Posted by Joseph Zucker

It was the most beautiful torture I have ever experienced. The scoreline of 5-0 does not tell the entire story of the domination of Barcelona over Atletico on Saturday night. It’s unfair to say Atleti were second best. That would imply that you could compare the performances of the two squads. Lionel Messi once again proved why he is arguably the world’s best with a wonderful hat trick. The second goal is so incredible for the sheer ease with which he scored.

After Barca’s draw with Valencia, it became harder to see Atleti getting anything out of the match. Guardiola went back to a 3-1-3-3, with Busquets dropping as a fourth defender when Barca weren’t on the attack. Dani Alves pushed up the pitch quite often during the match so sometimes, there would only really be 2 defenders behind midfield.

Atletico stuck with the 4-3-3 they have been using for most of the season. One surprising change Gregorio Manzano made was to keep Arda Turan on the bench in favor of Gabi. He sent José Reyes out of the left wing, which may have proved to be a mistake, but I’ll get to that later.

Things got off to a good start for Atletico when Tiago hit the crossbar in the fourth minute. Unfortunately, that was just about the Rojiblancos only highlight of the night. Barcelona’s midfield of Xavi, Cesc and Thiago held the ball for most of the match, waiting to exploit any weakness in the Atletico back four and play the perfect ball. That’s exactly what they did in the ninth minute when Xavi chipped a wonderful ball over the head of Luis Perea to David Villa who finished well. Then, Barca was quick to close down on the Atletico back four as they were trying to clear it. One thing led to another, Messi had a shot that was saved by Thibault Courtois only to be deflected in by Miranda. And that essentially ended any competitive balance in the match.

Although Barcelona only played with only two real defenders, Alves and Eric Abidal, Atletico could hardly get the ball past midfield. The Barca line was pushed so high up that Radamel Falcao was left to received the ball at almost the halfway line, thus rendering him ineffective. The Catalan club did what they do best, tiki-taka the ball around the pitch. They clogged the midfield and didn’t allow Atletico to have any time on the ball. I was actually surprised to see Atletico actually had 32% of possession. That seems a bit high.

On the other hand, Barcelona was allowed to pretty much hold the ball up as long as they wanted. It’s one thing I just don’t understand. Why don’t teams try and press Barcelona more? If you just sit back, they pass you to death. Xavi had plenty of time to line up his chip to David Villa, and Cesc had about five minutes to decide to try and chip the ball into the net only to have it hit the crossbar.

I have had a lot of praise for Manzano so far this year, but I think he got some of the tactics wrong today. Starting Antonio Lopez at left back was a mistake, as well as Reyes on the left. I would have put Arda on the left and Reyes on the right, with Filipe at left back. Valencia showed a real weakness in Barcelona on the left when Alves pushes up in the attack. The opportunity is there to try and counter. Reyes did have a couple dangerous runs down the left, but I don’t think he ever tracked back once. Arda would have been a much more balanced midfielder on the left. Lopez can push forward a little, but doesn’t have anywhere near the speed to get back as does Filipe. There was definitely an opportunity to try and make the most of a Barca defense that didn’t have either Carles Puyol or Gerard Piqué, but then again, in order to attack, you have to have the ball.

As awful as it was to watch on one hand, it was also a bit of a pleasure. I’m not going to say that this Barcelona side is one of the best ever because it’s way too early to compare them to anyone in history. But the gulf in class between Barcelona and most of the clubs in La Liga is simply stunning. The way Messi carved up Atletico was scary. Maybe the worst part was how much Barcelona took their foot off the gas in the second half, yet didn’t drop off in quality. If they really wanted to, Barca might have been able to score 10 or 15. It would be painful if it weren’t so beautiful.

Falcaometer (as of September 25, 2011)



This week: 6

It was hard to see Atletico getting a lot from this match, but they were so thoroughly dominated, it’s hard not to feel scared for the rest of the season. The back four, especially Luis Perea, was horribly exposed. Falcao nor Diego were at any point a threat to the Barcelona defense. It will be interesting to see how they rebound against Rennes in the Europa League on Thursday.

Falcaonter



You can follow me on Twitter @JZuckYNWAtleti, or check out my blog, The Kuytch Potato.