Copa | Semi-final 1st leg: Atletico Madrid - FC Barcelona 1-2

[Barcaman]

Copa Semi-final

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Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Referee: De Burgos Bengoetxea

Squad: Cillessen, Masip, Piqué, Rakitic, Denis Suárez, Arda Turan, Suárez, Messi, Neymar Jr,
Rafinha, Mascherano, Paco Alcácer, Jordi Alba, Sergi Roberto, André Gomes, Aleix Vidal, Umtiti e Mathieu.
​

We'll need to pick ourselves up for Atlético on Wednesday.
Hope Lucho brings back Mascherano in starting 11.

 

[Nucky]

Whats with Iniesta? Hope he plays vs Atletico. Masch on DM with Suarez and Iniesta as starters. Defence should be Roberto,Pique,Umtiti and Alba with MSN up front. Rakitić should be benched for a while. He is totally out of form.

 

[Chomutov]

Whats with Iniesta? Hope he plays vs Atletico. Masch on DM with Suarez and Iniesta as starters. Defence should be Roberto,Pique,Umtiti and Alba with MSN up front. Rakitić should be benched for a while. He is totally out of form.

Our only hope is that he can play. Iniesta is so vital for our build up play it´s really worrying. It´s frustrating to see how much we struggle with passing the ball to the midfielders from the back when the opponent presses us high up the pitch. In my opinion Ter Stegen´s kind of play adds insult to injury. In many cases it would be far better to play a long ball instead of passing back to him hoping he can produce a good pass. It´s ridiculous to rely on our keeper to do this when our back line isn´t able to do so. We really became a laughing stock as far as our build up play is concerned. Lucho (as much as I loved him as a player) seems to have no clue how to overcome this. Sad!

 

[FlaFCB]

Iniesta and Busquets are injured, won't be available for this match. Rafinha might be back.

I'm actually concerned about this game. All the problems remain, the coach is stubborn and clueless, I won't be surprised if we lose in a shameful fashion.

 

[Altomonte]

Atletico not playing well - their performance against Alaves was pretty poor. However, they probably try much harder against Barça. They are out of the running for La Liga, so focus on CDR makes sense for Simeone. We need Umtiti, Mascherano and Denis, and we must hope that Neymar is practicing how to score 1on1 against the GK.

 

[KiX7777]

Oh boy. I'm prepared for the worst. There is a big chance we will get hammered.

 

[Cool]

ATM will pick themselves up for this game and will give Barca run for their money.

Our only hope is Messi producing a WC game to carry the midfield and the attack.

 

[MIXA]

This team does not even have a functioning midfield so why even bother to select one. Without Iniesta and Busi, the midfield can neither attack nor defend. Perhaps it would be better to play with 2 defensive lines and no conventional CM's. I propose the following outlandish line up against Atletico in our standard 4-3-3 system:

Backline: Roberto, PK, Umtiti, Digne
'Midfield': Vidal RCM, Masch DM, Alba LCM
Attack: MSN

Our usual midfielders can spend the game sitting on the bench where most of them probably belong. Some of them are so bad at the moment that even a bench spot is being too nice to them.

 

[Neymessi]

Well, No high hopes at all. But at least we will finally see a sane lineup after ages because this is a big match.

 

[FlaFCB]

This team does not even have a functioning midfield so why even bother to select one. Without Iniesta and Busi, the midfield can neither attack nor defend. Perhaps it would be better to play with 2 defensive lines and no conventional CM's. I propose the following outlandish line up against Atletico in our standard 4-3-3 system:

Backline: Roberto, PK, Umtiti, Digne
'Midfield': Vidal RCM, Masch DM, Alba LCM
Attack: MSN

Our usual midfielders can spend the game sitting on the bench where most of them probably belong. Some of them are so bad at the moment that even a bench spot is being too nice to them.

Or a 4-2-3-1

[formation=barca,9]
JASPER
0-0-PIQUE-0-UMTITI-0-0
BOB-0-0-0-0-0-ALBA
0-0-GOMES-0-MASCH-0-0
0-0-0-MESSI-0-0-0
VIDAL-0-0-0-0-0-NEYMAR
0-0-0-SUAREZ-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

 

[raskolnikov]

Really important to get a good result. Realistically this ithe only trophy we might win this season. La liga will go to Real and our defence/midfield suck to much to win cl. I would t be surprised of psg eliminates us. Hooing fir a draw with goals.

 

[Mido]

[formation=barca,6]
Cillessen
0-Piqué-0-0-0-Umtiti-0
Roberto-0-0-0-0-0-Alba
0-0-0-Mascherano-0-0-0
0-0-0-0-0-Gomes-0
Denis-0-0-0-0-0-0
0-Messi-0-0-0-0-Neymar
0-0-Suarez-0-0-0-0
[/formation]

 

[Mido]

Key, in my opinion, will be the midfield : how it adapts to Atletico pressing, how it stabilizes itsel etc...

I want to leave you with this brilliant analysis of El Cholo's defensive tactics vs Barcelona last season :

It's time for Gomes and Denis to step up !

 

[DonAK]

That's a strange formation, [MENTION=19733]Mido[/MENTION]. A big gap in the middle.

 

[xXKonan]

That's a strange formation, [MENTION=19733]Mido[/MENTION]. A big gap in the middle.

So Business as usual?