Tactics made easy - How FC Barcelona and Real Madrid ended 1-1

On 3rd December, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid drew 1-1 in La Liga.

Barcelona started with their classic 4-3-3.
Ter stegen; Alba-Mascherano-Piqué-Sergi Roberto in defence.
In midfield, Busquets with André Gomes and Rakitic
Upfront, Messi, Suárez and Neymar as usual.

Zidane chose the following starting XI for Real Madrid:
Keylor Navas;
Carvajal-Varane-Ramos-Marcelo,
Lucas Vázquez-Isco-Modric-Kovacic
with Benzema and CR7 upfront.

Normally Madrid did not press Barça and preferred to defend deep in 4-4-2.
Barça was positioned kind of 2-3-5 with no creativity from the interiors.
They did not go behind Madrid's midfield and did not pass between the lines.
Messi proposed solutions by moving deeper and more central.

The attacks from Barcelona used to end on the left, where Madrid recovered the ball.
Then the "merengues" changed their shape:
Modric stayed deep,
Isco went upfront as nº10,
Marcelo was also positioned highly.
Benzema or CR7 went to the left while CR7 or Benzema occupied the nº9 role.

Modric was excellent.
He stayed behind the ball and was the solution backwards. He organized the way Real Madrid played.
He also made several interceptions, cutting Barça's counterattacks.
Several times Busquets tried to prevent Modric from organizing by marking him very high, but the croatian was excellent and kept on escaping from him.

If Barcelona had time to organize their defence, they used 4-4-2 with Neymar-Gomes-Busquets-Rakitic.
When Barcelona could recover the ball, they tried to send quick long balls to Neymar and Suárez, without success.

Around minute 65, the game changed:
Suárez had scored 10 minutes earlier,
Casemiro entered the pitch for Isco and Modric played higher.
Real Madrid lost their structure, they defended worse and they lost the ball faster than before.

At the same time Iniesta substituted Rakitic and sent André Gomes to the right side.
Barça gained a better structure,
Iniesta was able to hold the ball and gave time to his team to be more compact.
Lucho's players started using longer sequence of passes and found different good opportunities; that they missed.

No more major changes occurred until the end, when Real Madrid scored in the last minute.

What do you think was the main problem of Barça? Do you think Iniesta will be able to solve all the issues?
Answer in the comments of the video and let's start the discussion!


Related articles: What is going on with Busquets?


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