's what the Clasico always teaches us: you win, you dump your problems on your rival, especially if nobody expected you to win, and that's how the story gets written, no matter who the coaches are. So Flick's first job now is to protect the team from all this noise. He's done it before, but this time it won't be as convincing, because Luis Enrique and then Mourinho proved these were more than just doubts.