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:

Villa to score next?- evra will be punished

This was at 1-1. I’d anticipated Pedro’s goal by a similar method – the positioning of the full-backs meant that in order to track the Barcelona runs, the full-backs were being turned inside. In-fact, it was Messi who scored next, but for the same reasons. Villa repeated the feat. This process discouraged Vidic and Ferdinand to come forwards and deal with the threat in-front of them. Park had a good game, and found himself everywhere on the pitch – if every United player had played the same way, perhaps they would not have been pulled out of position. Sure, Park did not get forward very well, but he is a defensively minded winger- his job was to nullify Daniel Alves, and in the early periods of the game (which United dominated), he did this extremely well. However, once United sat back, Park wasn’t sitting on Alves, and Villa was in Evra’s zone, who was tucking in to deal with this. It was a vicious circle wherein United simply did not impose their shape on Barcelona, but their opponents did.

The other error strategically was that Carrick did not provide adequate cover in this area, and neither did Giggs. Darren Fletcher, an unused substitute, may have been a more logical choice than Giggs, whose age showed. Despite the fact that Carrick and Giggs sat rather deep, the defence was given next to no cover, and relied on hurried (but extremely competent) clearances and tackles.

After the first 10 minutes, United’s pressing dropped back, to more-or-less what I’ve charted. Rather than pressing their shape onto Barcelona, and creating chances in the process, they sat back and relied on long direct balls to Hernandez, who was nearly always offside. This did not exploit Mascherano’s lack of nous at playing so deep, because he wasn’t – he was playing where Carrick and Giggs were in the United formation.

Out of position

Barcelona’s dominance was summed up by the phase in the game where centre-half Gerard Piqué simply stayed up the pitch following a short corner, which Barcelona used to keep possession rather than threaten the box and probably lose the ball (a tactical weakness, in my view considering the advantages of a dead-ball). In another phase, Mascherano steamed forward into a winger’s position. Barcelona were able to use their team more effectively than United’s. Not just in the manner they played, but simply in numbers. United couldn’t counter-attack effectively with Park in a chaotic role and Valencia essentially missing off the pitch, simply turning up to foul or cause a delay. This is a disappointing conclusion considering Valencia’s role last season in linking up with Rooney in the air with his crossing, which provided such hopes for England fans prior to the 2010 World Cup.

I’m not full of metaphors and platitudes about Barcelona – they simply used their players better, and in better numbers. Like in Chess, they dominated the middle of the board, and attacked the centre effectively with their wider players.

Put it out to pasture

This was a stern battle between 4-4-1-1 and 4-3-3. The latter won for the reasons outlined above. The former did not win because it simply relies on teams playing too intensively. It seems unrealistic to demand of United the level of pressing that they gave in the first 10 minutes. When Nani came on for the knocked Fabio, Ferguson looked like he was imitating the 4-3-3, or perhaps as a 4-2-3-1, throwing more players forward. Rooney came out wide and tried to dictate play, but did so with little lasting effectiveness. Nani didn’t get much of the ball and the summary of his efforts was some decent movement and a weak shot on goal. This change in tactical system came far too late and should have been the initial shape for United considering that Barcelona did not bring any tactical surprises to Wembley.

Say what you like about Barcelona being the best team in the world, being untouchable, they were helped a lot by the old fashioned tactics of United, and by nullifying United’s strategic qualities, it played into Barcelona’s strategy of passing it short and around. 4-4-1-1 is not made for ‘standing off’ as a tactic – I’m rather convinced that had Mourinho played that formation in his Inter semi-finals, he would have lost, because the tactical limitations of such a formation outweigh the positives.

For Edwin Van Der Sar, (probably) Paul Scholes, and perhaps 4-4-2 itself, it’s time for the pastures. This causes me to recall ‘At Grass’ by Phillip Larkin. So long until next season.