Lliga: Levante - FC Barcelona 0-5

[jairzinho]

This was so simple, perhaps we should have played more of the youngsters instead.

 

[BerkeleyBernie]

Did you guys notice how much better 19 year old Sandro played compared to Pedro? He was making runs, dragging defenders, taking his man on. And most importantly, being a goal scoring threat

Munir vs Apoel Syndrome (aka top man inside the bus).

Don't get me wrong- I'm *very* impressed with Sandro (more so than Munir, to be honest). Strong, tall, fast, an excellent touch to kill hard passes to his feet and turn, intelligent link-up positioning and accurate clever passing. Happy to see him get plenty of game time. But you need to watch all the forwards and what they do throughout the game, *not* just when someone tries to get the ball to them. They are all making runs, all the time, it's just that 90% of the time, they don't receive a pass ("invisible").

In the case of deep defenses, and with Lucho's new tactic of having the forwards play more centrally, Messi is playing mostly in the space behind the other forwards; one forward is positioned center, smack on the defensive line, holding one or both centerbacks; the other forward is roaming more to the outside,looking to receive the ball and attack, or make diagonal runs in behind. Whoever has the roaming role is the one to see most of the crosses and passes; the one in the center is invisible most of the time, looking to link up or rush the box to poach when the play comes inside. That was Munir's role vs Apoel, and Pedro's role today.

It will be interesting to see how Suarez handles that center role. He's certainly more likely to be able to play back to goal and beat two centerbacks than any of the other forwards, but it's still a difficult role in Barça's current system.

 

[FC B]

This was so simple, perhaps we should have played more of the youngsters instead.

Barca struggled quite a bit up until the first goal in the late first half. Tough game til 2-0...

 

[Bucky]

It was a case of having to wear them down, by the second half their defense looked like they had given up. Feel like the right is still a bit lacking and hopefully Suarez will patch it up and include the depth we drastically need there to add another dimension of attack.