From the moment Barca coach Tito Vilanova posted his starting eleven without the young Argentinian and with Busquests, Alba and Abidal already confirmed out of Bayern clash, it was evident that there will be neither a memorable night nor a stunning comeback at the Camp Nou.
Barcelona didn't even had the chance to start with what was expected; continuous threats, pressuring Bayern from the first minute while trying to score a very early goal and finishing their attacks as fast as possible.
Instead it was Bayern who looked serious and tried to kill any remaining hope that was left in the Catalans' players, they were going from the defense to the midfield and all the way to Barca's box in seconds before giving the defenders any chance to organize their lines. Honestly if there weren't two brilliant tackles from Pique on Robben in the opening 20 minutes, the first half could have never ended goalless.
With the second half under way, Robben ended the match in the first three minutes with some amazing skill inside the box, and from that moment it was one team attacking and the other trying to avoid conceding goals as much as possible (it wasn't a good plan after all since it ended 0-3 and 7-0 in aggregate).
During those 90 minutes, it never felt that there were 11 players playing another 11, it seemed as if Bayern were playing with 22 players if not more, but why it was that case:
Barcelona didn't even had the chance to start with what was expected; continuous threats, pressuring Bayern from the first minute while trying to score a very early goal and finishing their attacks as fast as possible.
Instead it was Bayern who looked serious and tried to kill any remaining hope that was left in the Catalans' players, they were going from the defense to the midfield and all the way to Barca's box in seconds before giving the defenders any chance to organize their lines. Honestly if there weren't two brilliant tackles from Pique on Robben in the opening 20 minutes, the first half could have never ended goalless.
With the second half under way, Robben ended the match in the first three minutes with some amazing skill inside the box, and from that moment it was one team attacking and the other trying to avoid conceding goals as much as possible (it wasn't a good plan after all since it ended 0-3 and 7-0 in aggregate).
During those 90 minutes, it never felt that there were 11 players playing another 11, it seemed as if Bayern were playing with 22 players if not more, but why it was that case:
 |
| image source: uk.eurosport.yahoo.com |
Each player from the Bavarian team had two or even three missions in the match, take for example Alaba and Ribery, while attacking Alaba was helping Ribery with almost full throttle and sometimes he was ahead of him, however while defending, most of the times we saw Ribery covering on David Villa and Dani Alves, so that if they got passed him Alaba and van Buyten will be immediately pressing to take the ball, which was a scenario we saw many times.
Another amazing performance was from Schweinsteiger, which was involved in nearly every attack for Bayern and at the same time he and Martines didn't give any chance for Cesc and Xavi to shoot or create any chances.
On the right side Robben and Lahm was doing the same as their right side but on Iniesta, Pedro and Adriano, which couldn't create any threat deep into Bayern's box.
Is it a coincidence that Bayern haven't conceded any goal in their last four champions league matches against teams like Barca and Juve and scoring an astonishing eleven goals? No, it is not, it is the result of huge discipline. a lot of training , quality of players(physically and mentally) and most of all the motivation to win the trophy this time no matter what.
So why not every team would like to go with this style of playing, well it is the same why no one tried to apply the tiki-taka of Barcelona or the way Man United used to go with by depending heavily on the wings, to apply a team style of playing you need to have the talents that can do it correctly.
Bayern style needs two levels of professionalism: technical and physical, and in the mean time I can't see any team being able to adopt it, maybe Real Madrid can do it on the technical level alone but they can't keep the same pace physically for 90 minutes.
Another amazing performance was from Schweinsteiger, which was involved in nearly every attack for Bayern and at the same time he and Martines didn't give any chance for Cesc and Xavi to shoot or create any chances.
On the right side Robben and Lahm was doing the same as their right side but on Iniesta, Pedro and Adriano, which couldn't create any threat deep into Bayern's box.
Is it a coincidence that Bayern haven't conceded any goal in their last four champions league matches against teams like Barca and Juve and scoring an astonishing eleven goals? No, it is not, it is the result of huge discipline. a lot of training , quality of players(physically and mentally) and most of all the motivation to win the trophy this time no matter what.
So why not every team would like to go with this style of playing, well it is the same why no one tried to apply the tiki-taka of Barcelona or the way Man United used to go with by depending heavily on the wings, to apply a team style of playing you need to have the talents that can do it correctly.
Bayern style needs two levels of professionalism: technical and physical, and in the mean time I can't see any team being able to adopt it, maybe Real Madrid can do it on the technical level alone but they can't keep the same pace physically for 90 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment