With many observers believing red-hot favourites Barcelona will beat Juventus and lift the Champions Legaue trophy this Saturday evening, a look back at La Liga would suggest that the Blaugrana have been unpicked by one team at least this season, Malaga.
In their two domestic meetings, the Albicelestes have won 1-0 and drawn 0-0 with the Spanish Champions, suggesting that Luis Enrique’s side is far from unbeatable.
A quick look at those games show how Javi Gracia’s men managed to stop the Barcelona goal machine and come away with two results, keeping a clean sheet in both encounters.
A disciplined and tightly compacted team out of possession
One element that helped Malaga stop the likes of Neymar, Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez from ripping them open was to have men behind the ball but in a very tight and compact fashion.
Looking at our first image we notice that all of the players are behind the ball and you can see a very distinct 4-4-2 formation. This is the same whether Barca have the ball on the half way line or around the edge of the 18 yard box.
This shouldn’t be an issue for Juventus who have a strong defensive ethic and should they deploy a wing back system rather than a flat back four, players such as Patrice Evra and Stephan Lichtsteiner will have no problem in making sure they get back behind the ball.
In our second image, the state of this compactness is even more marked as the Andalucian side still has the discipline to remain in a tight formation despite the ball going out wide to Jordi Alba on the left flank.
The defending team keeps its 6v4 advantage in the danger area and resists the temptation to send too many players out wide to stop the attacking full back.
This again should suit the Bianconeri who, if they deploy a 3-5-2 system, should always have their trio of centre backs and the three central midfielders dropping deep when the Catalan side look to get the ball out wide.
The danger here would be if one of those central defenders was forced to come out of the box and try and stop the full back leaving the Barcelona forwards a bit more space then they would normally have around Gianluigi Buffon’s goal.
Again, the work rate of Evra and Lichtsteiner will be critical here and the game may well be won or lost via the wing backs and how well they interpret their roles.
Quick and immediate switches of play when in possession
So, having seen how to potentially stop the Spaniards, the Italian champions must also try to score.
Malaga managed to put their opponents in huge difficulties by using the space created on the ‘weak’ side of the field (i.e the area of the pitch furthest from the ball) with quick passes out to their fast attacking players.
Our final image shows how a ball won on the edge of their own area became a dangerous situation which put the Barcelona team under pressure.
After having regained possession, deep in their own half, the Albicelestes play a pass out into space on the left side of the pitch to instigate a counter. They manage to work the ball up to the edge of the Barca penalty box and incredibly find themselves in a 5v3 scenario which puts Luis Enrique’s defence firmly on the back foot.
These are situations where the passing ability of Andrea Pirlo (and Claudio Marchisio) can really hurt Barca, if he is able to get possession in deep areas and look to find Carlos Tevez and perhaps Alvaro Morata with an immediate cross field pass.
The would allow the attackers the chance of a run into their opponents half and with the lung-busting energy of Arturo Vidal, Paul Pogba and Marchisio to join the strikers, opportunities will be created to exploit an unbalanced Barca rear guard.
Coach Massimiliano Allgeri will be well aware that when playing Barcelona his side will be spending much of its time defending in its own half . It will be vital that the team remains calm and organised when under pressure but alert enough to make the most of the opportunities that will inevitably come their way over the course of 90 minutes.
No mission is ever impossible, Malaga has proved it.. Twice!
Adapted from an article by @FabrizioFERRARI, editor of allenatore.net, for Calciomercato.com
