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Barcelona 3 -1 Manchester United
Build-Up
Manchester United, recently crowned champions of England, were considered the underdogs. The 2010 Final seems a long time ago, where Inter expertly reached the final against Bayern Munich by dispatching Barcelona in the Semi-Finals. Mourinho, now Real’s manager, didn’t repeat the feat in his new role at Real Madrid in a match-up in the semis with rivals Barcelona. Importantly, Barcelona captain Carlos Puyol had a limited number of appearances in the lead-up to the final through injury, even deputising at left-back, with Pep Guardiola preferring Mascherano as a makeshift centre-back over Sergio Busquets. Manchester United had a less heated and easier to digest route to the final by beating Bundesliga’s underachieving semi-finalists Schalke 04. Before that they had an interesting if unremarkable pair of games against fellow English club Chelsea, who provided along with Schalke the tests of Ferguson’s system for the final.
Tactical systems
Barcelona play an unflinching 4-3-3 formation which is punctuated by:
- Very high pressing up the pitch. This releases their full-backs, in the case of this game it was Eric Abidal and Daniel Alves. With Sergio Busquets sitting just behind the other midfielders, this allows the trio of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi (usually staggered in that fashion up the pitch) to recycle the ball constantly and keep possession. This is the secret of their possession game – win it very high up the pitch and keep it in the opponents’ half or in the midfield (which sits in the opponents’ half…)
- Simple, short passes which are usually high tempo. The Barcelona players have superb passing ability – watching them seems to be a tutorial on how to pass. That is, they turn, and they pass in the direction their body faces.
- The forwards operate by cutting inside. This is the advantage this team had over the 2010 side which boasted Zlatan Ibrahimovic: a luxurious forward who demands ‘service’. Pedro, Messi and (to a lesser extent) Villa more or less create their service by playing the ball almost exclusively on the ground to one another, and this is with the pivots of Xavi and Iniesta behind them.
Manchester United have taken to playing a 4-4-1-1 formation, a modification of the traditional English obsession 4-4-2. The dangers of this, as I pointed out in my previous report that it needs to sit high up the pitch in order to function – the extra player dropping back may provide more ‘link play’ (in this case Rooney playing off the poacher Hernandez), but this needs to push high up the pitch in order to dominate, otherwise the striker becomes isolated. It also puts a lot of pressure on the wide players to get involved: with the central midfielders outnumbered against 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 formations, full backs tend to be cautious. United could have solved this by playing narrowly in the midfield, packing the centre and pushing outwards.
United also had the dilemma of having a highly unusual midfield combination – winger Ryan Giggs, shorn of much of his pace, and Michael Carrick, a player who lives on distributing the ball simply. The team lacks a player like Busquets which allows Carrick (not naturally defensive) or Giggs (not naturally a central player) to move forward and connect with both the front pairing and the wide men. It was widely anticipated that United would not change this system, as they had overcome all these problems by dominating against Schalke 04 in the Semi-finals, and had bested Chelsea in the quarters with the same system – the inclusion of Rooney being able to drop back into midfield had put extra pressure on Michael Essien in the quarter-finals, and it’s fair to say that Rooney’s duty would have been to disrupt Busquets so that Hernandez could get between Mascherano (not a natural Centre-back) and Gerard Pique (formally of Manchester United).
How it turned out
This is a pretty fair depiction of how the shapes of the two teams came out on the night. I have picked Evra as being tucked in this way because of reasons you will see below. It’s hard to map Messi on the diagram, as he did play very deep at times, but also very forward (the so-called ‘false nine’ role). Villa caused Evra a lot of problems. I tweeted during the match:
Defensively minded 4-4-1-1 is undone by possessive 4-2-3-1
Stoke got everything wrong tactically as Roberto Mancini won his first trophy with big spending Manchester City
Stoke were pushed back by Manchester City's shape, and their own lack of confidence
9 minutes until kickoff. My prediction:
- A tight tactical game which will be characterised by a battle for the centre of the park. Stoke’s wingers, the confirmed-fit Matthew Etherington (likely not to last the match) and Jermaine Pennant will be Stoke’s main outlet, along with the bullet throws of Rory Delap.
- Stoke will want the tempo to be quick and physical, Manchester City with their Catenaccio-esque tactics will want to be slow and patient playing short, sideways passes.
- Pressing is important. Both teams will want to keep the ball, and thus they should both press. I would expect Stoke to try to impose themselves on the game, having got their shooting boots on in recent matches. Kenwynne Jones and John Walters, their forwards, will be the key part of this strategy.
- Stoke should not (and will not) be afraid to play direct passes. Everton changed their game to be more direct last weekend and ended up beating City 2-1.
- Don’t expect Wembley to be quiet, as it usually seems to be, with Stoke’s fans there. They have the loudest ground in the Premier League, and they don’t even come close to the biggest seating capacities.
- Manchester City are odds-on for a reason. They have a mixture of flair and physicality which should match up to Stoke’s intensity, and possibly overpower them.
- The two teams are surprisingly similar.
- Both defences will need to be cautious not to 1) Make rudimentary errors because of the pressure, and 2) make good, precise tackles under pressure. The physical battle is a psychological one: I would expect a red card possibly in the course of the match.
2 minutes to go now!
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