This blog post is an excerpt from our new book, Tactics for winning soccer. The complete article includes tactics on how to deal with Messi and how best to apply pressure on Barcelona.
By Waleed Zaghloul.
Watching the latest Classico, I was wondering how much change will be seen from both teams based on the analysis of some vulnerabilities in a previous meeting this year (discussed in previous blogs). Some of the points analyzed back then showed two vulnerabilities for Barca, defending the counter attack specially against speedy opposition and the other was their left back. Real Madrid were overly aggressive in closing down Messi that they left other Barca player wide open at the back. Madrid were also notably losing their heads and committed very hard fouls when whatever they tried tactically did not work. Let us have a look at some instances of the latest Classico and decide for yourselves.
Asleep at the Wheel
This first image shows, in addition to the fact that this goal should very well have been called off for offside, a lack of interest from the Barcelona players. Four of the five players are off position and do not seem to be marking any of the Real players and all four are caught ball watching! Shocking at this level in a game on which a lot was riding. If you did not know that this play lead to Real Madrid’s first goal, you would probably guess that it was a Barcelona cross being defended by Madrid and not the opposite. Not much could be analyzed when four players are caught out of position and caught ball watching at the same time.
No-one in the “Zone”
Here, Barcelona are without a single player in the zone right around the arc (what is usually called zone 14) which is famous for being the staging area of many goals scored in soccer specially by Barcelona themselves! Real Madrid have two players close to the ball, three in a triangle in the middle along with two center backs. All those Real Madrid players are faced by only three Barca players, not a high probability situation. It is most dangerous, specially for youth coaches, to set teams up to create high probability scoring chances and the setup in the this image certainly does not help. If a magical Messi through ball results from a play like this once or twice, it will most probably come to nothing in the majority of the other incidents. Getting teams drilled to increase their chances of success will certainly help in situations where the team is not playing at its best as the case was with Barcelona this past game.
This blog post is an excerpt from our new book, Tactics for winning soccer. The complete article includes tactics on how to deal with Messi and how best to apply pressure on Barcelona.
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