Barcelona’s lineup today is similar to what the coaching staff predicted before the game.
Sure enough, they formed a 433 formation:
Forwards: Pedro, Villa, Messi
Midfielder: Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets
Defenders: Adriano, Mascherano, Abidal, Alves
Goalkeeper: Valdes
Forwards Cesc Fabregas and Sanchez, who had just been transferred in the summer window, did not play, and captain Puyol, who had just recovered from injury, was also on the bench.
Milan, on the other hand, is dealing with a 433 composed mainly of young players:
Forwards: Mane, Ibrahimovic, Salah.
Midfielder: Kante, Gattuso, Boateng.
Defenders: De Sciglio, Van Dijk, Thiago Silva, Abate.
Goalkeeper: Abbiati.
In this lineup, except for Gattuso and Abbiati, all other players are under 30 years old, and the average age of the team is only 24 years old.
In this destined to be a difficult defensive battle, Allegri also agreed with Pan Yi and sent more young players who can run better.
In the midfield position, the three players are all good at defense, and they are full of body and aggressiveness, in order to better perform defensive tasks.
At this time, the referee blew the whistle to start the game.
In today's away game, the Milan players wearing white jerseys quickly got into position.
Barcelona's players naturally gained possession of the ball.
In the midfield, Villa handed the ball to Messi, and Messi passed it back to Xavi.
At this time, Milan's Gattuso and Boateng immediately approached Xavi, which forced him to transfer the ball to the left wing and hand it to Adriano who came up from behind.
But Salah immediately came up and blocked his path, forcing Adriano to pass the ball to Busquets.
Busquets passed the ball back and handed it over to center back Mascherano.
Mascherano made several simple passes with Abidal, another central defender, but found that no Milan player came up to press.
Seeing this, Guardiola on the sidelines began to frown.
This seems to be different from the tactics he has studied commonly used by Milan this season?
We talked about pressing in the frontcourt, but what about pressing in the whole court?
But now most of the Milan players seem to be just standing in their own half and not taking the initiative to press Barcelona's defenders.
This kind of scene is actually not what Guashuai wants to see.
The instructions he gave to his players were to first drop the ball in the backcourt, wait for the opponent to attack and expose a defensive gap in the back, then hand the ball to Xavi or Iniesta, and then quickly launch an attack.
But now, this style of play feels a bit useless.
Back on the field.
At this time, the ball had been passed to the center, and Barcelona's entire formation began to press forward.
Mascherano's position with the ball is already close to the center circle.
He glanced ahead and found that no matter who he was in Habaib, there were Milan players staring at him, making it difficult to catch the ball.
In desperation, he had to split the line and hand it over to Alves who came in from the right.
Alves tried to get in touch with Messi, but his forward pass was intercepted by Kante and rolled directly out of bounds.
After Barcelona sent a throw-in, Alves chose to pass directly into the penalty area this time.
Villa is already standing there.
But Van Dijk, who was beside Villa, had suppressed him with his body, making it difficult for Villa to head the ball comfortably.
It's just that Spain's main striker is no ordinary shooter. In such a difficult situation, he still turned around and headed the ball towards the Milan goal before Van Dijk, completing Barcelona's first goal of the game.
.
It's just that this ball is light and does not have much power, and the angle is not tricky. Milan goalkeeper Abbiati relaxes his arms and holds the ball firmly in his hands.
There was sparse applause in the Camp Nou stadium.
Some were given to Villa by Barcelona fans, and some were given to Abbiati by fans of visiting team Milan.
……
The first attack failed, and Barcelona quickly launched a second one.
After Busquets got the ball, he passed it to Xavi who came to meet him.
But just when Xavi was about to start dribbling the ball, Gattuso, who was following closely, suddenly fell to the ground and shoveled the ball out of Xavi's control.
Milan's fierce midfielder did not immediately return to defense, but followed Xavi closely. After seeing that he had no intention of turning around to get the ball, he returned to his position.
Kante, Gattuso, Boateng, Salah, Mane, these five Milan players are now all pressed into the midfield area, and the distance between them and the four defenders behind is also very short.
This caused Barcelona players to encounter a lot of trouble in passing and cutting in the frontcourt, making it difficult to smoothly deliver the ball to the attacker's feet.
After several cross passes between the center circle and the top of the penalty area, Iniesta chose a long shot with little threat to complete the attack hastily.
……
Milan's bench.
Allegri couldn't help but look at Pan Yi and showed a satisfied smile.
The current situation on the court is developing as they expected.
He remembered what Pan Yi said at the coaching staff tactical meeting:
"Barcelona's midfield trio is very strong and we must limit their performance."
"Busquets, he is very good at receiving the goalkeeper's ball, guiding the ball in the backcourt, and playing the ball under pressure. He is the best midfielder I have ever seen. His sense of the ball is very clear, and
He will make some fake moves to turn around, and then move forward to complete the ball wash."
"On either side of him is Ha Bai, and even if we put pressure on them, they can get the ball comfortably. Because they have good individual skills and are good at handling the ball in small spaces. Even if we send five people to
To strangle them, they can also pass through the midfield with quick passes."
"So, their top midfielders are able to cooperate under pressure, and they are very smooth, and they also exert a numerical advantage in certain areas, so high-position pressing is not easy to use. The only solution is... to block the space!" <
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"The most critical point is to make our two frontcourt wide players narrower, let the five players in the midfield stay close to each other, and then pay attention to the distance between the midfield and the backcourt."
"Once the space is too big, Barcelona can make a fuss between the two lines and find Messi between the two lines, which will be a big trouble. Therefore, the distance between the midfield and the back field must be compact and compact.
."
"They can get the ball before the midfield line, it doesn't matter. As long as we keep the distance between the four backs and the five midfielders, even if Barcelona has a bunch of talented players, they can only stay away from the goal!..."
Pan Yi's thinking is very clear, and his analysis of Barcelona's midfield play and player characteristics is also extremely thorough. This is why Allegri has to admit the brilliance of this tactic and adopt it.
For Pan Yi, this is his variant tactic against Barcelona based on Klopp's tactics.
Nowadays, the personal abilities of Milan players are not as good as those of Barcelona. If we play against them, we will lose too much.
Therefore, after a long period of analysis and research on Barcelona's tactics and player characteristics, Pan Yi proposed this combat plan-turning high positions into low positions, compressing Barcelona's space, and waiting for opportunities to counterattack.
Now, the Milan players on the field are strictly implementing this tactic, and it is consuming the patience of the Barcelona players.
As long as the time is right, Milan will show its fangs and give its opponent a fatal blow...