Could've scored 4 on them, but in the end a scored draw isn't such a bad result. The only downside is that the way we were both going into the match, a draw is a moral victory for LPB.
I though Alves was especially targeted by LPB to get him to retaliate and get sent off. It's as if Mourinho told his players to go after him. (He is, after all, the Sensei John Kreese of international football (see below).) In the end Dani kept his cool, and the yellow he did receive was for a pretty light but late challenge on CR7.
Awful game from Iniesta, he's supposed to be a left winger in this game? Why on earth was he constantly playing in the midfield? Messi was multiple times looking to pass in there, just to find nobody home.
Because he alternates positions with Fabregas. Iniesta was one of the best players, the only one doing anything productive offensively, Messi in comparison made one of his worst games against LPB yet. *IMO* Gonna be tough next week, I'm still astonished as to why Villa doesn't even get playing time when we're clearly lacking offensive power.
Iniesta was uneffective the whole game, he was dribbling constantly in a out of position, which resulted nobody being in the left wing most of the time, which definitely hindered Barcelona's attack the most. Messi created the only Barca goal today, and he was definitely better than Iniesta.
That's the way Barcelona plays, Cesc and Iniesta alternates positions. He's dribbling as top notch in this game, I can't find anything to criticize him at all, to me the best attacking man by far, even provided Alba with probably a brilliant goalscoring chance in the first half which he missed. I'd like to defend Messi too, but today just wasn't his day at all.
For me he was an obvious flop of the match, I can finally understand why people say he's overhyped. For god sake, he was the left forward, and he was nowhere to be seen in that position. How on earth was he the best attacker when he played mostly in the midfield?
When our midfield is being put too much pressure like LPB did all game, Iniesta drops back to help relieve some of that tension and get the ball to help build up play and create spaces otherwise we'd get murder in midfield and no ball would reach the forwards. As I said they he changes positions with Fabregas throughout the game. He's not strictly a left winger, much like Fabregas isn't strictly a midfielder in the Barca system, that's the way we'd been playing throughout the whole season.
Yeah, that's nice excuse to have, he was supposed to provide width and options in the wide, and most of the time he didn't do that. He failed miserably in that, and that's why we didn't have anybody playing there most of the time. But I'm glad he made nice pointless dribbles in the midfield though.
As I said he's not a fixed left winger unless you haven't been watching Barcelona all season long. He drops back on midfield throughout games to help relieve pressure and interchanges positions to make it hard to defenders to pinpoint a specific man to mark on. On that particular play Alba was the one providing width, much like Alves does on the right. Iniesta was on that gif acting as a midfielder as I explained before, he was also an option for Messi to pass but the latter chose Alba on , simple as that.
Actually that didn't happened. Alba was there on that specific play, providing width. 2 people on the same position would be nonsensical and defeat the purpose of providing width itself.
Now when I show play, where Messi is with the ball in the middle surrounded by Madrid players, looking somebody on the wing to pass, but no options given, what is your answer?
I noticed Xavi dropping down quite a bit to Busquet's level to help maintain possession which resulted in Iniesta coming down from the wing to the midfield level. Changing gears for a moment, Alves and Alba really took a beating today. I wonder if it was Mourinho's plan to get really physical on the fullbacks to discourage width. And seriously, how did Xabi not get like five yellow cards in this game.