PBP: 12/13 Copa del Rey Semifinal: Leg 1 | Real Madrid v FC Barcelona | 30 Jan 2013 [R]

Your reading is as bad as your assessment.



And here?

 

Well, Messi assisted the goal

Also, can anyone post the moment where Messi beat 3 defenders and one of them had a handball the other committed clear foul? Even the commentator was puzzled and said it's a double foul!

 

Great to see Messi playing one-two with a white shirt

 

Nothing wrong with Iniesta.. He only means that Messi is better because his direct contribution on the goal

 

You're ignorant... Pedro, Sanchez and Villa can all provide constant width, attacking options and defensive help, Iniesta obviously can't.

 

Iniesta tried to help midfield to get pressure off, when the pressure was caused by him not being able to keep width, by moving to midfield? Now ain't that funny logic to solve the situation.

 

No i think Bada's actually saying that Iniesta had a horrible game (whether compared to Messi or anyone else). I don't agree that he was that bad though he didn't have a great match either. Offcourse he dribbled his way out of some tight position as he usually does and gave Alba that wonderful pass in the 1st wise and that was about it for him.
The player who often lost possession to my big surprise and didn't have a very good game imo was Xavi
As for Messi, Madrid players marked him very well, but still i don't think he was as silent in the game as many seem to be claiming (especially in the 2nd half).
Cesc had a very good game imo

 

Its quite obvious that Tito strategy is using the midfield to also do the scoring job, so basically having Alexis or Pedro (both a workhorse) will make the team midfield even more compact. Villa is someone who often push try to push forward from the left, either aiming to shoot or make a short pass from inside the box.

This season somehow looks like we dont even play with a strikers, they all act like a midfielder.

 

This is true but lets not forget there's at least 4 wrong calls by the ref yesterday, something that Mou would have bitch about for the remaining of 2013 if its happen to his team. Alves, Alba, Fabregas and Pedro missing chances in front goals shows that in another day, we could easily score more than 2 goals against them. Xavi also hit the post early in the game. Yes Madrid built some great chances but so does any team that play against Barca this season.

 

Look, we got a 1-1 draw away from home, against LPB, not exactly a bad result. Lets keep a sense of perspective. We can't expect all our players to be brilliant in every single game. All I would like to see is for us to start at a high tempo when we play them, as we always seem to be on the back foot for the first 20 minutes or so. It's not rocket science about how they play against us, it's the same way every team tries to play, it's just they have better players to do it more effectively. They press high up the pitch, so Barca players don't get time on the ball and they play a high line to squeeze the game into a narrow area of the pitch. When Messi gets the ball there will be 3/4 players round him. It still doesn't work because he still ends up either scoring against them or creating a goal. But I do think that we need to play them at a higher tempo. We'll win the 2nd leg 3-2.

 

^^^ as I mentioned earlier, we should be more rude on the attack but I can understand that given Madrid ability to match our play since last year has made us more cautious against them... you can see on how many times we managed to cut their dangerous throughball to Ronaldo. Ronaldo only had 1-2 chances in the entire game and it's not from counter attack but a from a pass and cross on the right.. appearently we also conceided from a right cross.

Notice how prepared the team to cover the box and not giving them a chance to shoot straight at Pinto.

 

Their chances wasnt something that well built, most of them came from a pass or a cross to the center, expecting the ball to fall into their players path. Compare it to our chances, Alba, Alves, Cesc and Pedro... its something we could have caps it.

 

Meh, not so sure. It just so happened that the 2 times Barca played LPB this season, were the only two times that they were in good form. Four wins in-a-row before the league clasico. How many times have they done that this season?

Anyway, this tie is still 50/50 IMO. Only one away goal means we'll have to win the second leg, but at home so can't feel too bad about Barca's chances.

 

Yeah I'd agree with you there. He probably should had opened himself up on that play. But still this doesn't outweight all the times he did open up or the positives things he contributed.
If I could gif I'd find mistakes in everyone to a degree.

I guess we just agree to disagree, we'll leave it at that. Iniesta was better offensively than Messi to me, which I expected more honestly.

 

I dunno, I thought their chances were a bit better TBH. Which Alba "chance" are you talking about? The impossible volley that almost took-out the corner flag? Madrid had half a dozen better chances than that in the first half alone!

 

This pretty much.

Assuming that Iniesta didn't see Alba there, he should had taken that spot and opened up but it was ultimately Alba's responsibility to get there and help out.
Holding Iniesta accountable for that is blaming the wrong person.