real madrid played man city in the q/f of the champions league . real madrid started the game with 4-4-2 formation . real madrid had vinicius and bellingham in the false no.9 role . man city started the game with 4-2-3-1 . why i would say 4 at back even though stones would play as a midfielder while man city had the ball was because that when on defense he would slot back besides dias as the centre back . gaurdiola will always try to put the opposition in quandary. he will try to put something new but still i am not so impressed with him. stones movement will always try to create some chaos in the oppostion ranks most importantly he gives one option in the middle which make the ball movement very easy . even though he has moved stones in the middle pep is still not able to exploit or say exploit the advantage that stones creates in the middle of the park he is just there to help move the ball and press the opposition higher up the pitch but his role still needs to be refined which i hope he will .
whether it be attack or defense it has to be like a well oiled machine where on all the parts are working in tandem with each other then only can perform to the maximum can cause the maximum effect . i remember one famous quote from johan cryuff" playing football the easy way is the most hard way . the other thing is that i often wonder as to why the coach cannot look at what is lacking in terms of the shape or what is the trouble with the formation and what is lacking . madrid were playing with bellingham in no.9 role . the trouble with madrid was that whenever he was coming deep to come help move the ball there was nobody who would bomb beyond him. madrid had rodrygo and valverde as wide players while vinicius likes to operate from the left . he was linking up with rodrygo but they too had a shortcoming which i will discuss later . ancelotti being a veteran tactician that he is could see that there was nobody in the no.9 position and that was hampering his attack . there was nobody around whom they could play or who would be at the end of the crosses or passes in the box . vinicius like to operate from the left and he and rodrygo were combining very nicely . they exploited the space behind the back four for the second goal . but after that they were not that effective . ancelotti too much time to introduce a no.9 in the attack which he should had done very early .
why was i not happy with vinicius and rodrygo's movement . they were combining beautifully to take the ball deep but they were not doing that in the final third . i am presenting some pics with that . first off when rodrygo or vinicius would combine with each other on the left flank but whenever one would pass the ball the other one would stop . what i would like is i would like him to continue with this movement because his movement would create flutter in the opposition flank . his movement distracts the opposition and i think that this where they lacked . had they done that then their pace and ability on the ball can create a lot of problems and most importantly they can take the ball deep and can really a problem for opposition .
man city like to keep the ball and pass it around and just mask their offense as to when they will try to pierce opposition defense . they would push the opposition back so that even when they loose the ball they could press the opposition and win the ball back . in the first half both the team were patient and tried to build up the play and pushed each other back . most importantly the second real goal made gaurdiola think because he had to get his back line a little deep . he moved the back four 10 yards back . in the first half when both teams were patient with their offense .
in the second hand man city were able to press madrid better and were able to pin them back in their half or around their box . they just kept on passing the ball and made madrid lose concentration and that is why both foden and gvardiol got the space at the edge of the box and could punish madrid . kross is very good at distribution of the ball but is not very mobile . he should had been substituted earlier and tchoumeni or modric should had taken his position his position earlier . most importantly i failed to understand as to why ancelotti didnt lash at bellingham as he was slowing down the game . he needed to much more mobile and not walking pace . he should had realized that man city were never going to give him time and space on the ball so he should had just increased the tempo of his game which would had benifited his team . in the second phase ancelotti has to do some major work and if needs to win this tie then he needs to change the players and bring joselu in the team or atleast make bellingham play better .
No comments:
Post a Comment