On a Saturday evening, in the capital of Spain, I live-streamed in 4k a rather young FC Barcelona coming and conquering.
The game started and the players in white were finding their feet on the green grass of the Bernabeu but were getting caught off-side. A few big chances were missed, thanks to Inaki Pena standing between the sticks because of Ter Stegen’s long-term injury.
Performance-wise, the first half was even and the score turned out to be nil-nil after the first 45 minutes. Then, Hansi Flick’s changes came in the form of Fermin Lopez getting out and De Jong coming on. The state of the game was changed from then on.
Goals came in one after another while Real Madrid struggled to keep up. Hansi Flick’s principles came in to show why they are worth sticking to. Principles? Yes, principles. Let’s talk about them and dive deeper into how Hansi outclassed Ancelotti tactically.
FC Barcelona Thrashes Los Blancos 4-0: A Tactical Analysis
Exploiting the White’s Flawed Pressing
Going Aggressive but That Didn’t Work Either
Coming into the Second Half That Changed Everything
Exploiting the White’s Flawed Pressing
Let me start with explaining the flawed pressing: a press that only is a pressing one player and doesn’t cut out any passing lane to the players in front of the backline.
How did that happen in the recent El Clasico? Vinicius was pressing, while Mbappe’s work rate in the press was negligible. The press from Vinicius was very linear. The only problem for one of Barca’s center-backs was that they had to pass the ball quickly and were quite successful.
Passes were reaching Pedri and Casado’s double pivot, causing a ruckus in the midfield. It was easy for Barca to penetrate from the middle of Madrid’s defense.
Ancelotti seeing this changed something and that was making their midfield compact. They were successful in that and the penetration from the middle was minimized but still something was going on through the middle.
But then it created another problem – the compact midfield from Real Madrid left the flanks with a ton of space. Kounde and Balde both were ready to eat that space with attacking moves. Balde’s pace and Kounde’s general composure in the opposition half at wider regions were causing problems for Los Blancos.
Going Aggressive but That Didn’t Work Either
Watching this easy control of the game in the midfield and flanks, Ancelotti tasked his team to be more aggressive. The center backs in the white jersey were marking and pressing the number 10s of Barca (Fermin, Raphinha, and Pedri).
I missed most of that part of the game, but I needed to rewatch it for this analysis. I rewatched the match through my high-speed Xfinity Internet which offers fiber-based connectivity, affordable plans without the fuss of contracts, and 24/7 available Xfinity servicio al cliente tailored for Spanish speakers living in the US.
Anyhow, when I rewatched the game, it turned out that sometimes that aggressive style of defense was effective but most of the time the Los Blancos were struggling to keep up. One cheeky move from the mentioned midfielders and Real Madrid was dangerously exposed to spaces in situations that were numerically superior for Barca.
Though there were multiple attacks from both sides, nothing resulted in the conversion.
Coming Into the Second Half That Changed Everything
Even though the first-half efforts were futile from both sides, Barca implemented the same plan again and remained tidy. This time, Frenkie De Jong came on for Fermin Lopez and that changed the game.
The center-backs were pressing high but due to the lack of communication, one pass came over and disrupted the whole back line while finding the free Robert waiting to turn into a goal.
The game went on. Sometimes the sloppy defending, and other times the brilliance of a well-oiled machine from Barca added goals to make the score line look like this: 4-0 in favor of Barcelona.
The Final: Maintaining the Lead
Real Madrid tried their best to attack the spaces left behind by the highline of FC Barcelona. Vinicius on one flank and Mbappe in the center coupled with the aid from Vazquez tried their best to turn the game upright but Flick had a plan going off the ball.
The plan was to catch them offside and that did happen quite a lot of the time. Mbappe alone was caught offside on eight occasions.
Apart from the offside trap, the compact structure of FC Barcelona proved to be quite significant when defending. Unlike Real Madrid, they knew where they had to defend.
Since the flanks from Mendy and Vazquez were wasted, they were happy to leave the spaces and defend right in the middle where they were vulnerable. And that proved to be significantly beneficial for the Blaugrana.
They kept on defending the central zones and Madrid wasn’t able to score a goal. So, the score line remained 4-0 until the full-time whistle was blown by the match referee Jose Maria Sanchez.