Talk? You realise this is an internet forum ya?
Yes, and you are indeed a warrior of the internet.
I’m on the edge of my seat for your EPL team of the season. Come on, rattle a quick 11 off there.
I put the team up a while ago. Rocko aka Dion Fanning has put it away for his Sunday article so guess you will read about it on Sunday.
What ridicule are you afraid of, put it up ya clown. I’ve better things to do on a sunday.
I love the venom in these posts. People really like winning arguments on the internet.
Seriously though, Messi was quite a distance worse than Zlatan last night. However, I completely understand why Pep didn’t take him off as he’s capable of producing a moment of magic in the blink of an eye. Of course, so too is Zlatan but he was called ashore. And that ultimately was what cost Barcelona when you see Bojan missing an open goal that Zlatan would have buried in his sleep.*
- Disclaimer: Zlatan MAY have been loitering over by the touch line and would therefore not have been in a position to get on the end of the cross which Bojan inexplicably headed wide.
I certainly don’t hate the British teams but I would like to think that I don’t go out of my way to stand up for them all the time for the sake of giving two fingers against other members of the forum who have criticised the EPL in the past.
What are you on about with the inferior complex? Just throw that out there - it sounds good, can be related to most topics so I’ll hit him with that.
No you didn’t say that Barca had some luck against Chelsea, you said Barca were poxed to get past them.
My opinion counts for a much, or as little as yours.
More I would say actually as you generally talk absolute shite.
Zonal-Marking’s review of the game
[size=“3”]Barcelona 1-0 Inter: Mourinho’s side progress – deservedly[/size]
There are times when the hype about Jose Mourinho is frustrating and cliched, there are times when it is fully deserved. Tonight was the latter in one of the great defensive performances in recent footballing history.
Barcelona reverted to their ‘traditional’ 4-3-3 they had persisted with until recently, with a midfield trio of Busquets-Keita-Xavi, Yaya Toure in defence, and Gabriel Milito surprisingly pushed out to left-back. Pedro Rodriguez stayed wide-left, Lionel Messi cut in from the right, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was the striker.
Inter’s line-up initially looked to be unchanged from the first leg, but a change after the warm-ups saw Cristian Chivu replacing Goran Pandev – a surprise given the nature of the switch, but one predicted in ZM’s preview. They played a lopsided 4-2-3-1, with Samuel Eto’o high up on the right-hand side, and Christian Chivu playing in front of Javier Zanetti, blocking the runs forward of Dani Alves.
An inevitable point given the nature of this site’s previews for the two legs and the report on the first game, but one must question Pep Guardiola’s inclusion of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He was surprisingly deployed last week at the San Siro, and it resoundingly failed – and rather than learn his lesson from the first leg, Guardiola again included Ibrahimovic to little effect. That’s not to say that the Swede was useless – he wasn’t, but Barcelona struggled to get the ball to him in a static central position, because of the presence of Lucio and Walter Samuel.
The key moment of the game was unquestionably the sending-off of Thiago Motta. Although Inter’s display for the rest of the game consisted of putting all their men behind the ball and defending deep, one must note the fact that Mourinho didn’t turn to the bench after the sending-off. Many managers would have removed one of the three attacking players in favour of another holding player (considering it was a central midfielder that was dismissed), but Mourinho instead shifted Chivu inside, switched Eto’o to the left, and moved Diego Milito to the right-hand side.
Immediately after Thiago Motta was dismissed
The result was a 4-5-0 where Wesley Sneijder was generally the furthest forward player, rather than the two strikers who often found themselves defending deep in their own full-back zones. In this respect, Inter were not controlling the ball, but they were still controlling the space. The two lines of four covered the width of the pitch on the edge of Inter’s area, but Sneijder’s presence ahead of those lines made it slightly more difficult for Barca to create in that deep-lying, central position. Xavi and Busquets still dominated the ball, of course, but they were forced to shift it wide to Alves (who had a poor game) or Gabriel Milito, who was not comfortable on the ball.
And when Barcelona got the ball wide, it was surprising how rarely they looked to create an overlap. With Messi drifting in from a right-sided position and Milito offering no attacking threat, Barcelona only had two players stationed in wide positions - Alves on the right, Pedro on the left. Alves was met by Zanetti with the rest of the side shifting across to cover the space. Pedro was met by Maicon, with the same effect. But the other eight outfield players all remained between the ball and the play when this happened – the lack of an overlap meant that none of the Inter players were never drawn outside by a decoy run. Barca always had ten players to get past, and their tendency to shoot from long-range demonstrated the fact that they were simply finding it impossible to play through Inter.
Of course, the sending-off meant that Inter found it very difficult to get bodies forward in attack, but this contributed to their defensive ability. Not only were their forward players forced to do less running up and down the pitch, their defensive players were able to hold their shape easier. They were able to sit deep – there was no space in behind for Barcelona’s pacey players to exploit, nor was there any space between the lines for Messi to work his magic in. It also meant that it was near-impossible for Barcelona to play their favourite ball – the one from central midfield between the opposition centre-back and full-back, for a wide players running onto the ball, because the angle was simply too acute.*
As is customary when a good ‘footballing’ side struggle against a good defensive side, Barcelona were accused of having no ‘Plan B’ by the (British) commentary team. Aside from the obvious sheer hypocrisy that stems from simultaneously criticizing Barcelona in this respect whilst marvelling at their patience that proved victorious against Chelsea last season, this somewhat misses the point. In the final half hour, playing exclusively through small, quick, tricky players (a front four of Jeffren, Pedro, Messi and Bojan) was Barcelona’s plan B. Their plan A had been playing through Ibrahimovic – they’d created a good chance in the first half by simply lofting towards him in the box, where his knock-down found Pedro.
We then come back to the idea that, as proposed in the preview, Guardiola surely should have played it the other way around – the small, tricky players to start the game and wear Inter down, then Ibrahimovic to come on and provide a more direct threat late on. Certainly, when you’re withdrawing your 6′ forward for a 5′7 winger – and then shoving your 6′ centre-back upfront to compensate, you’ve probably got muddled somewhere, ignoring the sheer brilliance of Pique’s goal.
In Inverting The Pyramid, Jonathan Wilson explains how Arrigo Sacchi once demonstrated in a training session how five organised players could hold out against ten disorganised ones – taking his Milan back five of Galli, Tassotti, Costacurta, Baresi and Maldini and pitching them against the club’s best ten attacking players. The 15-minute game finished scoreless, despite the attacking talents of the likes of Gullit, van Basten, Rijkaard, Ancelotti and Donadoni. This game was a match version of that. Barcelona completed 555 passes compared to Inter’s 67, and produced the most dominant display of possession in European competition this year, 86%. And yet, for all that – how many times did they actually get the ball into serious goalscoring positions?
This was a match that wasn’t won by individual performances (although the likes of Lucio and Esteban Cambiasso were superb), or by player v player battles on the pitch, it was won by the understanding between the nine outfield Inter players. Mourinho will probably be asked tonight about his late pre-game switch, his post-match celebration and his thoughts on the Barcelona fans, but hopefully he will also be asked to expand on quite how he managed to set his team out to withstand that amount of pressure. It outfoxed a manager as talented as Guardiola and negated the ability of Messi and Xavi to create – without ever seeking to deprive them of getting the ball. Mourinho’s approach was not to man-mark, and not to press high up the pitch, but instead to sit deep, use strict zonal marking and only pressure the Barcelona players within 25 yards of the Inter goal. Easier said than done, and to pull it off against such great players requires a brilliant tactical brain from the manager, combined with intelligent players and hours of work on the training ground.
It could have all been so different had Bojan’s last minute ‘goal’ not been disallowed for a contentious handball decision, and whilst the result of the tie would have changed, the tactical analysis would have not. Inter were defensively superb tonight and over the course of the tie, deserved to go through. It’s easy when looking at football games – especially for a website like this – to simply say that the winning manager got it right, and the losing one got it wrong – but it’s hard to argue in this case. Mourinho remains the master, and tactics remain the key to winning football games.
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/28/barcelona-inter-mourinho-tactics/
what I think people seem to underestimate about lasts night game is how perfectly I called this tie & how the people here who follow Italian football have been once again been proved right
That’s a really interesting piece of analysis from Zonal Marking and I agree with a huge portion of it, bar the piece about starting Zlatan really. I know there was plenty of banter on here in the past about ‘mastering the space’ but it’s mentioned quite a few times in that article and it was key last night. Barca could rarely get the ball in space between the lines, i.e. behind the midfield and in front of the back four where Xavi can play the killer pass or Messi can make a dribble that culminates in a goal. Ultimately, Xavi got the time to feed in Pique for the goal but it was the sole occasion in the game really. Messi was hounded off the ball almost every time he received it too, again bar only the shot and resultant brilliant save by Julio Cesar.
It also makes the point about lopsided formations – there’s a tendency in this part of Europe to play rigid enough formations (where teams are set out in straight lines) but teams on the continent have been adapting like this for ages now. Over here it’s generally both full backs being given licence to overlap or neither of them, for example. Meanwhile, the game last night had both teams having variations on this. As well as the lopsided Inter midfield line up, it also mentions Alves bombing on while Milito held back. It was also noticeable that Yaya Touré was given licence to break forward when Barca were in possession and Pique tucked across and then Milito dropped inside to cover in these cases. Barca have been changing formation and tweaking their set up so often lately that people have found it impossible at times to decipher who’s playing where. As it mentions, it was broadly a return to 4-3-3 last night but they didn’t play like that in Stuttgart, London, Madrid or Milan lately.
Bandage, ibra was easily the worst player on the pitch.(over the two legs) i have come to the conclusion that you are just a wummer or really havent a clue.which is it?ffs gary o doherty would be better than the great ‘zlatan’.
puck it out, bandage is a fan of Italian football- the best football in the world - his opinion is to be respected
What i find hilarious about this “great defensive display” is that they lost 1-0, and should have lost by more if Barca had their shooting boots on. He did a good job, but i thought it was more Wigan defending Man U in a EPL game for the last 30 mins. It was balls to the wall knock it anywhere defending after the goal.
They were a man down Kev
Ya, but my point is, on the night they failed 'cos they lost. It was about pure heart and guts that they didn’t lose 2-0, thus staying in the comp. That allied to some poor finishing from Barca.
It wasn’t so tactical is my main point.
:rolleyes: