We all probably agree about that. Barcelona is the best team in the world. It is the best team I have ever seen in 22 years of life. It is the favorite team for this Champions League, and in my opinion, they are going to win again this year. This team plays such a beautiful game, almost a total football, quickly, marvelous. Guardiola is an excellent coach and he has a lot of credit for the amazing work done by his team. Pep got prepared for the job, studied, traveled to Mexico, traveled to Argentina to learn and talk with people such as Bielsa and Menotti.
It is interesting to describe here a play repeated a lot by Barcelona today to be able to unblock the Arsenal;'s defensive system. Basically, the play is the following: when Xavi or Iniesta receives the ball in the midfield, Pedro or Villa, whoever were in the side of the ball, since the team is constantly moving, runs back towards the midfield, bring the defender along with him and opening free spaces for the overlapping of the "side defenders" with extremely speed and effectiveness, crossing the box Daniel Alves and Adriano received each one at least four excellent passes under these conditions, with this play. Check out below, first without the opponent team, and then, with the Arsenal players in the chart as well.
By getting today's game as an example, we can see one of the various by which Barcelona creates free spaces in the field.
Like Ronaldo said on his twitter, it is practically impossible to achieve such a level of perfection and ability to play together in the current world of soccer. That's why Barcelona is going to be in the history of soccer. One fact that made a difference in 2010 and almost made a difference in a negative way is that Barcelona does not have a decisive striker to decide games at this level. In 2009, Eto'o was in the team, deciding games and scoring at decisive moments for Barcelona. In order to refresh his squad, Guardiola brought Ibrahimovic. It didn't work because there was a contrast between the individualism of the swedish and the collective game of Barca, in addition to personal problems between Ibra and Guardiola. This year, the team has David Villa, who played a very poor game and would be the main blamed if Barcelona were knocked out today. Villa is good, but Eto'o plays at a higher level.
This Barcelona is amazing, and they deserve it. They are likely to go to Wembley again, where they won their first Sampdoria in 1992 and won its first primeira Champions League.
I say they are doing very well without Etoo, messi has a license to roam, making him even more dangerous and on a good night, villa is just as effective and deadly, if not more, striker as etoo. Then there's iniesta and his passes...wow!! I can watch barca all day....
ReplyDeleteOverall, I do agree with you. What I meant is that Eto'o is used to score on decisive games. He scored in the UCL final in 2006 and 2010. Villa, on the other hand, from my point of view, does not seem to be able to see this guy that is going to score if Messi for some reason is not able to.
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