I can think of a thousand reasons not to play this game at 4:00 a.m.: I worked late yesterday, my kids won’t sleep today, cyberpunk is 2077 tomorrow, Barcelona and Juve are both out of the playoffs early, and these two teams are prone to playing extremely hypnotic games. ……
But one rebuttal is worth a thousand words: the Melo duel, and maybe maybe maybe the last Melo duel.
All right. Set the alarm, help me up, and I can still watch football!
It was the 36th meeting between two of the greatest soccer players of our time, and the first meeting between the two in the group stage of the Champions League. This “last but first” matchup was supposed to happen earlier, but Crosby’s absence in the second round of the group stage due to a positive new crown delayed it until today.
In that match, Juve fell into Barcelona’s extremely comfortable slow pace and lost 0-2 at home. The two sides met again this time, with each side changing a little bit of their starting lineup due to injuries and tactical issues.
The changes were even more dramatic on Juve’s side. Not only did Delichert and Sandro return from injury, but more importantly, the midfield combination was changed from Benthancur + Rabio, who had more than enough features and a high degree of overlap in functions, to Arturo, who was a one-man drag queen, and McKennie and Ramsey, who were both center forwards. The strategic purpose and practical effect of this reshuffle is obvious: speed.
What did we see from Juve in the opening period?
–Ramsey and McInerney each took over half the width of the field, chasing down Barcelona’s midfielders and pressing like mad dogs.
— at least one of Crosby and Morata will drop back deep in a position battle, and even Ross’s defensive contributions in this one in terms of arc protection and cutoff lanes could be about half a center forward.
–Whenever Juve grabbed the ball, Morata and Crosby established contact with each other in the first step, moved to Ramsey on the left or Cuadrado on the right in the second step, and then collectively went forward, and in the third step never dawdled on the side of the road to pass the ball directly to the ribs or 45-degree pass, in short, the whole process still highlights the word: fast.
What is the result? In the first 15 minutes, Juve actually gained more than 60% of possession at the Camp Nou through constant counter-attacking, and shot 3-0. how fast? Even when Crosby was pulled down by Araujo after changing direction, he took the penalty himself as if he was afraid of slowing down the tempo and immediately ran and smashed the middle.
How did Barca respond to this? Koeman was not unaware of Pirlo’s change to disrupt and speed up the game, so instead of starting Coutinho, who had slowed down the tempo even further, he chose Trincamp up front.
However, Barcelona’s overall midfield control has declined, making it difficult for them to keep the game at a comfortable tempo on their own, with Mei now more suited to playing at a slower pace. It is natural to rely on the two sides to push the ball forward, and the two sides of Pedrie and Trinkan are ……
Juve’s 352 offense and 442 defense system. Whenever the top two get the ball on the edge of the box, Ramsey and Sandro pounce on Trincamp, while Danilo and Cuadrado combine to strangle Pedri, and then their small bodies are pushed out of bounds in all kinds of confrontations.
The heat map of the first half’s activity clearly shows how aggressive Juve’s attacking and defensive play was on both sides of the field.
In the heat map of the whole Barcelona team, you can also see how much the backfield push on both sides of the field is missing. Especially on the right side of the field, Trinka has been completely lost after joining Barcelona, and Driester can only stop and wait for half a day after receiving the ball.
But objectively speaking, Barca did try to make some changes after 15 minutes.
–The ball was played to the right, and Sandro’s physicality was much more difficult to break down than Trincamp’s. As time went on, Juventus was able to get the ball to the right side of the field.
–As time goes on, the Juve team’s aggressive approach, both horizontally and vertically, will need to be tightened and then loosened up for a while. Once the tempo slowed down during Juve’s relatively power-efficient period, Barcelona was able to play the classic Brazilian combination of side and center, and Mei was able to find some space at the top of the arc to score.
However, these efforts did not yield the desired results. On the one hand, Messi met not only his old rival Crosby, but also his old acquaintance Buffon, who suddenly returned to his old self. Whether it’s a down-and-dirty save or a close angle, Buffon’s stability in this game seems to be a flashback to five years ago.
On the other hand, Juve scored the second goal again through a combination of strangulation and transfer on the sideline. Ramsey cut inside with the ball, and McKinney scored a wonderful goal with a double ghost shot from the edge of the box.
C Luo’s arcing run took away the position of two defenders, once again proving the unique value of running without the ball. The surprise is that even though Piqué’s absence deprived the Barcelona defense of its only outlet, Araujo and Langley both jumped out of the way, and no one was able to fill in the gaps in the middle of the field, there’s no point in discussing whether or not the ball is in the air.
Going into the second half with a score of 0-2, Coleman again made a field correction.
Braithwaite replaced Trinken, and the front four switched completely at the start of the second half. Boo came on top of the center forward, and after all, Gers were almost a zero-range VIP audience for the entire first half, so do you expect him to compete with Bonucci for a header, or play physical combat with Delichert? Pedrie comes to the middle to play the long side of the big picture and avoid the short side of physical confrontation, and Messi and Gezi, the two more versatile stars, come to the left and right to face the opponent’s stranglehold.
I still think Koeman’s adjustment is correct from the thinking point of view. But the result of the …… scoreline is that the gap was widened once again as the situation improved for Barcelona.
Araujo’s dubious push and Langley’s handball giveaway. No, you’re both center backs, so why are you so skilled with your uncontrollable hands?
This kind of goal conceding is like a microcosm of Barcelona’s entire game, and even of the various games of this period.
The opponent presses full court and then presses the accelerator button, and Barcelona is rushed into a frenzy. Even if it’s because the other team is physically bottlenecked or has taken the initiative themselves, the defense will justifiably give a gift and let the effort go to waste. In a desperate need to score two goals on the counter-attack to get back to the top of the group, Koeman gave three substitutions to Umtiti, Philpot, and Minguesa, and three substitutions to Lenglet, Alba, and Araujo, and that’s saying something.
Throughout the second half, Barcelona gained 62% of the possession, which is a reversal from the opening of the first half. But with such a high percentage of possession and initiative, what did they do? No one can substantially open up the offense through explosiveness and breakdowns, and no matter how much they pass back and forth, everyone knows they’ll end up looking for Messi at the top of the arc.
The only bright spot may be the substitute Puggi, who is capable of delivering a straight vertical ball, but firstly, his style of play has always been a double-edged sword for tactical balance, and this time it was only because of special needs that he showed more positivity. Secondly, there is still no width to this threat, and Juve of course knows that by surrounding Messi with a sea of people in front of and behind the top of the arc, the defense will be more than halfway successful.
The rest of the game, however, also happens to be that Messi is no longer a shooting bug this season, there’s not much room to adjust before hitting the goal in a dense defensive zone, and in order to beat Buffon, who is back in the game, he has to work hard to open up the angle. Even though he took all seven of the team’s shots in the game, he was unable to score a single goal for Barcelona.
On the other hand, Juve’s side, after leading by three goals in the second half, took the initiative to abandon the high cost and high return of pressing forward and encircling on the sidelines in favor of a more traditional defensive counterattack. The problem is that Juve’s midfield has once again shown its lack of organizational ability, and as soon as they start to counterattack, they make a misplaced pass to put out the fire.
The good news is that at least the team’s defensive initiative and compactness remained successful, from the back to the front, until C Luo and Morata united to carry out a shutout. Even in the 80th minute, there were famous scenes like Crosby’s recovery into the penalty area and robbing Messi.
It turns out that Juve (at least for part of the game) can also play fast-paced, high-confrontational soccer, while Barcelona’s current lineup, with its obvious structural flaws, can’t really pick up the pace. Juve, who regained the top spot in the group, has more potential to offer, while Barcelona, who gave up the top spot, will likely face a higher, faster, and stronger opponent in the Round of 16.
As it turns out, the night really wasn’t in vain. Although this unlucky 2020 everyone wants to hurry up and get over it, but watching this December may be the last Melo duel, as well as the emergence of a 42-year-old “third-party” …… man back.
And, this time, I really hope that time you ah go slowly, do not want to be the “green knot”. Even though this has been staged more than 30 times, with both stars already 33+, I still can’t get enough of …….
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