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Champions League

The Match of Matches: Real Madrid vs Manchester United at El Bernabéu

February 13, 2013 — by Suman

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Today is the match of matches–at least of the season thus far: Real Madrid vs Manchester United, at El Bernabéu.

It’s the 1st leg of their Champions League Round of 16 draw, certainly a huge and highly anticipated match (though sophisticated football hipsters know that Shakhtar Donetsk vs Borussia Dortmund–also playing today, at the Donbass Arena–is the truly interesting matchup of the the Round of 16).

For previews of today’s match, read ZonalMarking’s tactical preview listicle here (the takeaways, or posited by Adam Novy before he read Michael Cox (see Appendix 1 below for more): “Smother Ronaldo, sit on Xabi, hope that Carrick isn’t smothered); and/or listen to Michael Cox, Sid Lowe and Barney Ronay on Monday’s rather epic pod.

For a history Madrid-Manchester United, the Telegraph has put together a nice feature: “Real Madrid v Manchester United: all of their past meetings have been a history of entertainment“, with embedded YouTube clips of the 1957 European Cup semi-final, 1968 European Cup semi-final, 2000 Champions League quarter-final, and 2003 Champions League quarter-final.

The 2000 quarterfinal tie was given a very close reading by Rob Smyth in this fascinating essay on thefcf.co.uk (also printed in The Blizzard, Issue One)–what writer and longtime United supporter/observer Adam Novy immediately remembered as “The Redondo Game.”  See Appendix 2 below for Smyth’s intro paragraphs.

Appendix 1: As promised above, here’s a fuller exclusive excerpt–well, not exclusive if you’re fb friends with him–of Adam Novy’s thoughts going into today’s match:

Push the ball to Ronaldo and drive him to the sideline. Sit on Xabi Alonso and make someone else pass it out of the back. Pray that Madrid hates each other more than they hate losing. Also: don’t play Cleverly, Anderson, and Kagawa simultaneously. None of them can last for 90 minutes. Give Nani a chance. if he plays well in the first leg, offer him a massive contract to keep him happy.

Let the likes of Danny Welbeck and Phil Jones run like headless chickens in Madrid’s half, especially at Pepe and the backup goalie. Do not concede in Madrid. A scoring draw is bad against a cunning Spanish team. Win 2-0.

Though minutes later:

Beating Utd is actually very easy, if you have the players. Sit on Michael Carrick and force someone else to pass it out of the back. Charge your whole center midfield up the middle. Utd does not track back well. Finish the chances you get and keep up the pressure. Southampton tried to do this but they don’t have the finishers. Madrid have the finishers. Maybe play Kaka? He’s Madrid’s best goalscoring midfielder.

Appendix 2: The opening paragraphs of Rob Smyth’s close read:

A football match lasts much longer than 90 minutes. It begins before the first whistle and continues beyond the final whistle. Every game has a back-story and a front-story, and matches exist in what the academic film critic Stephen Heath called an “englobingly extensive prolongation”. Few have had such an extensive prolongation as the immense Champions League quarter-final between Real Madrid and Manchester United in 2000 when Real, having drawn the first leg 0-0, won 3-2 at Old Trafford in a game notable for a staggering quality of attacking play and a legendary tactical switch from Vicente del Bosque.

In a sense the tie began 40 years earlier, when a teenage Alex Ferguson sneaked into Hampden Park and was spellbound by Madrid’s 7-3 evisceration of Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Cup final. And it continues to impact 11 years on; every time Manchester United line up for a big game at home or in Europe, their tactics are a direct consequence of that chastening experience against Madrid. Del Bosque spoke of United’s “tactical anarchy” that night, and Ferguson ensured such suggestions could never be made again. Put simply, up until that game his teams tried to score one more than the opposition; ever since they have tried to concede one fewer.

Real’s win ended United’s reign as European champions, at a time when many felt Ferguson’s young side were set to establish a dynasty, and also instantly restored their own faded glamour. It also changed Del Bosque’s life. Until then he had been Real’s odd-job man, almost a Spanish Tony Parkes, but that match set him on the road to becoming one of the most successful coaches of the early 21st century. All of that, and Ferguson’s tactical epiphany, mean that this was arguably the most epochal European match since Heysel — although for very different reasons. Del Bosque’s tactical brainwave caused shockwaves that would indelibly change the landscape of modern football.

Euro 2012EuropePreview

Kicking Off Euro 2012, Part 4: Where To Go For Ongoing Coverage

June 8, 2012 — by Suman — 2

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Part 4 of our Kicking Off Euro 2012 series: where to go for ongoing coverage over the next few weeks. We’ll try to be posting, but here’s where we’ll be going ourselves to keep up with the tournament:

Guardian Football: Our primary source for football news. Still anglocentric in its top headlines and most-read articles, but probably the least so of the English papers, Go directly to their Euro 2012 section (but also see below for a more detailed guide to their coverage).

ZonalMarking: The other site we’ll be visiting daily–the tactics blog run by Michael Cox, who also contributes columns to the Guardian.  He’s already posted team-by-team previews in his Euro2012 section, and will no doubt be posting match analyses daily.

If somehow we’re still hankering for additional commentary, we might drop in on the Euro blogs of FourFourTwo or In Bed With Maradona. We’ll probably call up Goal.com and espnfc.com on occasion. And lately we’ve been reading a lot of Grantland–encouraged to see there are two preview pieces up.  Though neither are by Grantland contributor Brian Philips, who is one of our must-read football writers, and who also oversees the infrequently updated Run of Play–so we’ll also be looking for commentary from him and on there (or lacking those, certainly via his twitter).

But more on the Guardian and their Euro 2012 coverage.  They’ve got their usual stable of excellent columnists covering the tourney–we’ll be looking in particular for commentary from Sid Lowe commentary on Spain; Rafael Honigstein on Germany; Michael Cox on tactics; Barney Ronay on the absurd; and Jonathan Wilson on historical, tactical, and Eastern European analysis and arcana.

No doubt those guys will be among James Richardson’s guests on the pod. During the season, it’s Football Weekly, which we listen to religiously twice-weekly. But for Euros they go into hyperdrive and morph into “Euro 2012 Football DAILY”; that’s right, a daily dose of the pod.

The pod lands daily for the next three weeks!

In addition to their usual contributors, the Guardian has assembled an “Experts Network” for the tournament (“A unique collaboration with media outlets from around Europe bringing a local flavour and expertise to coverage of Euro 2012 on guardian.co.uk”)–see Part 2 of Euro 2012 gear-up for links to the resulting team-by-team previews.

There will be plenty of their idiosyncratic liveblogs (often penned, we hope, by Barry Glendenning)–not only for every match, but also a daily liveblog for the tournament news:

You will be able to follow live minute-by-minute coverage of every game in Poland and Ukraine, while we will also have a live blog every day throughout the tournament as well. Our writers will be on hand with updates, both here, on our Twitter interactive and on daily live webchats every lunchtime.

As our ever, we welcome and look forward to your thoughts, comments, accusations of lazy journalism and bias both on Twitter and in the comments section below the line. If there’s a better way of whiling away the working day that doesn’t involve breaking the law, we certainly can’t think of one.

The Twitter interactive is something we just came across: an interactive map, showing what and where their writers’ are tweeting. You can even filter by venue, group, or team:

 

Guardian Football's interactive Euro 2012 twitter map

 

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El Clásico Series, Part 3: Champions League 1st Leg

April 27, 2011 — by Suman — 2

Pep: Decir la verdad al puto jefe!

Just when you thought El Clásico couldn’t get any more heated, Pep Guardiola took the rivalry to 11 in his press conference yesterday in Madrid. But the real battle of Mourinho contra Guardiola will take place on the pitch later today, with the 1st leg of the Champions League semifinal. It will remarkably be the 3rd meeting in the past 11 days between Guardiola’s Barcelona and Mourinho’s Real Madrid (following the tense 1-1 draw in a La Liga match on April 16 and Madrid’s dramatic 1-0 Copa del Rey victory a week ago), and the real battle will be the tactics the two managerial masterminds deploy today, in light of the past two matches–and in light of key absences for both squads.  Here’s what you need to get ready for today’s match:

If you have time for nothing else, open up this post of ours from last November, containing both sides’ squad lists; also open up Marca’s very cool interactive graphic showing “Los sistemas de Mourinho y de Guardiola“–though given the injuries and suspensions, today’s starting XIs will not be any of the ones shown there. Keep reading..

If you’ve got more time, and haven’t been following our El Clásico coverage, catch up on last November’s initial La Liga meeting here and here (“This game more than any other has divided the CultFootball brain trust, with one faction supporting the brilliant arrogance of the establishment side and the other hoping the subversives from the north can one-touch their way a million times to victory.”). That match of course produced a stunning 5-0 victory for the Catalan club–what we called “Tiki-taka to La Manita” (that post includes two sets of video highlights from that instant classic El Clásico).

Like the rest of the footballing world, we’ve got loco for El Clásico over the past two weeks. Our preview of this four-game series is here.  These words still hold true–but a couple key names mentioned here will be absent today due to injury (Iniesta for Barça, Khedira for Madrid):

So which team is in better form? Through most of the season it was clearly Barcelona, but they’ve seemed a tad shaky of late while Madrid are looking pretty comfortable on the pitch. Madrid have also had an entire season to learn Mourinho’s defensive principles…then again Barça tend to have their way with what seem at the outset to be the most prepared of teams.

The key to a Madrid victory will be to limit Messi’s time with the ball. When his teammates have looked less than otherworldly this season, the little Argentine has stepped up his game to amazing levels. Very often it’s some combination of Iniesta and Xavi that pop open the defenses, with Messi finishing the movement, but Khedira and Alonso will collapse on them very quickly and it’ll be up to Lionel in isolation (and also finding Villa moving off the shoulder of his defender).

For Barcelona to walk away with the win they’ll have to retreat quickly when they lose possession (Madrid have a very quick counter attack) and not give Özil any time on the ball. The young German is a key link between back and front, and with him contained Barça can maintain their high pressing and look to turn the ball over quickly, as they do.

After the Copa del Rey, the observation that Barcelona seems a tad shaky while Madrid is looking increasingly comfortable holds a fortiori–as well as the tactical observations about Messi on the ball and Madrid on the counterattack, with Madrid’s defensive midfield “trivote” tasked with collapsing on the former, and Özil certainly a key to the latter. See our multipart film session on the Copa del Rey final for illustrations of these points.

Madrid’s trivote in the previous two matches consisted of Khedira, Xabi Alonso, and Pepe. With Khedira out, look for Lass Diarra to step into the midfield. Might we see Kaka make an appearance in the midfield, and/or Higuain up front? The Brazilian midfielder and Argentine striker have both been absent this season due to injuries, but both played well over the weekend in Madrid’s 6-3 blowout of Valencia.

ZonalMarking's Probable Starting XIs

For Barcelona, their stalwart defender Puyol returns to lineup, but both Brazilian left wingbacks (Adriano and Maxwell) have been left back in Barcelona due to injury. Add to this Eric Abidal’s continued absence (due surgery in March to remove a tumor from his liver, although remarkably he returned to training this week), and Barcelona will again be forced into a suboptimal lineup in defense. Look for Mascherano to stay in the starting XI, though it’s not clear if he’ll be playing wingback.  ZonalMarking speculates that Puyol will play on the left, while Mascherano will stay in the center.  In either case, Barça likely won’t get the forward width they get from Adriano or Maxwell–but that may actually be a good thing, as Puyol or Mascherano will stay home and be more likely to prevent Madrid counterattacks up that wing.  Hence, look for Madrid to concentrate even more on getting behind Dani Alves on the other side of the field–the diMaria-Alves matchup there is key.

Not having Iniesta in the midfield is of course a huge loss.  In his stead, it will likely be the Malian Seydou Keita who pairs with Xavi and Busquets–though we may also see the 20-year old “wonderkid” Thiago Alcantara in action. Up front it will be the usual trio of Villa, Messi and Pedro.

We leave you with video of Pep’s presser yesterday–we are confident we will be using the phrase “el puto jefe y puto amo” with regularity in the future:

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Fernando Torres, (Previously) “Hero of Anfield” (+ Anelka as Trequartista?)

February 6, 2011 — by Suman — 1

YouTube is littered with overdramatic Liverpudlian tributes to Torres.  To add to the buildup for today’s Chelsea-Liverpool match (kicking off at Stamford Bridge at the top of the hour), here’s one that is a highlight reel of El Niño when he was at the top of his game, in 2008-09–primarily Liverpool highlights, followed by a coda of Spain national team clips (set to an Akon soundtrack):

Meanwhile, the teams are in, according to the Guardian’s liveblog:

The teams are in:

The Team With Torres: Cech; Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Cole; Mikel; Essien, Lampard; Torres, Drogba, Anelka. Subs: Turnbull, Paulo Ferreira, David Luiz, McEachran, Sala, Malouda, Kalou.
The Team Without Torres: Reina; Carragher, Skrtel, Agger, Kelly; Johnson, Gerrard, Lucas, Maxi; Meireles; Kuyt. Subs: Gulacsi, Aurelio, Suarez, Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos, Ngog, Poulsen.

So Suárez isn’t considered ready to start despite impressing in midweek. Torres, as expected, starts for the Team With Torres. Very, very interesting to see how those two line-ups dovetail.

Worth reading in preparation for the game is ZonalMarking’s note on “Nicolas Anelka as a trequartista?” (trequartista, which means “three-quarters” in Italian, refers to a withdrawn forward/attacking midfielder–a player who drops deep to receive the ball from his defenders and defending midfielders and serves as a playmaker in attack):

CommentaryNewsTacticsVideo

Arsenal Advances in the FA Cup

January 20, 2011 — by Suman

In case you missed it, watch the highlights of Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Leeds yesterday, in a FA Cup replay (following the 1-1 draw a couple weeks ago). All four goals are worth watching: the first goes from Chamakh to Arshavin to Nasri in 5′; then crackers by Sagna & Bradley Johnson which made the score 2-0 and then 2-1; and then finally late in the 2nd half, after Wenger was forced to bring on Fabregas and Robin van Persie, the latter scored with a header off a great cross by Bendtner (didn’t think we’d ever have occasion to write those last few words).

We’ve been having some discussions about Arsenal’s optimal starting lineup, sparked by this post by Coach Larry–in particular his inclusion of Jack Wilshere among his list of “Players who if they play too much kill their chances” (along with Denilson and Bendnter btw).

Now young Jack Wilshere has been among the most lauded players in the Premier League this season, and he has been in Wenger’s top XI all season, as one of the 2 holding midfielders alongside Alex Song in Arsenal’s 4-2-3-1.

The “3-1” part of the starting XI has been under discussion as well: Nasri and Fabregas are given; Arshavin (on the other wing opposite Nasri) and Chamakh (up front) rounded out the starting XI for the first couple months of the season, but with Arshavin losing form, Walcott coming on strong, and van Persie coming back from injury, the ideal front four has been part of the discussion too.

Larry’s argument re Wilshere:

My contention is he represents a non-ideal Arsenal formation.  Song is a better tackler and reader of the game, Nasri, RVP, and Cesc all far superior in distribution and possession.  I’d prefer to play Chamakh up top as he adds an extra dimension in the air others not named Bendtner can offer.  Arsenal are so good at holding the ball, they just don’t need to have 2 ball winners in the center.  I do like how Wilshere and Song work together, especially in their flexibility to cover one another, but ultimately, they’d be better served with more pure attack so they can turn their dominance into more goals.  And, hey, you never know when Arshavin will return from his moon pod.

Leeds v Arsenal, 19 Jan 2010 (via ZonalMarking.net)

In sum: take Wilshere off and replace him with Chamakh as a striker up front, meaning Arsenal would be playing a 4-1-4-1 (RVP pulled back from his usual striker position into a 4-man midfield: van Persie and Fabregas in the center (which is attractive), and Nasri and either Walcott or Arshavin on the wings.  More explanation from Larry: “It has the beauty of adding an actual shooter/scorer to the very top of their formation [Chamakh], plus RVP should be able to find a couple of spaces underneath, so he can create some shooting lanes for himself, instead of having a defender right on his hip.  And for when he gets injured, Nasri is more than capable of sliding inside.”

For reference, Arsenal’s starting lineup for this FA Cup match v Leeds was as follows is shown to the right (courtesy of ZonalMarking–click thru on the image for their analysis of the match).  Wenger was forced to bring on van Persie and Fabregas for Chamakh and Arshavin in the 2nd half


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Berbatov’s Manita for Man U (Video & Chalkboard)

December 1, 2010 — by Suman

Berbatov to Blackburn: "Talk to the Hand"

Amid all the pre– and post-El Clasico hype, we’d be remiss not to mention that the Quiet Bulgarian, Dimitar Berbatov, scored una manita himself over the weekend, in a 7-1 thrashing of Blackburn.

The NYT’s Rob Hughes devoted his “On Soccer” column on Monday–titled “Through Feast of Goals, Stealthy Genius Is Revealed“–to Berbatov and his performance:

Teamwork wins matches, but one man’s performance transcended all others Saturday.

Dimitar Berbatov, the Bulgarian in the Manchester United lineup, scored five goals in the 7-1 demolition of Blackburn Rovers.

Five goals, and I swear he spent half the match trying his best to set up a goal for his partner, Wayne Rooney. “It is good to have Wayne back,” Berbatov said after the game. “He knows how I play and I know how he plays, and we understand each other’s game well. We showed it on the field.”

Didn’t they just.

Rooney is returning after he preposterously claimed United did not have the talents to match his ambitions. Berbatov chose Saturday to show Rooney and all the rest who doubt his quality that he is an extraordinarily gifted individual.

He had not scored a goal since mid-September, but on Saturday he scored five, and it could easily have been more. He was a ruthless destroyer with a velvet touch. His goals came in such a variety of ways that poor Blackburn did not know how to stop him, or even where to find him.

See below for two sets of video highlights–a short official version (via Fox Soccer Video) and longer Setanta Sports selection (via footytube)–to watch all five Berbatov goals (plus goals by Korean Park Ji-Sung and Nani).

CommentaryNewsPreview

El Clásico TODAY!

November 29, 2010 — by Suman — 2

The game we’ve all been waiting for kicks off in just over an hour (3pm ET, 9pm local time–at the Camp Nou).  El derbi español, “más conocido como El Clásico“–Barcelona vs Real Madrid, which also means: Catalans vs Castilians, L’Equip Blaugrana vs Los Blancos, La Masia vs Los Galacticos, Los Cules vs Los Madridistas, regionalism vs centralism, Cryuff vs Franco, Guardiola vs Mourinho, Messi vs Ronaldo.

It’s no wonder that Sid Lowe saw the need to talk us down from all the El Clásico hype–before talking it up:

Contrary to what you might have heard, the world will not end on Monday night. The sun will rise on Tuesday morning. And there is life beyond the clásico. It’s just that right now, it doesn’t feel like it — it feels like nothing else matters, like no other games exist, like no other teams do. Every year Barcelona versus Madrid, already the biggest club game in world soccer, seems to get bigger. Even the old title seems worthless now. Derby? No thanks, this is the clásico. It’s even moved on from that. Now it’s the Super Clásico. Carry on like this and soon we’ll run out of superlatives.

And it’s certainly superlative. It’s almost ridiculous….Whichever way you look at it, this is probably the most extraordinary club match there has ever been. Until the next time, at least.

In terms of talent per square meter, you could argue that there has never been a game like it. It is possible that no two teams have ever dominated the planet’s talent like Barcelona and Madrid do now.

To get a better idea of how all that talent will matchup on the field today, take a look at this, which lists five key matchups to watch (1. Carles Puyol/Daniel Alves vs Cristiano Ronaldo/Ángel Di Maria; 2. Javier Mascherano or Sergio Busquets vs Mesut Ozil; 3. Ricardo Carvalho/Pepe versus David Villa; 4. Sami Khedira vs Xavi Hernández; 5. José Mourinho vs Pep Guardiola); or this, which gives a longer and largely different list of matchups–but closes with the same managerial matchup:

"Por que tu es un canalla"

José Mourinho vs. Pep Guardiola from the sidelines, in the locker rooms, in front of the press, and on the training pitch. The Special One is the best in the world outside of Pep or Sir Alex at this point in time. But, it’s hard to pick a clear favorite here being that Mourinho won a Treble last year, while Guardiola won six trophies the season before. Last year, Mourinho won-out eliminating Barcelona from the Champions League. Has Guardiola learned from that lesson? I think he has. However, I see this coaching-bout being a draw between Emperor Mourinho Palpatine and Pep Skywalker Guardiola.

That latter preview also mentions each side’s most-used formations (4-2-3-1 for Real Madrid, 4-3-3 for Barcelona’sand For more on tactics, see Zonal Marking’s detailed tactical preview, which includes the probable starting lineups shown below. For squad statistics, play around with Marca.com’s nice interactive graphic.

FC Barcelona (blue) vs Real Madrid (white)

And for an idea of the historical context surrounding El Clásico, take a look at this column from 2002 by Phil Ball (who wrote Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football):

Not only is the dislike between the two clubs an interesting phenomenon in sporting terms, it also has implications that stray deeply into the sociology and politics of the country. It might not be going too far to say that the strife and struggles between the two clubs from 1905 onwards accurately mirror the very essence of twentieth-century Spanish history. The two cities have always been moving in different directions, partly through bloody-mindedness, partly through political allegiance, but mainly through clear cultural differences.

A supporter of Real Madrid seems a very distinct creature from a supporter of Barcelona, a fact that cannot be attributed wholly to the fact that they probably talk about football in a different language. Madrid is a bourgeois, grand, rather suffocating sort of city on first acquaintance. The surrounding countryside is bleak and bare, – suggestive of some harshness in the citizens. To an outsider it is not a welcoming city – its taxi drivers grumpy and sullen, its waiters coldly efficient, its shops too self-consciously trendy. Madrid was built on and is sustained by the notion of centralisation – in this century exemplified by Franco’s obsessive opposition to regional nationalism, which he regarded as one of the principal reasons for the turmoil of Spain’s ill-fated second republic.

Madrid was symbolically in the geographical centre of the country, put there by Felipe II in the mid-sixteenth century. It is part and parcel of the Madrid-Barcelona morbo that the latter seems to inhabit a different planet. Despite the fact that Madrid has the Prado, the seat of government and the royal family, according to John Hopper’s book The New Spaniards almost all the ideas that have shaped Spain’s modern history – republicanism, federalism, anarchism, syndicalism and communism – have found their way into Spain by way of Catalonia.

Open ThreadTactics

2nd Semifinal, Germany v Spain: Preview/Open Thread

July 7, 2010 — by Suman — 13

Probable starting lineups (via ZonalMarking.net)

We’re just 90 minutes away from kickoff in the 2nd semifinal, to decide who will play the Netherlands in the final game on Sunday.  This matchup between European powers is highly anticipated; more so than yesterday’s Holland-Uruguay match was, but we can only hope that this one lives up to the expectations and turns out to be as exciting as yesterday’s 3-2 victory for Holland.

What better way to get a preview of today’s match than to revisit the finals of the Euro 2008 tournament, played on June 29, 2008 in Vienna’s  Ernst Happel Stadion, when Germany and Spain clashed with nearly as much as stake as today.  Spain prevailed that day 1-0, off a goal by striker Fernando Torres–whose struggles to score in this World Cup have become something of a story line for followers of the Spanish side.

On the other hand, the striker who has been scoring for Spain in this tournament, David Villa, did not even play in that Euro final, due to injury.  And on the other side, Germany’s revelation in the midfield, the young and dynamic Mesut Ozil, was not on the German squad.

Hence the indispensable Zonal Marking begins their tactical preview of today’s match (from whence we’ve pulled the probably starting lineup chart above):

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