...El Clasico match report

Barcelona 5-0 Real Madrid

The footballing world gasped in amazement last night as Barcelona confirmed the self-belief that they are the best team in the world by a very large margin. Up until kick-off in Camp Nou, Real Madrid could almost have pretended that they were, after their unbeaten start to the season, on the same planet as their most hated rivals. No more. Real can be the Galacticos if they like, but here on earth at present Barcelona ply the most pure brand of the beautiful game.

How frustrating it must be for Real Madrid. How helpless they must feel. As much as Jose Mourinho tethers and tenders to his fallow hotbed of talent, he can only gaze enviously at Pep Guardiola and his lush garden of red and blue, the seeds of which were sown long before he arrived. Having proved his worth on many a foreign field, Mourinho’s ultimate challenge is now the very club with which his skills were first honed.

Never can I recall footballers of such quality being humiliated in such a manner. The best goalkeeper in the world was helpless as five goals were slotted past him. What a different figure Iker Casillas cut from the last time the eyes of the world were on him, as he bawled his way to victory in the World Cup final. This time the tears were shed for a very different reason. At least Casillas could, for most of the match at least, escape the spotlight. For the ten outfield players there was no place to hide as Barca’s peerless tici taca left Real Madrid chasing shadows, so precise were the one-touch triangles played in and around the white shirts of Madrid.

Comparisons to bulls and matadors are inevitable but very much deserved. While Madrid chased and charged, fuming with heads down, their ever-growing red mist was fuelled by the inability to ignore the thousands of fans goading them all around. They eventually snapped out, leading to several 20-man handbag sessions. Cristiano Ronaldo, eclipsed by Lionel Messi and chums on his big day, was booked for pushing Pep Guardiola; Messi was booked for apparently simulating contact between his face and the elbow of Ricardo Carvalho. The passion and petulance was there for both sides as expected, but only one team was allowed to play. It was Barca’s ball, Barca’s playground and Real Madrid was the tearful slow kid in the middle, sniffling red-faced as the ball was forever kept just out of his reach.

Barca can buy as many Ozils and Khediras as they like but they will never have a midfield partnership like Xavi and Andres Iniesta. With all eyes on the strikers in a furious opening exchange it was the two little Catalans who kept their heads; Iniesta bisecting Real’s defence with a typically pinpoint pass, and Xavi calmly following the path of the deflected ball over his shoulder before nonchalantly lifting it past Casillas on nine minutes, to open a wound that was to be relentlessly lanced until Real Madrid eventually collapsed.

Xavi then resumed his more natural role of creator, finding David Villa with an angled, lofted pass to the inside-left channel. Spain’s leading scorer ghosted outside Sergio Ramos before finding Pedro, who gratefully slotted his cut-back in for 2-0 inside 20 minutes. Spain’s showcase fixture had been a very Spanish affair so far. With their work done Barca now dropped the intensity but cranked up the swagger, giving an exhibition of passing and movement and never really allowing Real Madrid a chance to impose themselves on the game for the rest of the first half.

Jose Mourinho acknowledged Barca’s dominance in possession by replacing Mesut Ozil with Lassana Diarra at half-time; before they could even think of attacking his team would first have to win the ball. Barcelona were unmoved and unaffected: Leo Messi slipped in David Villa who showed his class by beating the offside trap and then Casillas with equal precision on 55 minutes. With Madrid on the ropes Messi slotted another perfect pass through a crowd of white shirts to find Villa again, with the outcome inevitable: a devastating quick-fire double in just three minutes to finish Real off.

What could Mourinho do? Rarely had the Portuguese ever found himself in such a position of futility. For once it was he who had to sit and endure torment from a younger, more stylish manager in the opposing dugout. Now Pep Guardiola was the Special One. On the pitch Madrid were beginning to display the anger that boiled inside Mourinho as they realised the game was up, and that it was now about damage limitation. Eight Madrid players were booked and Ramos was sent off on 90 minutes. By that time Jeffren had added yet more insult to injury by converting a low cross from fellow substitute Bojan for 5-0.

So while Guardiola won his sixth consecutive Clasico, a humbled Mourinho, who always knew that his tenure at Real Madrid would only be judged on his ability to beat Barcelona, now realises the enormity of that task. If this match was important for Madrid’s chances of wrestling the La Liga crown from Barcelona, the return fixture at the Bernabeu on the 16^th of April next year is monumental.

Both teams had scored an impressive 27 goals in their last seven league games before last night, but Barcelona proved able to continue this rate against Madrid to show them that however good they become under Mourinho, their Catalan enemies will always be one, or even five, steps ahead. Special might not cut it this time around.

...Arsene Wenger needs to accept responsibility for Arsenal’s failures

“We were kicked off the park and should have had a definite penalty. I’d like to know what the fifth official was doing. Carlos Vela was clearly fouled. The five referees is not an answer to the problem. It is a useless system. The turning point was the penalty – I still cannot understand how Vela got a yellow card…”

I could have used one of hundreds of Arsene Wenger’s post-match rants here, this just happens to be the most recent. Wenger’s boys have once again been hard done by; the referee is to blame for a bad decision and for not protecting his players from physical tackles.

I agree with Wenger on the penalty decision last night. It was a clear penalty. The only thing to say in the referee’s defence was that Vela threw his arms in the air in that dramatic fashion we all know too well. Still, he was stopped by an outstretched leg that was nowhere near the ball and, dramatics or not, it should have been a penalty kick. Five referees missed it; Wenger has a right to feel aggrieved. Unfortunately for Wenger his team cannot receive special treatment. They will receive bad decisions from referees; they will receive rough treatment from teams who cannot match them for technique.

Turning points in confidence and momentum clearly exist in football and can have dramatic effects, especially at the highest level. However, the players at Wenger’s disposal were good enough to batter Braga 6-0 just over two months ago, so they should have been able to win the match with or without a penalty from the appeal that took place at 0-0 with 14 minutes remaining. Was the penalty decision to blame for Arsenal’s failure to score for the first 76 minutes?! Instead Arsenal conceded late on and lost the game for the second time in four days.

The problem in defence still exists. Wenger can throw another Squillaci or Koscielny at Arsenal’s back four in the January transfer window, but the foundations of the problem must be his team’s mentality. Unfortunately for him a manager who has been in charge of a club for 14 years has nobody but himself to blame. Teams reflect the attitude and mentality of their manager after that period of time, and if Wenger cannot accept responsibility, swallow his pride and make the necessary moves to prevent such problems from happening again, but instead persists in attempting to protect his side by looking for others to blame, then he and Arsenal will never learn from their mistakes.

A constantly evolving young side is great to watch, and to admire when gambles on youth pay off. One downside of this can be that players are let go too early to the detriment of the team. Wenger let William Gallas leave in the summer, the very defender who was man-of-the-match and captain of Spurs as they beat Arsenal in their own back yard on Saturday. Gilberto Silva laughed in Wenger’s face by continuing to captain Brazil and run their midfield for years after he was deemed too old for the Arsenal youth club. Surely not even Wenger can defend himself or blame anyone else for these two glaring misjudgements. Often the presence of older players can be useful for the youngsters to learn from, and their experience is invaluable in situations like, say, a North London derby or an away game in the Champions League.

As usual with an Arsenal blog, I’m sure this will receive widespread criticism from Arsenal fans. The amount of excellent and popular Arsenal blogs out there show that you guys are a literary bunch who love to debate and defend your team online.

However, Gunners, just consider this: do you want to be a side of nearly men who always have an excuse when their side inevitably falls at the final hurdle with a manager who will always look to blame anyone before himself, or do you want to start winning the trophies that a club of your stature deserve?

The truth hurts, but maybe it’s time that you, as well as Wenger, faced up to it. If creaming yourself when your teenagers dismantle a lesser side in the Carling Cup is enough for you then fine, otherwise Wenger has to go.

...City’s negative tactics show a lack of ambition

If Manchester City have any kind of serious ambition, they need to show it in their on-field tactics rather than their marketing campaigns. City played three holding midfielders last night, and although Yaya Toure was played higher up the pitch he’s not the sort of player to provide a spark capable of creating goals through top defenders, even if City thought so when they handed him an annual wage larger than the GDP of most developing countries. City could hardly have wished for a better time to play United, who of course had injuries and players recovering from a virus, but Roberto Mancini showed at best caution, and more likely nerves.

Is there any situation in which he would be daring enough to play a two-striker system? Carlos Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor could be an effective combination because of their different attributes. I’m not saying he has to play an English ‘big man, little man’ tactic of playing long balls for the Togolese to nod down, because that could be seen as dated and is not the traditional Italian way (although Don Fabio likes a big man), but City at present merely rely on Tevez, a player who could not win a regular first-team place at United, to supply the magic and goals to surpass their Manchester rivals on the pitch and in the league. This is reflected in the stat that City have not won without Tevez in the league for two years.

Early on in the season, I wrote that I couldn’t see where City’s creativity was going to come from. They proved me wrong to an extent in that James Milner started to play in the middle and showed that he has the football brain to create. I also said that I doubted David Silva’s ability to deal with the physical nature of English football, but he showed that his touch and passing are so accurate that he can avoid the 50/50 situation less technically gifted players may find themselves in more often. Why did Mancini not play either of these two at the head of a midfield three rather than putting three bruisers in there? Surely two is enough.

Beebop and Rocksteady are fine, but every midfield needs a Krang.

...confident Germany devoured by hungry Spain

Germany’s confidence and willingness to attack played into Spanish hands as Vicente Del Bosque’s team relished facing a positive side for the first time in the competition. Instead of tasting revenge Joachim Low’s side were devoured without mercy.

Until last night Spain had only faced sides whose mission was to stop them playing, before considering trying to win the game themselves. Last night, however, it was Spain who changed to a 4-2-3-1 system to mirror Germany. This may have looked like a sign of weakness, but that was not how it translated on the pitch.

Germany’s defence played higher up than Switzerland, Paraguay et al as they sought goals and retribution for the European Championship defeat two years ago, leaving space for Spain to probe. Sure enough Andres Iniesta, the man identified in yesterday’s piece as Spain’s main threat with the ball at his feet, isolated the poor, defenceless Philipp Lahm and got to the byline on more than one occasion.

Germany’s counter attacking pace had seen off Argentina’s defective full-backs with ease, but Joan Capdevila and Sergio Ramos’ energy on the flanks meant that Lucas Podolski and Piotr Trochowski were denied space, leaving Miroslav Klose short of supply. Without the service to continue his composed finishing streak Klose suddenly looked sluggish and immobile, a key reason why he played second fiddle to Evica Olic at Bayern Munich last season.

Then there was the midfield. The tenacity of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Sami Kadira had been able to break down the rushed passing of England’s ‘star’ midfielders but here they faced a glut of players oozing class and composure on the ball. Passes into space, triangles, round-the-corner, you name it. Germany also found a fired-up Xabi Alonso snapping into the challenge to compliment the more reserved style of Xavi and Sergio Busquests, showing his Premier League experience but sometimes being penalised unfairly for doing so.

Germany tried to make a game of it, but Spain simply did not let them do so, keeping the ball in deep positions in the first half. They tightened the screw after the break, almost setting up camp in German territory and showing a more direct manner. This game was decided by a set piece of course, but you feel that had Carles Puyol not powered his header home Spain would have found another way through at some point.

As one-sided a 1-0 victory as you may see for a good while, Spain looked composed in the later stages despite the knowledge that one attack was all it would take for Germany to achieve parity. Their confidence comes from the knowledge that they possess technically the best midfield in the competition, capable of holding the ball between them without being affected by the knowledge that they were on the brink of a first World Cup final.

Germany were brave and continued to try to play the attacking game that had previously brought them so many goals and so much success. But if you give Spain space, they will pass you to pieces. Last night Germany were like helpless, bite-sized Tapas; merely an entrada as Spain saved themselves for the main course: the World Cup final in Johannesburg on Sunday.

...Spain must find balance to match Germany’s equilibrium

If, as expected, Fernando Torres is finally dropped tonight, Spain will be forced to crowd the midfield and fit a lot of talented central midfielders into a system that prevents them tripping over each others’ toes. There have many smooth, round pegs, but some must quickly adapt to square holes if Spain are to overcome Germany’s balanced side.

While Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets have sat deep in a 4-4-2 it has forced Xavi, their best passer of a ball, to play further up the pitch (out of place) in a position that requires the pace and width he doesn’t offer. When they have switched to a 4-3-3 with Xavi moving into central midfield, David Villa has played on the left leaving the out-of-sorts Fernando Torres as the (so far rather blunt) point of attack. If Cesc Fabregas is the man to come in, after impressing in his cameo against Paraguay, where does he fit?

Another problem is that of Spain’s starting midfield four so far only Andres Iniesta has the necessary attributes to beat a man. Busquets, Xavi and Alonso are excellent passers of the ball but they lack the pace or dribbling skills get in behind defences, as shown by the fact that Switzerland managed to squeeze them out in their opening fixture despite being without the ball for long periods.

Germany, meanwhile, have a player for each position of their finely oiled 4-2-3-1 system. Sami Khedira sits, Bastian Schweinsteiger is, well, everywhere at once it seems, while Mesut Ozil has the creativity to play behind the front three, the ability to beat a man and a sharp eye for goal, as demonstrated with a great strike against Ghana. Lucas Podolski offers genuine width on the left, Miroslav Klose is happy to sit on the last man and usually they have Thomas Muller’s energy down the right.

But Muller isn’t playing, and herein lies Germany’s weakness in tonight’s game: an unfamiliar face in a settled starting eleven. It is here where Joachim Low will earn his corn. The choices? Another gamble on the youth policy that has worked so well so far and the selection of the talented but inexperienced young Bayern Munich midfielder Toni Kroos, or the more experienced Piotr Trochowski, who is the more natural winger.

I personally would pick Kroos. He has already been earmarked for the number 10 shirt at Bayern Munich and is held in higher regard than Muller by many within the club. Despite his 20 years he has already made an impact at Munich and on loan at Leverkusen. During his debut for Munich, coming off the bench for the last 18 minutes, he provided two assists. On his UEFA cup debut he came on for nine minutes, made one and scored with the last kick of the game. Oh, and those three assists were all for a certain Mr Klose.

Put simply both teams needs to make changes for tonight’s game, and these decisions may well determine who plays the Netherlands in Johannesburg on Sunday. Germany’s change is forced because of Muller’s two yellow cards, whereas Torres’ form means Vicente del Bosque’s hand is forced for a different reason. If Spain can find a balance, they have the players to beat Germany, whose equilibrium depends on how well their new right winger adapts.

...smug Suarez sets awful example - should the rules be changed?

The behaviour and subsequent delight of Luis Suarez in the match against Ghana was shambolic and set a terrible precedent to youngsters watching the World Cup. He should be ashamed of the fact that his intentional handball is the reason that Ghana were knocked out of the tournament. Instead he is unrepentant and has gleefully claimed his act is the new ‘Hand of God’.

Thierry Henry’s behaviour in the World Cup qualifying play-off against the Republic of Ireland was a similarly instinctive piece of gamesmanship, but at least Henry had the dignity to apologise. He realised that his behaviour was wrong, whereas Suarez seems to think he is a national hero.

Suarez’s tears as he walked off the pitch were not borne from shame, as his celebrations when Asamoah Gyan missed his penalty with the last kick of extra-time revealed. The rules should now be changed to prevent children all across the world from imitating his behaviour and/or thinking it is ok to do so in the future.

At present, Suarez’s behaviour is not technically cheating. It is a straight red card and a penalty offence. Fortunately this kind of incident is rare as most people’s instinct is to try and defend a shot with any part of their body but the arm, but it may not be after this World Cup.

People may see the light punishment handed out by FIFA, who declined to extend Suarez’s one-match ban, weigh this negative against the positive, which is that Uruguay ultimately went though to the semi-final of the World Cup, and think that may be a worthwhile exchange.

The only alternative punishment for a blatant handball rather than a penalty would be to award a goal. For this to happen the referee would have to be absolutely sure that a. the act was undisputedly intentional, b. that there is no way anyone else, including the goalkeeper, could have stopped the ball entering the goal had the handball not taken place and c. that the ball was definitely goal-bound in the first place.

In the heat of the moment, with the limited perspective of one referee and an often crowded penalty area, the three requirements alone would be too much for the judgement of one man. Therefore my suggestion is this: for the rules to be changed along with the introduction of technology.

The referee is by definition susceptible to human error and while technology cannot be used at all levels of the game it should be used when as much is at stake as it was in this incident. After Lampard’s goal that never was and Tevez’s goal that shouldn’t have been this is the third different major mistake that could and should have been easily resolved with a simple video replay.

It is almost as if the first World Cup in Africa is telling us that it is time for the game itself to move on as well. Listen up Mr Blatter.

...Queiroz ruined Ronaldo’s big day in the World Cup and the Champions League

It could be argued that Carlos Queiroz’s negative tactics ruined the biggest two matches of Cristiano Ronaldo’s career so far.

“Ask Queiroz”, said Ronaldo in a post-match interview when asked of Portugal’s tactics, literally spitting with rage after Portugal’s 1-0 loss to Spain on Tuesday. This echoed his reaction after the 2009 Champions League final when his repost to a similar question was “Ask Ferguson”, but maybe it was Carlos Queiroz who was again to blame.

Although Queiroz had left old Trafford after his second stint as Alex Ferguson’s assistant by the time Manchester United faced Barcelona in Rome, his legacy lived on in a cautious 4-5-1 formation. There is no doubt Queiroz’s defensive coaching helped to firm up the back line which played a large part in United’s Champions League victory in 2008, but there is a time, namely when chasing a must-win game, that caution must eventually be thrown to the wind to some extent.

It was demonstrated again on Tuesday that if when you go a goal down you don’t attack a side capable of keeping the ball, they will do just that. United beat Barcelona 1-0 over two legs thanks to superb defending in the semi-final in 2008, but they were never chasing the game. When Barca scored once, then twice in Rome a United side indoctrinated by Queiroz’s masterful defensive tactics didn’t change the formation and attack Barca just as Portugal didn’t attack Spain.

The man who suffered the most on both occasions, isolated up front on his own, was Ronaldo. The man who has changed countless games for club and country was not given the support he needed to get a sufficient amount of the ball to do so again, neither was he dropped into a deeper position from which he could exert a greater influence. It is easy to dislike the ‘winker’ with a penchant for short shorts, but on this occasion it is justifiable to feel a slight pang of sympathy.

In Rome it seemed like Ferguson, a man known for his cavalier tendencies, seemed as shackled as his players, nervous to abandon the Queiroz-influenced tactics that had got him so far, just as Queiroz himself only got Portugal so far in the World Cup. Ferguson suffered much post-match criticism for not reverted to the tried and tested attacking 4-4-2 that has brought him such success during his illustrious career.

I’m not claiming to be Garry Kasparov, and I have already covered this subject extensively in my Otto Rehhegal blog (check the archive), but when you line up defensively but are losing, and losing fairly (by two then three goals in United’s case), surely there is no harm in trying a more positive tactic.

Queiroz is obviously a master of the defensive game, as demonstrated by Portugal’s three clean sheets in the group stages, but his attacking tactics seem to lag some way behind, despite his side’s 7-0 victory over a pub side called ‘North Korea’. For this reason he makes a great assistant but as a manager against the best teams, such as Spain or Barcelona, his tactics only serve to stem the inevitable tide, much to the chagrin of Cristiano Ronaldo.