Yeah, It Was One Of Those Days
Yeah, it’s been a while since we did one of these. So what? Grab a mug of coffee and stick with me for a while.
This morning, we’re all waking up to a world in which Barcelona are as fallible as the rest of us. Despite their assemblage of talent, Jose Mourinho’s impressive defensive structure stifled the tournament favorites and added another memorable achievement to the Special One’s resume.
In fact, this morning, it’s all anyone is talking about.
But what about the man on the other side of the equation?
Pep Guardiola has made a neat career out of his quiet confidence and humble press conferences, but I wonder whether ultimately, he’s been exposed by this Champions League semi-final.
After all, how does a team complete 555 passes (to Inter’s 67) and lose?
Formation-wise, Barca were arranged as usual: a 4-3-3 with the midfield and forward trios staggered inside the Inter half. Ibrahimovic was deep against Lucio and Samuel (ultimately, a mistake; much like in the 1st leg, the tall striker was frequently isolated and easy pickings for the Inter CBs), while in midfield, Busquets anchored with Xavi and Keita setting up in more advanced positions.
Barca v. Inter — start of the game
Inter were also organized as usual: a modified 4-2-3-1 but with Cristian Chivu, a late add, sitting deeper to block the Dani Alves-Messi connection.
The switch to Chivu from original choice Goran Pandev likely convinced Jose against using the 4-3-3 that worked so well at Stamford Bridge, as Chivu would provide more defensive cover in front of Samuel and Zanetti on the flank against Messi and Alves.
And so, for 25 minutes the game chugged along until Thiago Motta’s dismissal for “striking” Sergi Busquets.
Dive, simulation, cheating, call it what you will; Mourinho didn’t panic. He withdrew Eto’o and Milito into midfield, shifted Chivu infield alongside Cambiasso and played Sneijder as the man furthest forward. With their 4-5-0, Inter turned in the most disciplined display of zonal defense I can remember for some time.
Allowing Barcelona to pass at ease far from goal, the zones compressed any time Messi, Xavi or Keita received possession in advanced areas. Ibrahimovic, like in the first leg, was isolated. It didn’t help Barca’s cause that Dani Alves was so uncharacteristically subdued on the right side; on recent form, one would have to pick Maicon as Brazil’s starting RB in this summer’s World Cup.
But enough about Inter’s plans following the red card. Barcelona enjoyed an unprecedented 86% of possession, completing 555 passes, 8 times more than their opponent. How could they not break this formation down, especially with a man advantage?
I’d put that on Guardiola, who appeared tactically naive when confronted with such a zonal defense.
With no room or opportunity for Alves to push forward, there had to be a tactical shift somewhere along the line, and so Ibrahimovic was withdrawn for yet another compact, pacey forward in Bojan. Jeffren replaced Sergi Busquets, which served to push Keita and Xavi back into midfield a little in case Inter felt compelled to attack (which, to be honest, they really didn’t).
Why not begin the game with the faster lineup? Within minutes it opened up some room in the attacking third as Inter were fatigued from their 10-on-11 efforts (though as Jonathan Wilson points out, teams are getting better at making the adjustment).
It didn’t help that Bojan was so profligate in front of goal — two glorious chances to score inside the final 15 minutes before his disallowed effort — but it was clear that pace was the one thing that could disrupt Inter’s veteran backline.
This Guy? Yeah, Not Much Help
Where was Thierry Henry? He’s another quick, cerebral forward able to pick clever angles to run off the ball. Barcelona did nothing to unsettle Inter’s shape in the second half until the final 5-10 minutes, and all that passing — I’ll remind you, 86% of total possession in this game — amounted to nothing.
More telling was the passing distribution:
- Messi and Xavi passed to one another the most, illustrating how deep Messi was forced/allowed to come in search of possession.
- Gabi Milito found his wing partner Pedro with just one pass. One.
- Similarly, Alves and Messi only connected 5 times, showing Inter’s success in keeping their threat suppressed.
- Xavi completed nearly 50 more passes than the next highest man Yaya Toure, yet found Ibrahimovic just once in the 64 minutes the striker was on the pitch.
Their game plan appeared to be incumbent upon Xavi unlocking defenses as he normally does, and Messi to find the running lane to goal as he normally does. I was stunned to see such a stacked squad lean so heavily on its two best players.
So how does this all tie back to Guardiola?
Well, for one, he got his tactics wrong in both legs. For a man with such assumed nous as Barca boss, he was comprehensively outmatched by Mourinho’s tactics. When faced with an aggressive, pressing midfield that isolated his best player (Messi, like I needed to say his name), he had nothing to offer in response. The late injection of pace had the obvious effect against a tired rearguard, but beyond that, there was little that had Mourinho worried.
This got me thinking: how hard does Guardiola normally need to think about coaching this team? They’re a collective that coaches themselves. Press high up the pitch when they don’t have possession, run a quick counter-attacking 4-3-3 with Messi cutting in from the right and plenty of reliable, sustainable distribution from Xavi and co. in midfield. It’s not a side that ever has to really innovate on a game-by-game basis.
Guardiola’s in-game choices are usually the same:
- Maxwell or Abidal at LB?
- Pedro, Bojan or Henry at LW?
- Keita or Toure in CDM?
- How to use Sergi Busquets?
Any innovation he did try last night made no sense; Gabi Milito, a CB, played LB for no apparent tactical reason. He was uncomfortable in possession (with the lowest pass completion % of any Barca player) and is not one to maraud forward and join attacks. He contained Eto’o reasonably well, but for a team that loves to stretch their opponents wide on that expansive pitch, Milito offered no menace or assistance to Pedro down that left side. Maicon’s job was made easy as his man rarely received the ball.
It’s a situation that speaks more of Barcelona’s strength than Guardiola’s weakness, but I’m surprised there isn’t more discussion about his role in all of this. Internazionale can be outfoxed by smart managers — see the superb tactical effort by Claudio Ranieri in Roma’s recent 2-1 league win — but the humble, soft-spoken company man from Barcelona had no response, even complaining that the man advantage played a role in their defeat. We could praise him briefly for the immediate dividend paid once he threw Pique up front, but that was a desperate move by a man who didn’t know what to do.
86% of possession, 555 passes completed, and just four shots on goal. While Mourinho deserves credit for his performance at the Nou Camp, there’s blame to be placed on Guardiola’s tactical naivete. A team like that with stats like that just shouldn’t lose.
slow clap
I remeber Barca took shots from outside the box; Messi’s Curler that Cesar tipped wide, and Bojan in the 84th ripped a shot that kind of challenged Cesar and forced a rebound. Xavi should have shot 4 or five times, Ibra should have moved around and tried to link up with a 1-2 with Messi or Alves. In Pep Guardiola’s defense he got out coached by a very good coach, and an Inspired Backline.
Mourinho parked the f**king bus. What a tactical genius he is.
/Shorter JT.
Holy crap that is good analysis. Why is it on HERE?
Seriously though, thoughtful stuff.
Look forward to reading your tactical breakdown on this Saturday’s Earthquakes v. Rapids game…
Ok, so my earlier comment wasn’t “shorter JT,” but it’s just as true, and much easier to type. Anyway, it wouldn’t be a UF comment without a “/[something]” at the end.
/amirite?
Oh, Anonsters. It’s so much more than parking a bus. Stuttgart tried it after the 1st leg and failed. So many others have tried it and failed.
@Anonsters:
Andy Gray agrees with you.
It didn’t really seem like Barcelona started shooting from outside the box until they had gotten the first goal.
@JT: Chalk it up to the actual ability of Inter’s players to defend. How many times did Cambiasso cleanly dispossess Messi? A handful at least. Which is a lot, given that he otherwise dances through 4 or 5 players and takes a shot. Precisely what about Pep’s tactical “naivete” makes Cambiasso able to defend so efficiently and well?
Cambiasso is one guy amid nine outfield players. You mean to tell me that there’s nothing Pep could have done to disrupt their defense? Or is Jose just that incredible that he could park a bus at Camp Nou and not score?
67 passes to 555. Parking the bus doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Guardiola picked the wrong XI. No pace moving forward, regardless of Cambiasso and co. Only when Ibra and the so-slow-he-looks-like-he-is-running-through-molasses Busquets were replaced by Bojan and Jeffren did things look interesting.
Furthermore, no effort to work the ball wide until late on. Messi running infield was met by 2-3 guys every time. Chivu bunched in with Cambiasso and Eto’o/Milito were tracking back too. Pep just let it happen and waited for Messi to just do what he usually does. Big mistake.
Barca went from 75 mins without a decent shot on goal to 2 goals (one disallowed) and several saves in the final 15.
What does pace going forward matter when almost literally the whole game was played in the final third? You had 9-10 guys in or on top of the box the entire game. Pep could’ve had the Roadrunner and it wouldn’t've mattered, given that everyone was packed into that one bit of space.
I think you’re more likely to see tactics where I’m more likely to see élan vital and other intangibles.
Oh, and I dispute the no effort to work the ball wide until late on. Dani Alves was out wide quite a lot. It’s just that he was also offsides quite a lot. I distinctly remember Yaya Toure Yaya out wide on the right several times, with several s**t crosses to show for it. Jeffren refused to take the ball deep and cross on the left, which is why I commented at the time and asked if he was a righty who was incapable of crossing with his left.
Yeah, good breakdown. That passing and possession stat is incredible – Inter only completed 67 passes!? I replayed the game last night, and to be fair to Pep, Inter never looked like giving up two goals last night. Barcelona will always get one, and Mourinho knew that; but he made sure that the defense made the second goal impossible.
@EF: To be fair, Inter did give up two goals last night. One was just called off. ;)
@Anonsters
Fair enough. We probably do read this stuff differently, and I should get out more.
My take was this:
1. Don’t even have Ibra starting. Use a guy like Bojan in the middle, or even Messi, to at least disrupt Inter’s zone by criss-crossing or making runs off the ball. Most of the Barca passing was that static, gentle crap Arsenal pull when they’re trying to close out a game. No urgency.
2. Put an actual wing-back at LB. There was never a wide threat. If you can get to the touchline, gaps appear in the middle; see Bojan’s awful miss from Jeffren’s centering pass late-on.
3. Keep Messi wide where he can get behind the aging Zanetti. LFC have this problem a lot because they don’t play with wingers. If you have two wide midfielders playing against a 4-2-3-1, or in Inter’s case, a 4-2-3-0 as they were for most of the game, you want them to stay wide. It forces defenders to come wide out of their zones and creates running lanes in the middle for guys like Xavi from midfield.
Last season, LFC had this issue with Benayoun wide left and Kuyt wide right. Every time they get the ball, they cut infield, and surprise surprise, that’s where all the defenders are! You get outnumbered because you’re running into two CBs and two DMs, who even have help from the fullback on that side.
It works with Barca when Alves or Maxwell/Abidal then take the wide road, but that wasn’t happening. Alves stayed back on halfway and we saw time and again Messi just running down blindly into traffic, dispossessed, hoof upfield and try again.
===
I see what you’re saying about intangibles, but I have a hard time believing that had Barca shown any kind of intelligence in the first 75 minutes as they did in the final 15 that we’d all be sucking off Jose Mourinho this morning.
I give full credit to Inter and TSO, but there’s much more to it than that. Pep could have made adjustments to disrupt Inter’s defending. Instead, he let Inter maintain their comfortable shape and just watched his guys aimlessly try to break it down. His inaction, to me anyways, suggests naivete. He didn’t know what on earth to do.
@Anonsters
Alves was crossing the ball from wide, sure, but not in advanced positions. Frequently he’d be crossing from spots way back from the touchline, angling them in at no-one because hey, no-one up front was above 6 feet.
@Anonsters
And Toure was playing CB! Why is Pep content to let that guy be the primary source of crossing from the wing?
Henry would have been better suited on the left instead of Jeffren.
@Anonsters: You know how I know you’re in law school?
I would have Tried Henry up at striker he knows how to move and link up with Messi, he could have made some Diagonal runs, because running straight at Lucio and Samuel isn’t a very good idea. how do think Henry felt when Pep put Pique at striker and henry sat on the Bench!?!?1
(1) Re: Ibra. Pep was probably hoping he wouldn’t have his head up his ass and would play like a central striker. See Pique’s goal. Why was Ibra completely incapable of producing anything similar? I don’t think you can blame Pep’s tactics for Ibra sucking. You can blame him for putting Ibra in in the first place, sure. But that’s the frustrating thing about Ibra, isn’t it? He has shown that he has great skills, and the talent to pull off that kind of s**t. He’s just so inconsistent.
(2) Skipping this one, because I don’t necessarily disagree with it.
(3) Messi drifted pretty much wherever he wanted to, seems to me. And Messi can be deadly in the middle, as we’ve seen him take apart defenses time and time again. Putting him out wide limits what he can give you, makes him more of a facilitator, whereas putting him in the middle makes him a scoring threat himself. They’ve had quite the success with Messi in the middle. Why break it if it works?
(4) Re: Alves crossing into the middle. Ibra is over 6′ tall. But he’s also a tit. So.
(5) Re: Toure. He wasn’t the only one crossing from the wing. I was just pointing out that they did, in fact, get crosses in from wide. They just tended to be s**tty crosses, or no one was on the end of them.
(6) Re: Henry. I agree, actually.
(7) The ironic thing about all this is that if the referees didn’t have their heads up their collective asses (suck it, Dustin) Barca would have won. That second goal should not have been called back. Period. And yet it was. So here we are. Of course, you can say, well, that wasn’t a RC at the beginning, so the match could’ve been entirely different. And that’s true, too. We’ll never know on that score. We do know for a fact, though, that Barca did score a second goal that was called off. Suppose that the refs don’t f**k that call up. What would this post have looked like then? I suspect it would’ve been very different, or nonexistent.
None of which is to deny that it’s fun to wank over tactics, of course.
@EF: Because I argue with everything? Because I smell bad? Because I’m a f**kwad douchebag asshat? I give up, how?
1. Funny about Ibra, because he’s had his head up his ass for weeks now, including the 1st leg last week. Yet still, he persists, waiting for the player to do the job he’s kinda incapable of doing (running around with purpose, etc). He’s not the right frontman for this team, which is something I could address in another post. He offers a Crouch-esque target yet fails to operate with any invention other than passing it off. No off-the-ball movement wide, nothing. Just drifts around the box waiting for the ball.
2. Alrighty
3. He can be effective in the middle, but against teams that aren’t as aggressive as Inter. It’s kinda that Stoke City/Arsenal comparison; Arsenal struggle against physical teams, and Messi’s the same. Hence, at int’l level, he just gets crunched around a lot.
4. Ibra was off by the time Barca finally started crossing the ball. It’s like they mis-used Ibra’s height, and then misused Bojan’s pace by lobbing crosses towards his general direction.
5. Fair point. They were the wrong people wide though.
6. Amen!
7. Yeah, I thought about that too. Decent op/ed in the Guardian mentioning that this stuff has very fine margins. If Iniesta doesn’t crack off that wonder shot at Stamford Bridge, Barca don’t have a chance to win last season. Same here. Then again, when the sheer weight of game stats is so severely weighted in your favor, that stuff shouldn’t really come into play.
And thank you for humoring my treatise and confirm that yes, it is indeed fun to obsess over tactics.
@Anonsters: You’re a pedantic prick. And you’re a Yiddo.
@EF: I actually don’t mind you saying so, given that you’re inaccurate in your comments, as illustrated above. :D
We <3 each other here something fierce, don't we?
Anonsters–You’re going to argue about the incompetence of the refs but ignore that Pique was offside (to everyone but the AR)?
@ü75: Muntari, on the far side of the pitch, was keeping him on.
Was Pique offside? I thought the Inter guy furthest away from him may have been holding him onside, never saw a definitive camera angle. (Or perhaps I missed the definitive one).
Maybe it’s my advanced ability at following lines on a screen, but Pique looked in front of the guy up top (maybe)
http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/5494812/
I contend he was off, but it was close.
I don’t think it should be called “Parking the Bus” when you’re down to 10 men most of the game and simply doing a good job at letting them pass it around without being too threatening. Regardless what you think it’s still a tactic, and it’s smart against a team like Barcelona.
I never get the blaming a team for “Parking the Bus” when everything is on the line. Do you get upset at your doctor when he “Parks the Bus” to try and stop a disease that might kill you?
@Dustin
What should we call it then, mate? “Doing Really Well With Defending”?
Also, you’re implying that Parking the Bus has a negative connotation. If it were my team in that position, I’d request two buses.
@JT: Like, ahem, earlier today.
Ok, I do feel a little bad about making that crack. Damn my softie liberal heart!
@Anonsters
You get added points for tracking back to an old thread to unleash a sick burn.
Also, you are a gigantic a**hole.
@JT: LOL. Fair enough. :P
(kidding, of course! You sly dog!)
brilliant
(kidding, of course! You sly dog!)
I laughed the first time around. Well played, sir. ;)