PBP: La Liga J35 | El Clásico | FC Barcelona v Real Madrid | 21 April 2012 [R]

I don't really blame him for either goal. He may have been indecisive coming out in the first goal then backing out, but no way any goalie would have not given the rebound. You could see he could only reach the ball with one hand.

On the second goal some people questioned why did he come out so far. If he had stayed back, Ronaldo would have touched the ball towards the goal instead of going wide and around him. Ronaldo only went wide with his touch because he saw Valdes come out.

^ You can pick single occasions with any player irregardless of the position and come up with many alternative, better ways to play in such situation than the player chose to play. Every player also has characteristic weaknesses, more or less, so has Valdes and so do all the keepers.

IMO we couldn't have a much better goalie than Valdes, even if we'd freely get to pick from all the goalies in the world. Certainly we didn't lose the Liga because of him and if we go out the CL, it would've not been different if we had a better goalie.

Teams win, teams lose. So when we lose, it's his fault too, like it's Pep's and Messi's and everyone's fault. But who is the best keeper in the world? Neuer, Casillas? We would've not done any better if one of them would've played for us in the past few seasons or in this one.

I agree those are VVs main weaknesses. On the plus side, he is a great shot stopper, and has great distribution. His foot skills are good enough that he can actually be a key part of keeping possession rather than booting it upfield....

Well, last year they nicked the CdR off us and we still completed the double. This year they've snatched La Liga, and we can still get the CL/CdR double.

2 cups for every 1 they get isn't a bad ratio. Let's smash Chelsea.

Zonal Marking has tactical analysis of the game here:
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/04/22/barcelona-1-2-real-madrid-real-on-brink-of-title/

Seems to me this was a game of rock-paper-scissors between Pep and Mou. Mou went with rock, Pep with scissors, and lost. LPB's lineup was the same at the one at Bayern. This might've surprised Pep, and so the deployment of Tello and Thiago, as well as Dani at RF, may have backfired in terms of the matchups he anticipated. Still, it's not asking too much of our attack to find a way through the asshat quartet that is Arbeloa - Pepe- Ramos - Coentrao.

In general, just looking at the lineup suggests that Pep wasn't sure of how to approach this game, and given that the CL is the most important aspect of this season for him (and kinda superior to even this rivalry) I could see why he wanted to rotate the squad a bit.

Tello and Alacantara are both not exactly suited to this just yet, they're too young. Although Alacantara is brilliant, and looked very comfortable, there was no goalscorer and whenever someone broke forward, they were usually on their own. Barcelona really missed David Villa because besides Messi this season, there was no outlet for goals.

Once Alexis sanchez came on, you could see the madrid defense was stretched. This is how Barcelona works, messi takes the ball, and holds onto it until he releases that pass or shot. Messi however, looked exhausted.

Another point to be made is that without Abidal Barcelona looked frail on the left, Adriano is no Abidal, that's for sure and I am fairly certain Pep will go into next season looking for real quality fullback, for sure.

All in all, I think Pep is pretty sure that this was ging to be very difficult for a win, his lineup suggested that all along, and he definitely prioritizes europe, because losing to chelsea would be disastrous for him this season.

Just wanted to ask you guys opinion on a few things Pep did for the game, which I found strange:

1. Adriano and Busquets positioning. It looked like you played three at the back (Adriano-Mascherano-Puyol), but Busquets dropped in to the back line to allow Adriano to move up the left flank. I felt this played into our hands because Busquets has a good record stopping Ozil, but he couldn't follow him around in this game because he had to drop into the back line more often. Is this a frequent set-up when you play a back three, or is there some other reason Pep might have tried this?

2. Alves up high on the right flank. I thought we were going to struggle on that side, because you were always going to retain more possession and Ronaldo doesn't track an overlapping wingback (Bayern's second goal is an example). So why play Alves so high up, without anyone to overlap off? Especially when there was no-one in the box in the immediate phases of play, since Messi would often drop deep instead of making runs in behind the defence. The only time I recall Alves playing up on the wing against us was when you played us at our home, and that seemed like a defensive move. I doubt it would have been a defensive move this time, since you had to win the game. Any thoughts on what Pep was trying with that? Was he expecting Marcelo to play, or is there something else he wanted to exploit?

You nailed the two key tactical mistakes (or mysteries, if you're being generous) by Pep yesterday. Or you are just repeating the good points in the Zonal Marking analysis, which deserve to be discussed here.

Busquets does often fall into central defense in the 3-back set up, making it 4 in effect. I'm not against the 3-4-3 in all situations. It works when we play against a team that counters with 1 forward. The fatal flaw yesterday was that it left Ozil with space to play passes behind our defense. Taking Busquets out of central midfield seems incredibly stupid, as he is the guy who bottles up the opposition from launching counters. We didn't need to play 3 (+ Busquets) in the back with basically all our defenders fit to play. Busquets was given an impossible double duty of CB and DM.

...Which brings me to Alves. He started off ok as a right winger, but obviously he's more effective bombing forward from deep positions, not waiting for outlet passes and timing his run against the opposition back line. There was no defensive point to him being pushed far up, since Coentrao is not the offensive threat Marcelo is.

These are the two most obvious tactical oddities from Pep. No one knows why he would experiment in a critical game, against a team who hadn't really found a way to cope with our regular system. Classic if it ain't broke, don't fix it situation. Even if Pep realized he had prepared for the wrong opponent, it's extra strange that he didn't seem to make significant adjustments until too late.

Our lineup should have been:

---------------VV-----------------
Alves - Puyol - Masch/Pique - Adriano
-------------Busquets-----------
------Xavi------------Iniesta----------
Pedro/Cuenca - Messi -- Alexis

It's not all on Pep though. The offense was more stagnant than I've ever seen it. No one making runs off each other to exploit space created by others. Your CBs were relatively untroubled the whole match.

All I can hope is that Pep and the players were saving up for Chelsea on Tuesday. This might be a sign that the UCL really is supplanting domestic rivalries in terms of priority, but it's hard to imagine a Clasico like this not being faced with full commitment.

Anyway, it'll be a nice story if we face off again in the CL final for continental bragging rights.

Who were the forwards in this game? Messi is not your typical striker and Tello is too ripe for this occasion, he doesn't have the confidence of Pedro. I think Pep was saving everyone for Chelsea more than anything else.

meh i wouldn't want Casillas in here

The game was a microcosm of the season. We fell back after a lapse of concentration, then pull (almost) level, only to blow it before momentum could have taken us ahead.

Details of this game debated here:
I didn't see any glaring foul on Tello that led to CR's goal. He was handled, but it's not a call you're going to get in a game like this.

Alves's supposed kick on CR on slow-mo replay looked like no more than a strafing of his shirt. His cleats definitely do not plunge into Crissy's perfectly sculpted abs, which of course helped him pop up immediately. Dani can be a play-actor, but he doesn't play dirty.

Stay classy guys:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCuUYR_oQ-g"]Fan of Real Madrid was attacked by Barcelona fans on Camp Nou! - YouTube[/ame]

Not condoning what happened in the video, but it is fair to say you probably shouldn't wear the opposition's apparel at the visiting stadium unless you plan on having some sort of problems. It's on thing to be in the traveling section but to sit in the regular seating isn't a great idea anywhere. Every team has a small minority of idiot fans who will cause a rouse or get violent, this particular situation is not unique and almost expected.

Could have been worse, I mean they could have thrown rocks and bricks at the bus like Madrid supporters have in the past.

Get a life!

That's a pathetic. As if the video even shows who started the altercation. Either way there is a guy with a Barca shirt that nicely and non-violently pulls the Madrid fan away.

I don't see what people were saying either. Not even close to a foul in my opinion.

Guti on Twitter says he hopes Alves receives the same suspension as Pepe for his stomp on Ronaldo. I can only assume he means 0 games since Pepe got nothing for stomping on Messi's hand (among other instances). Or is he really comparing this with Pepe's Getafe outburst ?

It was a gamble that didn't pay off. I think Pep's thought process was that Mourinho would not be putting his team forward given you guys really only needed the tie and didn't have to risk anything (not to mention saving yourselves for the mid-week game). And I think that he was right. In the past Classicos the pressure from Madrid came higher up the field in the first minutes. You could tell this time around the initial pressure was much tamer.

With Alves up high I think Pep expected to have an additional constant thread on the wing AND have him press Madrid defenders without the ball (he almost caught them sleeping in beginning of the game by stealing that bad pass). Pep knows you guys have trouble playing the ball from the back against us.

Honestly Pep'e plan worked in the sense that we kept a lot of possession. Something like 70% until the final minutes (after Ronaldo's goal) before you guys were able to kill the game off. And had Ronaldo not scored the winner, even with the tie, I think you guys would have been mad at Mourinho for defending so deep for so long, from a performance point of view not the result itself.

Where it didn't work was that we didn't create great scoring chances. I think 3 in the whole game ? Mainly because Alves and Tello were pretty bad at beating their markers and the reluctance of anybody but Messi to try and push forward with the ball and take on players. I noticed that we didn't even force you guys to commit the typical fouls by taking on players in the middle.

I believe that dude is his friend, they went to the game together from what i understood.

How is that even a stamp? A stamp requires pressure, that was barely a touch.Ronaldo made a meal out of it once he felt any contact. roflmao at comparing it to the Pepe stamp.

when I saw Adriano, Tello and Thiago starting, I felt for sure something was wrong. Maybe one or at most two of them, but all three? My guess is Pep did this for some combination of the following:

- Injuries: esp. Sanchez (and obviously Villa and Abidal)
- form (also due to injuries): Pedro, Cesc, Pique

then I think Pep played the probabilities and took a calculated gamble when he looked at this 6 day death march (BTW - interesting there was little discussion of how the CL schedule benefited LPB by a day on both sides of this game) ...

- He probably thought LPB would go a little more defensive
- probability of winning CL = > winning Liga even if we had won or drawn LPB ... also the chance to repeat CL to me outweighs a 4th Liga title in a row
- he probably felt that Alexis (and maybe Cesc?) could not go 3 games in 6 days...

so he rested Alexis and Cesc in the RM game ... and it did not pay off. I think if Alexis is 100% and starts, you have a different game. Less so for Cesc. Also Pepe would have likely been marked by Pique on that header...

Hopefully this means at least 2 of Pedro, Alexis, Cesc and Pique start tomorrow...if so, we'll see if the gamble paid off in the end...

The scary thing everyone has brought up is how tired Messi and Xavi look as well - after the last 4 years of non-stop (+ world cup)

The difference is that in May of 2009 the back to back losses came after we beat Madrid 2-6 to virtually lock up the Liga title, drew against Chelsea to advance to the CL final, drew with Villarreal, and beat Bilbao in the Copa final. The losses were at Mallorca (2-1) then hosting Osasuna (0-1) and were meaningless games (Jornada 36 and 37) as our lead was insurmountable by then (we won Liga by 9 points).

We did recover from those losses to beat ManU 2-0 in Rome.

Credit to Real for the win, hope we can get a win tomorrow which will allow us a shot at the ultimate revenge - a 5th European Championship.

We miss Abidal. More than Villa. More than in-form Cesc or Pique or Pedro.

He was, statistically, our best defender. At the time he was re-diagnosed he led the team in ball-winning tackles. Offensively, he was smooth-like-butter on the ball and gave balance for Alves's marauding runs. He's 6'1" and was a presence in the air on defending corners. He could also slide from LB to fill in at CB when needed.

I remember in his first season with us he was a liability. But by this spring he was unarguably the most vital and consistent player in our back 4 and a big reason we pulled off a long spell earlier this season without conceding a goal.

Anims Abi.

Villa is clinical finisher in big games and he proof that time to time, I just dont how missing player like him is not a big loss. Also, he can beat Cassilas from anywhere.

Agreed, abidal had pace and skill. We miss him dearly!