Barça vs. Manchester United: 3-1, CL Final 2011
The Walking Netpile!
Piqué, obvs brought his bestest nail scissors to cut that net for... yeah, for WHAT, actually? Is he sentimental, per chance? Hmmm.
The Flying Pep!
And, well, the losers.
That Giggs here on the right was actually part of United's problem. He played the most un-physical and invisible sixer ever and Ferguson decided to field a 4-4-1-1 (again!) and only to central midfielders (him and Carrick), they almost always got outnumbered in their defense against the all-offense tactic by Barça. So SAF repeated the same tactical mistake he made in their last loss (Rome, 2009) to the Catalans. Why, I wonder. I am not so intimately familiar with United's squad and wondered all along if there was not a third def. midfielder to be found anywhere to fix that shit? Scholes maybe? He came in late in the game. What triggered that tactical suicide? Was it that ominous phone-call with Mou that made him run into the open knife?
So the whole thing looked like 2009 reloaded. Giggs, but also Edwin van der Sar who, sadly, saved below par in his last match before ending his career for United, were two of the oldest players on the pitch and actually looked like it against such a lively and energetic crew like Barça. Van der Sar made mistakes at both goals by Pedro and then Messi, what a sad farewell for him!
The only time United looked remotely like winning were maybe the first 8-10 minutes. But from there on, they looked more like immobile objects in an ever-moving world animated by swirling Barça players for the most part.
In the end, leaving United with a really sorry-looking shots-on-target stats (4-22 to Barcelona/ on target 1-12). All despite SAF's decision to field Hernandez upfront and forsake another midfielder for him. The out-attacking tactics against a superbly attacking side like Barça did not pay off. At least not when you field only two def. midfielder's, who were clearly overwhelmed by their tasks and couldn't takes Barça's dominant attacking force.
More credit needs to go to Barça's superbly aggressive offfside-trap - another key tactical feature - eliminating Hernandez upfront - which takes a lot of confidence to play up so high. Werder Bremen tried that (or rather, it happens accidentally due to bad positional play) and we know how the outcome of those outings ususally looks like... *eye roll*
Another key feature was Busquets vs. Rooney, which seemed a deadlock battle unwinnable for United, since Rooney was hardly ever in the right space to become an offensive threat, because he was busying himself by tracking Busquets and, as a result, was missed upfront - so United basically self-eliminated it's chances by that move - Busquets only had to keep Rooney busy, who eventually got frustrated for he felt he was doing the wrong job. Uderstandably. Resulting in a serious byline chat SAF.
Both Park and Valencia (marking Iniesta) dropped deep to help pressing - but at the same time that allowed Barça more time on the ball, especially their full backs, resulting in more clever passing... See the difficulty here? And with Iniesta and Xavi playing their signature lethal through-balls, United was basically defending 99% of the time. Tiresome, tedious task. Additionally, United was easily (TOO easily) dragged out of shape - like the first Pedro goal resulted from a clever move by Messi, dragging Evra towards him, allowing Pedro to net. Poor Carrick and Giggs were trianguled to death in midfield basically and looked helpless at some point with Messi in the back and Iniesta and Xavi coming past them. Otoh, the one moment of brilliance should get mentioned here as well, when Rooney (34.) played a double one-twoing with Carrick and Giggs to finish with a smacker.
But also United's centre back's failed too often in the game to come up at a storming Messi, they were simply too slow.
After Messi's (54.) goal Villa (69.)curled a stunner into the net, which represented the ultimate deathblow, basically. Barça up 3-1 and United never looked like they could recover, even after SAF did some changes to his midfield (Nani for Fabio, Valencai then RB). Maybe a certain hesitation to man-mark and a stronger defensive midfield costed SAF's side better chances to survive? Maybe. For there is always a MESSI, who was, as always, simply sublime!
Howeverwhichway you shave your pubes or chest hair!!
