Barcelona vs Bayern Munich:
Pep Must Brace an Injured Bayern
WHY THE BEST DRAW?
All three of the preseason favorites to win this year’s Champions League--Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich--have arrived at the semifinals.
Two of them are playing each other.
It is a provable statement that the two teams that face off this Wednesday have been the best-performing teams in the Champions League over the past half decade.
The following is a straightforward point system for each year of participation in the Champions League from the 2009-2010 season to the 2013-2014 season:
0 points: didn’t qualify
1 point: group stage exit
2 points: lost in round of 16
3 points: lost in quarterfinal
4 points: lost in semifinal
5 points: lost in final
6 points: winner
Based on the above, the top five teams in terms of Champions League performance over the last five years are:
22 points - Bayern Munich
21 points - Barcelona
19 points - Real Madrid
16 points - Chelsea
14 points - Manchester United
(Juventus is not in the top ten and has 4 points)
It is no accident that Bayern’s ascendance in the Champions League during this time coincides neatly with Robben joining Ribery there in 2009. The pair of Bayern wingers have been comparably important to Xavi and Iniesta during their memorable stretch of form from 2008-2013 for Barcelona. Unfortunately, Robben will most likely not feature again this season due to a calf injury, and Ribery, who’s recovering from continued ankle problems, may only see action in next week’s match in Munich.
While these injuries prevent this tie from being the clash of titans it could have been, the matchup is this round’s The Best Draw because it is the much more interesting semifinal, in the tactical sense.
Bayern coach Pep Guardiola is tasked to create what will need to be an ingenious, and, most likely, uncharacteristically defensive strategy, in order to avoid being completely overrun by one of the most potent attacking trios in recent memory, who can’t seem to do anything of late but score heaps of goals.
Juventus, without Pogba, will most likely slow that semifinal down and look to stifle Madrid, a strategy we’ve recently seen Atletico Madrid employ against them, only Juventus will likely sit back even deeper.
TACTICAL ASPECTS
Barca’s Attacking Trio
It could be a couple of years before teams figure out how to stop Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. Having scored a grand sum of 109 goals in all competitions this year, and eleven in the last two games, the scariest part is that Suarez, last season’s English Premier League player of the year at Liverpool, has only recently hit his stride for Barcelona.
While the problem presented by two dominant wingers was discussed in the last round in relation to Madrid’s Ronaldo and Bale, Suarez has been creating almost as much havoc himself centrally of late as have Neymar and Messi on their flanks. Playing with boundless energy, Suarez’s runs have been effective in all four directions. He has been holding the ball up well when he checks back into the midfield, linking up effectively with wing defenders Alba and especially Alves, laying it back to Iniesta or alert to the type of sudden runs Rakitic makes. He is also comfortable (albeit a bit impatient) waiting on the final defender, looking to get on the end of a lob or a diagonally played ball. When he flays out to Neymar’s wing, Suarez seems intent on keeping Neymar’s streaking runs towards goal alive with his positioning or a quick touch back to the winger, while on Messi’s side, he adapts to the star’s preference to slow the game down and make darting runs, often combining aptly or dragging a defender or two beyond, so that Messi has additional space to work in towards the center of the pitch and his preferred left foot.
The last thing that makes Suarez the potentially perfect fit for a Barcelona team that never seems to fully accept strikers, is his defensive output. Suarez’s understanding of Barcelona’s defensive style, involving bursts of concerted pressure after losing the ball, seems to come naturally to him, and his pressure lead to Barcelona’s last goal against PSG.
Pep’s Hypothetical Attempt to be ‘Defensive’
Perhaps the game’s best offensive coach, Pep Guardiola’s tactical strength is designing formations that push additional players into the midfield, keeping his rivals guessing and creating a scattering of overloads that often ends up overwhelming his on-field opponents and their coach. This year, his experimental tactics have gone beyond the limits of what he dared at Barca, often holding only Dante and Boateng back, leaving only Lewandowski up, and giving license to all seven of his other field players to work well into midfield space.
Against Barcelona’s current manifestation and missing multiple important players (David Alaba is also out, and if Lewandowski plays it will be with a mask covering a still-broken jaw and nose), his customary approach seems likely to backfire spectacularly, as it did in last year’s semifinal against Madrid. If you took the best three attackers in the rest of the Bundesliga, they couldn’t hold a candle to Barca’s trio, and neither is coach Luis Enrique’s attack spare, leaving pivot Busquets just ahead of Pique and Mascherano as the only three men who stay put.
While conventional wisdom says Pep will need to build solidly from the back to brace themselves for, as his best defender Jerome Boateng recently dubbed it, Barcelona’s “exceptional storm,” one gets the sense conventional wisdom does not play a particularly integral aspect of Bayern’s current approach.
So what will Pep do? Looking to some of his team’s past games may indicate some of the ideas he’s toying with, because having never lost hold of the Bundesliga this season, he has the luxury to use games as tactical dress rehearsals. Pep seems to be considering using three central backs, with two supplementary wing players committed to defending, but also joining into the midfield fray. On Messi’s side, he’s recently tried Rafinha as a right center back, with Bernat outside him. Putting two quick men with low centers of gravity between Messi and the goal could be an attempt to put a damper on the star’s enthusiasm, which sometimes abandons him. On the other side of the field, Pep seems to be toying with the idea of employing the young, pacy and recently impressive Weiser on Neymar’s side, with Benatio behind him. Both cover ideas may simply be experiments, but they likely indicate that Pep’s looking at how to absorb pressure against a team that, in his own words, “No defence can stop.”
Guardiola has three options with unprecedented pedigree for his midfield: Xavi Alonso, Phillip Lahm and Bastien Schweinsteiger. Although Alonso is usually Bayern’s pivot anchor, and is key for retaining possession with his ability to play calmly out of pressure, at 33, he may not be suitable for this contest despite his fine defensive positioning, as Barca change their origin of attack so rapidly they may be able to expose his limited mobility. Schweinsteiger and Javi Martinez (he may feature having just returned from injury, but will most likely be used during the return leg) were the key men in Bayern’s two-leg, 7-0 thrashing of Barcelona in that Champions League semifinal two years ago when then coach Jupp Heynckes lined them up as the two holders in a 4-2-3-1. They harried and fouled Messi, Xavi and Iniesta as if it was the last game of football they would ever play, and Bayern turned the tide on that era of Barca dominance, an era refined most notably by Guardiola.
An in-form Tiago Alcantara may be used to assist the striker(s), or an out-of-form Gotze. Thomas Muller, it should be noted, scored three of the seven goals in the 2013 semifinal demolition of Barca.
Possession
During Pep Guardiola’s reign at Barcelona, he had them playing a ‘tiki-taka’ style that so thoroughly demoralized the opposition with disproportionate ball possession and frenetic pressing, that many started questioning if they weren’t the best team ever. Toward the end of his four years, though, teams began to show signs of figuring out ways to stifle them, and at Bayern Pep has looked to evolve his attack to be accustomed to countering when the opportunity presents itself.
Since Pep has left, Barcelona have also retooled their roster with players, in particular Neymar (and before him Alexis Sanchez), that thrive on the counter. While both Bayern (60%) and Barca (62%) are accustomed to having much more of the ball than their normally weaker opponents, it will be interesting to see if either team is comfortable conceding possession--most likely neither team will be.
SUBPLOTS/INTANGIBLES:
Pep Must Brace an Injured Bayern
WHY THE BEST DRAW?
All three of the preseason favorites to win this year’s Champions League--Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich--have arrived at the semifinals.
Two of them are playing each other.
It is a provable statement that the two teams that face off this Wednesday have been the best-performing teams in the Champions League over the past half decade.
The following is a straightforward point system for each year of participation in the Champions League from the 2009-2010 season to the 2013-2014 season:
0 points: didn’t qualify
1 point: group stage exit
2 points: lost in round of 16
3 points: lost in quarterfinal
4 points: lost in semifinal
5 points: lost in final
6 points: winner
Based on the above, the top five teams in terms of Champions League performance over the last five years are:
22 points - Bayern Munich
21 points - Barcelona
19 points - Real Madrid
16 points - Chelsea
14 points - Manchester United
(Juventus is not in the top ten and has 4 points)
It is no accident that Bayern’s ascendance in the Champions League during this time coincides neatly with Robben joining Ribery there in 2009. The pair of Bayern wingers have been comparably important to Xavi and Iniesta during their memorable stretch of form from 2008-2013 for Barcelona. Unfortunately, Robben will most likely not feature again this season due to a calf injury, and Ribery, who’s recovering from continued ankle problems, may only see action in next week’s match in Munich.
While these injuries prevent this tie from being the clash of titans it could have been, the matchup is this round’s The Best Draw because it is the much more interesting semifinal, in the tactical sense.
Bayern coach Pep Guardiola is tasked to create what will need to be an ingenious, and, most likely, uncharacteristically defensive strategy, in order to avoid being completely overrun by one of the most potent attacking trios in recent memory, who can’t seem to do anything of late but score heaps of goals.
Juventus, without Pogba, will most likely slow that semifinal down and look to stifle Madrid, a strategy we’ve recently seen Atletico Madrid employ against them, only Juventus will likely sit back even deeper.
TACTICAL ASPECTS
Barca’s Attacking Trio
It could be a couple of years before teams figure out how to stop Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. Having scored a grand sum of 109 goals in all competitions this year, and eleven in the last two games, the scariest part is that Suarez, last season’s English Premier League player of the year at Liverpool, has only recently hit his stride for Barcelona.
While the problem presented by two dominant wingers was discussed in the last round in relation to Madrid’s Ronaldo and Bale, Suarez has been creating almost as much havoc himself centrally of late as have Neymar and Messi on their flanks. Playing with boundless energy, Suarez’s runs have been effective in all four directions. He has been holding the ball up well when he checks back into the midfield, linking up effectively with wing defenders Alba and especially Alves, laying it back to Iniesta or alert to the type of sudden runs Rakitic makes. He is also comfortable (albeit a bit impatient) waiting on the final defender, looking to get on the end of a lob or a diagonally played ball. When he flays out to Neymar’s wing, Suarez seems intent on keeping Neymar’s streaking runs towards goal alive with his positioning or a quick touch back to the winger, while on Messi’s side, he adapts to the star’s preference to slow the game down and make darting runs, often combining aptly or dragging a defender or two beyond, so that Messi has additional space to work in towards the center of the pitch and his preferred left foot.
The last thing that makes Suarez the potentially perfect fit for a Barcelona team that never seems to fully accept strikers, is his defensive output. Suarez’s understanding of Barcelona’s defensive style, involving bursts of concerted pressure after losing the ball, seems to come naturally to him, and his pressure lead to Barcelona’s last goal against PSG.
Pep’s Hypothetical Attempt to be ‘Defensive’
Perhaps the game’s best offensive coach, Pep Guardiola’s tactical strength is designing formations that push additional players into the midfield, keeping his rivals guessing and creating a scattering of overloads that often ends up overwhelming his on-field opponents and their coach. This year, his experimental tactics have gone beyond the limits of what he dared at Barca, often holding only Dante and Boateng back, leaving only Lewandowski up, and giving license to all seven of his other field players to work well into midfield space.
Against Barcelona’s current manifestation and missing multiple important players (David Alaba is also out, and if Lewandowski plays it will be with a mask covering a still-broken jaw and nose), his customary approach seems likely to backfire spectacularly, as it did in last year’s semifinal against Madrid. If you took the best three attackers in the rest of the Bundesliga, they couldn’t hold a candle to Barca’s trio, and neither is coach Luis Enrique’s attack spare, leaving pivot Busquets just ahead of Pique and Mascherano as the only three men who stay put.
While conventional wisdom says Pep will need to build solidly from the back to brace themselves for, as his best defender Jerome Boateng recently dubbed it, Barcelona’s “exceptional storm,” one gets the sense conventional wisdom does not play a particularly integral aspect of Bayern’s current approach.
So what will Pep do? Looking to some of his team’s past games may indicate some of the ideas he’s toying with, because having never lost hold of the Bundesliga this season, he has the luxury to use games as tactical dress rehearsals. Pep seems to be considering using three central backs, with two supplementary wing players committed to defending, but also joining into the midfield fray. On Messi’s side, he’s recently tried Rafinha as a right center back, with Bernat outside him. Putting two quick men with low centers of gravity between Messi and the goal could be an attempt to put a damper on the star’s enthusiasm, which sometimes abandons him. On the other side of the field, Pep seems to be toying with the idea of employing the young, pacy and recently impressive Weiser on Neymar’s side, with Benatio behind him. Both cover ideas may simply be experiments, but they likely indicate that Pep’s looking at how to absorb pressure against a team that, in his own words, “No defence can stop.”
Guardiola has three options with unprecedented pedigree for his midfield: Xavi Alonso, Phillip Lahm and Bastien Schweinsteiger. Although Alonso is usually Bayern’s pivot anchor, and is key for retaining possession with his ability to play calmly out of pressure, at 33, he may not be suitable for this contest despite his fine defensive positioning, as Barca change their origin of attack so rapidly they may be able to expose his limited mobility. Schweinsteiger and Javi Martinez (he may feature having just returned from injury, but will most likely be used during the return leg) were the key men in Bayern’s two-leg, 7-0 thrashing of Barcelona in that Champions League semifinal two years ago when then coach Jupp Heynckes lined them up as the two holders in a 4-2-3-1. They harried and fouled Messi, Xavi and Iniesta as if it was the last game of football they would ever play, and Bayern turned the tide on that era of Barca dominance, an era refined most notably by Guardiola.
An in-form Tiago Alcantara may be used to assist the striker(s), or an out-of-form Gotze. Thomas Muller, it should be noted, scored three of the seven goals in the 2013 semifinal demolition of Barca.
Possession
During Pep Guardiola’s reign at Barcelona, he had them playing a ‘tiki-taka’ style that so thoroughly demoralized the opposition with disproportionate ball possession and frenetic pressing, that many started questioning if they weren’t the best team ever. Toward the end of his four years, though, teams began to show signs of figuring out ways to stifle them, and at Bayern Pep has looked to evolve his attack to be accustomed to countering when the opportunity presents itself.
Since Pep has left, Barcelona have also retooled their roster with players, in particular Neymar (and before him Alexis Sanchez), that thrive on the counter. While both Bayern (60%) and Barca (62%) are accustomed to having much more of the ball than their normally weaker opponents, it will be interesting to see if either team is comfortable conceding possession--most likely neither team will be.
SUBPLOTS/INTANGIBLES:
- There is almost no doubt Luis Enrique will play his customary 4-3-3, with no changes to the starters who demolished Cordoba 8-0 at the weekend, except for a goalie swap.
- Neuer, widely considered the best goalkeeper in the world, won the Golden Glove at the 2014 World Cup, the German Footballer of the Year, and was third behind Ronaldo and Messi in the Balon d’Or voting. He sometimes moonlights, midgame, as a sweeper.
- This year, Neymar, Suarez and Messi have also combined to assist 44 goals, mostly to each other.
- Bayern Munich have lost their last two games, 0-2 to Bayern Leverkusen at the weekend, and, more significantly, they were knocked out of the German DFB-Pokal Cup semifinal by rivals Borrusia Dortmund last week in penalties, after a 1-1 draw.
- Xavi, formerly Barca’s ‘tiki-taka’ ringleader, now serves as essentially a late-game closer, upping possession when Barca is winning to lull the contest towards its eventuality.