CL | 1/4 Final: FC Barcelona - FC Bayern Munich 2-8

[Andresito]

Vidal - Busquets - FDJ should be the starting midfield.

I think so too. In that setup all players have a certain role. Roberto is just a fill-out player in midfield.

[FinBarcelonafan]

I think so too. In that setup all players have a certain role. Roberto is just a fill-out player in midfield.

Who is better? Roberto or Griezmann? Griez helps the defense a lot but do we need more control over the tempo of the game? I think so. We should be trying to control the game and tempo. Adding one midfielder could help achieve that.

[serghei]

I think so too. In that setup all players have a certain role. Roberto is just a fill-out player in midfield.

Put in Roberto too and play 4-4-2 for this game. Griezmann Messi in attack. Drop Suarez. This way we'll have a reasonably energetic team.

[Vilarrubi]

Bayern Squad for Quarters:

[FinBarcelonafan]

All right, so looking at this:

Bayern lost the last time in 2019 vs Bayer Leverkusen and BORUSSIA M'GLADBACH. 2-1 each.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkY66hYfutc

vs Bayer Leverkusen, Leverkusen scores two breakaway goals to put them over the top. (We can't do this, because Suarez is slow.)

vs BORUSSIA M'GLADBACH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfDrWK0_Kwg

Scores header to tie the game. 1-1.
Second goal 2-1 @ 90 minutes, penalty because the attacker ran into the box and got the ball before the defender. This will never happen because Suarez would never catch it.

Basically.. We suck in headers and got lucky in the last game, but in general, we almost never score from a corner (slim chance), then it seems the biggest weakness Bayern has is the counter-attack with speedy forwards = we don't have.

**** we are screwed.

5-1 Frankfurt vs Bayern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnfLxC2p_Xk

Boateng takes a red card 1vs1 situation. Again, their biggest weakness. Counter-attack. This would be our chance with Dembele etc. Too bad we don't have him.

Another corner goal(probably our chance).


This is why we as a football club suck now, we can only score through slow possession game, which won't work vs the top sides. You need quick counter-attacks to upset their team balance and score a goal. You are not going throuhg their all players, not even Messi or Prime Messi. That's why we suck. We can't score any other way. We need so badly quick winger/s to help out slow Messi and Suarez.

Oh and we need to get rid of Suarez ASAP. He is killing us.

[Birdy]

First off, people need to cool the Bayern hype. They have not met a team of Barca caliber all season long. Bundesliga isn't in a good shape right now and their opponents in CL was Tottenham, Olympiacos, Red Star & Chelsea. Barca for example had to play RM/AM/Inter 6 games this year and all better than any Bayern opponent.

Second, what is your alternative? Do you think a midfield battle would make us victorious? It was terrible against RM in Liga, terrible against Napoli too. We lost 9 points in 10 games playing it in league.
Bayern has fast wingers and if we played Setien ball we will be destroyed worse than 2013 because our CBs are slow and our FB can't be in attack and defense at same time.
Playing defensive helped us beat Liverpool in Barcelona 3-0 and they were far superior side than this Bayern and it is probably not close.
If we are gonna shit ourselves the way we did against Roma and Anfield second half, then no game plan would help us.

Bayern Hype is built because of their performances, and how convincingly they outperform opposition.
One could say City had not faced significant opposition before facing RM, but there is a reason why they were favorites against them.
Yes, there is a value in having witnessed how someone fares against the best, but you can anticipate beforehand a lot of the things that will happen based on how the teams behave on the pitch all season long.

Now, I will give you this: I don't think there is any alternative that will get us past Bayern. That's for granted.
The question for me is which alternative will minimize damage, hence prevent another embarrassment and European humiliation.
Sitting back and conceding pressure is not the way to go to avoid humiliation IMO.
We have seen it so many times since EV days. The fact that Napoli is a mediocre side and even they outscored us 0.4-1.0 on xG yesterday should be worrying for every Barca fan.
Playing defensive against Liverpool was not the reason for 3-0. 3-0 was a distorted image of the game. more like 1-3 was the scoreline that would reflect that night. Liverpool battered us in the second half, when we were sitting deep hoping to concede pressure successfully. I can pull up the data from that game if you want.

This team cannot defend, and is not made for defending.

[Andresito]

Who is better? Roberto or Griezmann? Griez helps the defense a lot but do we need more control over the tempo of the game? I think so. We should be trying to control the game and tempo. Adding one midfielder could help achieve that.

Put in Roberto too and play 4-4-2 for this game. Griezmann Messi in attack. Drop Suarez. This way we'll have a reasonably energetic team.

Can't see how that's going to work. Roberto will be exposed in midfield. I'd start with Griezmann, Messi and Suarez and hope for the best.

[Vilarrubi]

All right, so looking at this:

Bayern lost the last time in 2019 vs Bayer Leverkusen and BORUSSIA M'GLADBACH. 2-1 each.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkY66hYfutc

vs Bayer Leverkusen, Leverkusen scores two breakaway goals to put them over the top. (We can't do this, because Suarez is slow.)

vs BORUSSIA M'GLADBACH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfDrWK0_Kwg

Scores header to tie the game. 1-1.
Second goal 2-1 @ 90 minutes, penalty because the attacker ran into the box and got the ball before the defender. This will never happen because Suarez would never catch it.

Basically.. We suck in headers and got lucky in the last game, but in general, we almost never score from a corner (slim chance), then it seems the biggest weakness Bayern has is the counter-attack with speedy forwards = we don't have.

**** we are screwed.

5-1 Frankfurt vs Bayern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnfLxC2p_Xk

Boateng takes a red card 1vs1 situation. Again, their biggest weakness. Counter-attack. This would be our chance with Dembele etc. Too bad we don't have him.

Another corner goal(probably our chance).


This is why we as a football club suck now, we can only score through slow possession game, which won't work vs the top sides. You need quick counter-attacks to upset their team balance and score a goal. You are not going throuhg their all players, not even Messi or Prime Messi. That's why we suck. We can't score any other way. We need so badly quick winger/s to help out slow Messi and Suarez.

Oh and we need to get rid of Suarez ASAP. He is killing us.

I thought Dembele is available for Bayern game. Can’t see him starting but maybe as sub.

[serghei]

Khaled is selling it pretty well .

Park the bus is terrible, full out attack is terrible. You need to create chances with the ball, and defend without it. We didn't create any chances in the 2nd half vs Napoli.

[FinBarcelonafan]

I thought Dembele is available for Bayern game. Can’t see him starting but maybe as sub.

Yeah, he could be a great option, if we are somehow leading the game and we can feed him through balls. It could cause a lot of trouble for them.

Like we saw yesterday, Messi and Suarez become useless after we "park the bus" and drop very low. They can't start any attacks, because they are too slow. We need someone quicker to counter and cause trouble.

[henias]

There's no other way out. We will have to play conservative to even stand a chance.Puig should be given a chance to build his confidence which Setien messed up. Should have taken off Griez and Roberto and tried him, so he can put out those through balls on counters and be more creative, and drive the ball forward. Get rid of the sterile possession. We would have a chance if EV made quicker subs, but seeing Setien with his inability to read the game and make appropriate subs, I dont have high hopes. All it takes is for us to drag the game and not get the killer goal and Bayern will run us over anyday.

[khaled_a_d]

Khaled is selling it pretty well .

Park the bus is terrible, full out attack is terrible. You need to create chances with the ball, and defend without it. We didn't create any chances in the 2nd half vs Napoli.

Park the bus and being conservative are two different things.
What I mean is that we don't push our Fullbacks to attack a lot, something that Setien loves to do.
Parking the bus means we will have 5-7 players in the box or around it, I don't want that.
Also I would prefer to be more cautious in front of defense, no need for Busi special that cause unnecessary counter attack for no reason. Keep it simple.
I don't know, is that too much to ask?

Bayern Hype is built because of their performances, and how convincingly they outperform opposition.
One could say City had not faced significant opposition before facing RM, but there is a reason why they were favorites against them.

One thing being favorite, other saying things like best of the world, or saying they would slaughter us, or we will witness 7-0 again, or they are favorites to win it all, or we stand no chance. All have been repeatedly said here ton of times.

e have seen it so many times since EV days. The fact that Napoli is a mediocre side and even they outscored us 0.4-1.0 on xG yesterday should be worrying for every Barca fan.
Playing defensive against Liverpool was not the reason for 3-0. 3-0 was a distorted image of the game. more like 1-3 was the scoreline that would reflect that night. Liverpool battered us in the second half, when we were sitting deep hoping to concede pressure successfully. I can pull up the data from that game if you want.

I am sure you will pull some data, as you have a weird fetish toward Xg, a stat that tells only part of the story.
Napoli wasn't more dangerous than us by any mean last night, and they had the type of chances we can live with except that one early in the game (bad mistake by Pique) and one other cross.
If we open the flanks we get murdered, if a state shows otherwise then this shows us the weakness of this states not the other way around.
There is a reason why athletic CB is something most of us want, he doesn't just improve our defense but allow us to play attacking football.

[Birdy]

I am sure you will pull some data, as you have a weird fetish toward Xg, a stat that tells only part of the story.
Napoli wasn't more dangerous than us by any mean last night, and they had the type of chances we can live with except that one early in the game (bad mistake by Pique) and one other cross.

Ok, the question is how do you measure that?
You say i have a fetish with xG, and I say it's the best metric we have. Give me a better one and I will use it.
You said we played well against Liverpool in the 3-0. I say we didn't. Even without any data, I saw first half balanced, second half Liverpool battering us. Didn't you see the same without any data?
For the same reason, 2nd half yesterday was alarming. We sat back, concede a few chances (which will be much more lethal against a better side), and didn't produce any.
We are not made to sit back and concede pressure

[khaled_a_d]

Ok, the question is how do you measure that?
You say i have a fetish with xG, and I say it's the best metric we have. Give me a better one and I will use it.
You said we played well against Liverpool in the 3-0. I say we didn't. Even without any data, I saw first half balanced, second half Liverpool battering us. Didn't you see the same without any data?
For the same reason, 2nd half yesterday was alarming. We sat back, concede a few chances (which will be much more lethal against a better side), and didn't produce any.
We are not made to sit back and concede pressure

Football isn't a game of stats. It is simple as that. This has been shown hundreds oF times.
There is huge problem when you think Xg is more important stat than the one that triumph them all: GOALS
Get all data you want, we still ended the game winning 3-0.
And yes, Liverpool had chances, but few of them were from the flanks, and fewer were from situation where we were playing conservative. Only a shot from Milner and the Salah chance was that. And dangerous attack they had was a situation of counter attack and using their speed, the exact thing I want to avoid. You can go rewatch highlight if you want and tell me if I missed other chances when we were sitting back/inviting pressure.

And again, as I just said in the post you quoted, I am not saying park the bus or sitting back and play counter attacking game, even against Napoli we didn't do that until last 30 minutes.
My main point is avoid making our fullbacks moving forward at same time and not providing the needed speed for defense and cover for defense. This is handing Bayern the game, simple as that.
Setien done that a lot post hiatus, what was the result? Semedo looking marginally better on offense while failing to help in defense? Is this what you want? Is this your wanted strategy?


Because really, all what you say is: We are losing both way, but I just hate not being YOLO on attack. This is more of arrogance than anything else

Edit: Also, Setien was actually inviting pressure in his early days here, rewatch away game against Napoli, trying to arrogantly build slowly from the back could have cost us the game because our midfield is very prone to lose the ball under pressure.

[KingLeo10]

I honestly have not seen such a huge underdog sentiment even when we played Liverpool last year who by all metrics were superior to this Bayern team (still are because they have a world class manager and better talent overall).

I watched the full game of Bayern against Chelsea yesterday and honestly, Chelsea defended like amateurs. We're not some defensive juggernaut but we're hardly that level. Lampard's side has shipped in 79! goals this season and lost 12-13 times in the EPL alone?

In a neutral ground over 90 mins, I think we should be able to give Bayern a game. They're clear favorites but I don't think this level of fear is warranted. If Quique employs a hard working midfield with FDJ and some combination of Puig, Busquets, and Roberto we have our chances. Messi will need to play out of this world too.