Aleix Vidal
- Thread starter Behrox
- Start date
khaled_a_d
Senior Member
I understand where you coming from,just saying that poor planning was overrating a player.
And De Sciglio missed half of the 14/15 season.After the Vermaelen signing the club was never going after another injury prone player.
I would take having a weakness in a position over changing the whole system for it tbh
serghei
Senior Member
Depends how that weakness manifests. If Bob and Vidal make a mistake from time to time it's not a big problem. But if they do make mistakes often and show positional problems (like Vidal is showing pretty much every game), then I would find a way to change the system.
God Serena
New member
If Bob and Vidal really prove so horrible we should look to give Palencia a shot at RB and if he doesn't work out I would then consider playing a 3-4-3.
BBZ8800
Senior Member
Changing a system brings way more problems than having a one weak spot.
Imo, even if Roberto/Vidal will be as poor like Montoya, they will still be good enough for 20-25 matches out of 38 (against Getafe and similar teams).
But there is no way that they could be that bad.
Also, about 343 with Alba+Neymar on left and only Messi on the right, I am afraid that we would make one step back towards good old outdated TikiTaka, since we would have even more players positioned centrally than today (Roberto/Vidal out).
That means more and more possession, more and more slow actions, more and more Boeings from our opponent's infront of their box, more and more attempts from our team through the middle over and over.
(Also, Rakitic probably babysitting on the right flank again)
Also, I am afraid that Messi will start to play more centrally again.
(In fact, I am scared that he will move to the center both in 433 with Roberto/Vidal and in 343).
And when Messi is in the middle in 2016 and upcoming years, it usually ends as a disaster against big teams in a CL.
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Total-Football
Senior Member
yall talk about switching formations like playing video games .. This is barca we are talking about, 4-3-3 is not a formation , it's the identity of the club, Young players are nurtured since the very beginning to play the diamond.. the only question is how to play it .. small détails, like : are we playing a classical 9 or a false 9 , are we playing classical wingers , forwards as wingers , or even midfielders in the wings .. that is all .. Last time i remember a Barca coach experimenting the 3-4-3 was Rickard in the anfield against Liverpool in 2007 ( no left backs ), the result was not only flattering , it was hilarious , if you don't believe me go Watch the highlights on youtube , it could have been and should have been 3 or 4 nil by halftime , It was THAT bad for barca . The 3-4-3 is a set up conceived for defensive tems , it' about playing 3 center backs , closing down spaces and playing on the counters, who plays the system as of 2016 ? Juventus , and Italy .. do they play any type of offensive football ? No . the talk of Playing Messi in midfield and all those Pro soccer formations would never happen because they are unrealistic , sure Messi can be pushed back to midfield , but in this case the number of forwards would automatically go from 3 to 2 and messi some sort of a free offensive player even if he sat deep. and this is already happening right now he's more of a midfielder.
back to the original idea .. No , Barca will always play with fullback and 2 center backs .. 4-3-3 is what you will always see with some minor modifications , 3-4-3 that you will never see
back to the original idea .. No , Barca will always play with fullback and 2 center backs .. 4-3-3 is what you will always see with some minor modifications , 3-4-3 that you will never see
Blaugrana Bull
HiiiPoWeR
You must have missed plenty of Pep games then. If you would ask him about his favorite game he had as a Barca manager, he would probably tell you about the 8:0 against Osasuna or the 4:0 against Santos. Both times we played 3-4-3 with a diamond in midfield.
I think that was Pep's dream formation and basically the reason he wanted Cesc because he wanted a "vertical" midfielder on top of the diamond. Unfortunately it works better on paper than it does against the big teams in the biggest games.
I think that was Pep's dream formation and basically the reason he wanted Cesc because he wanted a "vertical" midfielder on top of the diamond. Unfortunately it works better on paper than it does against the big teams in the biggest games.
Total-Football
Senior Member
Ossasuna at home, santos and those b caliber teams cant give you the measure of a formation.. pep never used 3 at the back in any "close to tough" game.. the idea of playing cesc as a vertical midfielder didnt work "only on paper".. it worked fine for the spanish national team.. and the finals against netherland and especially against italy are a tangible proof
Blaugrana Bull
HiiiPoWeR
You basically repeated what I wrote in the last two sentences.
xXKonan
Senior Member
In a couple of the smaller games last season (2015/16) we did play a 4-2-3-1 vs Espanyol during the away game in the Copa Del Rey, where Munir scored a brace.
and vs Valencia at the Mestalla during the Copa we played a 3-5-2 with Mathieu-Verm-Bartra as our CB's and Samper-Roberto as a Double Pivot in the Midfield.
and vs Valencia at the Mestalla during the Copa we played a 3-5-2 with Mathieu-Verm-Bartra as our CB's and Samper-Roberto as a Double Pivot in the Midfield.
Total-Football
Senior Member
I thought you were talking about 4 3 3 with cesc roaming upfront instead of the usual 9.. because delbosque did that a lot.. but if you were talking about 3 -4-3 with cesc upfront then my bad .
Messi983
Senior Member
You've missed an important part of this club history if you think 4-3-3 is the only formation that has given us success.
Anyway, formation itself is really not that important, it's what type of players are playing and what are their roles that define whether you play offensive or defensive. For example, 4-2-3-1 is the most used formation nowadays but you can play it with Pep's tiki-taka style (in Bayern, where he had the real "9" in Lewa) or parking the bus (Mourinho) way. On the paper both Pep and Mou play the same formation, on the pitch there is a big difference. One is playing with 60-70% possesion, the other one with around 30-40% but both are feeling confident with the way their teams are playing. Most people consider one style as offensive and other as defensive, although there are people who says that Pep's tiki-taka is also defensive. And they are not totally wrong. Pep himself has admited that keeping possesion is the best defense for him as the opponents can't score if they don't have the ball.
3-4-3 in their original form is actually too offensive for todays football. Cruyff said 25 or so years ago that he prefers 5-4 win over 1-0 win. And high results were very normal in his days. Nowadays more teams prefers to win 1-0. Sadly, but true. Euro was the best proof of that. Most spectators considered tournament dissapointing because there was not enough action and goals but if you ask coaches most of them will say football was tactically well executed and that they learned a lot. It's just the way toward football is developing right now. 5-7 years ago everyone was trying to copy tiki-taka because we were successfull. Most of the teams couldn't really work it that way because they didn't have as much talent (Xaviesta+Messi) as we've had. So they started to look for systems that would neutralize tiki-taka and eventually they've succeded. That's why Lucho has gone some steps away from pure tiki-taka to again make us successfull. But again, he couldn't have done that without as much talent as we have and other teams don't have MSN so they will just continue to play their way. Even Pep has started to adapt his philosophy in Bayern and he'll have to do it even more now that he'll coach in a more competitive league.
You mentioned Italy and Juventus. They play 3-5-2 which is turned to 5-3-2 when defending as both wingbacks (Liechtsteiner-Evra in Juve and Florenzi-Darmian in Italy) pull back. That said, I acutally think Italy has played some solid football in that formation in Euro, especially considering the fact they were without their best midfielder (Verratti) and without good strikers. It will be also interesting to see how Alves will work in Juve system. But again, this Italy/Juve 3-5-2 system that you consider defensive has absolutely nothing to do with 3-4-3 played in Cruyff''s time and if we'll ever play 3-4-3 again it will be a lot more similar to Cruyff's formation than Juve.
Look for another example: Sampaoli has played 3-5-2 with Chile (we'll see if he'll stick with that now in Sevilla) and you can't say they've been playing defensive. So as I said above, it's more about players and their roles than just formations.
Our current team is the best suited for 4-3-3, there is no doubt about that. But we have enough talented and versatile players to play other formations like 4-2-3-1 (as was mentioned above we actually played that formation in some games last season and we could play it again as Rakitić is well suited to play DM alongside Busquets; and we could also play Masche or maybe Samper there), 4-4-2 (with diamond in the midfield and Messi as »10«) or 3-4-3. We won't play any of that formations longterm because we'd have to make some pretty big changes in our squad to make that happen (especially have enough depth for playing those systems) but we can play in different formations in some games.
Adapting formation to players is good and what smart coaches do when neccessary (longterm injuries or suspensions) or if they think they can play better that way against certain opponent(s). What is killing coaches is when they try to adapt players to fit them into their favourite formation. That usually ends with players playing way out of their position/comfort zone.
I think if we play 3-4-3 or better said 3-1-2-1-3 with MAtS; Masche-Pique-Umtiti/Mathieu; Busquets; Rakitic-Iniesta; Messi; Arda/Denis/Rafinha-Suarez-Neymar or something similar (we could also just play 4 midfielders with Iniesta probably the most advanced of them and MSN in attack) in some games it would work as all of the players that would play »out of positions« in this case (Messi as »10« and whoever of the mentioned would play RW) are all used to play that position. Of course the team should train that formation for some time before playing it in serious games.
No you're wrong
PEP has used that formation in big games
2011-12 vs milan group stages where we won 3-2
he played
puyol masche abidal
xavi busquets keita
cesc
thiago messi villa
i loved how we played that game though defensively fragile as well
also in the same season el classico, 3-1 second half, alves was pushed forward exclusively as a winger and we turned from 1-1 to 3-1
puyol masche Abidal
Alves Busquets Xavi iniesta
alexis messi cesc
Total-Football
Senior Member
[MENTION=20484]gasgas[/MENTION] well i fucked up .. indeed we did play 3-4-3 Under guardiolan you're right .. i do remember the games you mentioned against milan and the second half against real Madrid when Alves was pushed forward .. my bad , but still , using a formation a couple of games in a season is making it the "odd formation" , i wouldn't say we truly played a certain formation unless we play it at least a part of the season and this has not been the case.
plenty of times pep deployed Alves exclusively as a winger with Abidal sliding back as a third CB.
i recall a certain game vs Valencia where we ended up drawing 2-2 with an Abidal own goal
Point is, he used it plenty of times
it may ve been 4-3-3 on paper but through 90 mins it was 4-3-3
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