Inter - Barcelona (20 Apr 10)

Jnr said:

He will not be the first..Hiddink was very successful last year with his Chelsea side..Mou must absolutely look at those games also ..

Though it must be said, Iniesta last minute goal came from a Messi pass

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It wasn't really rocket science, tbh...They parked the proverbial bus...Having pacy defenders in Bosingwa & Cole certainly are key, too.

Bosingwa's injury was a key one, btw, for Chelsea this season...I think he's a phenomenal defender

Duke is right, best way to play Barca, IMHO, is to attack them but that has it's dangers, of course, as well...If you do not press and close down space, consistently over 90 minutes, then you will invariably pay...But, if you can get on top of and ahead of Barca early, it's a match a side can come into and win

If we press Barcelona, they will find it difficult to control the match. Just look at Stuttgart in the first leg. We should learn from them because they have put pressure on Barcelona from the start of the match until the end of the first half. We should do the same. If Stuttgart can do it, why can't we?

Raul Duke said:

In the past 2 years I have only seen 2 teams look comfortable against Barca: Athletico Madrid and Real Madrid. Athletico beat Barca last year 4-3 by just attacking and outscoring Barca (they also beat them this year 2-1) and even though Madrid lost 1-0 they outplayed Barca.

Basically Barca force teams up against the wall and starting throwing blows. By flooding back in you own half, you play right into Barca's hands. That's how they play anyway, pushing you into your half and keeping you there. I think trying to push Barca back by attacking them is the only way to go. The Romans defeated Hanibal by using own tactics against him. If we get forced to defend with 10 men behind the ball then Barca has simply outplayed us, but the mentality should not be to park the bus.

I think the 4-2-3-1 is the way to go. We tried parking the bus and it failed in the group stages. One benefit of the 4-2-3-1 formation is that it would hold their wingbacks at bay, like it did against Chelsea.

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arsenal already did that way, they used 4-2-3-1 and try to attacking and outscoring barca, and what's the result ?

too many pages in this thread and we have 3 or so games before it...
lol

let's hope the players are concentrating on the NEXT game and not this game.......yet

Inter Inter said:

LOL. This is just one of the many media creations to sell their newspapers.

Next they'll report that Mourinho has gone to the Artic to bring back a green crystal that fell from outer space which can cause Messi to have hallucinations and muscle spasms whenever he is near a football.

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pretty ironic.....aren't you the king of "creations"?

Inter Inter said:

I won't be surprised if Balotelli had told some of his team-mates that he's better than them and that he should be regular starter, and that could have pissed off the whole team.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I think if we are to win over both legs we will need to play mistake free football and close them down as much as possible (75% possession for them will not cut it)…and the man to minimize his effectiveness is Xavi, it’s a tough task but if he has a great game it more or less means they won…

Messi will be or wont be Messi…if given the room obviously he will hurt us, he also could hurt us having his worst game but we should not dwell too much on him after all there is a reason he doesn’t play as well for Argentina as he does for Barca…yep Xavi/Iniesta are not their….I believe Mourinho will come up with a plan…and it will be similar to Chelsea’s plan last year..we have great personnel…I hope Chivu plays left back coz Zanetti seems to really struggle when you run straight at him…he will fair better in midfield…I see the usual 4-3-3 in the Meazza but the away game will be different….I think we will win 1-0 at home but in the Nou Camp I see a 4-4-1-1 formation with either of Eto/Milito starting on the bench with Cambiasso/Stankovic/Motta/Zanetti behind sneijder and the 1 striker…

I believe we will go through after the two legs…just looking at how far this team has come and our away CL record + Mourinho makes me confident of a victory…I don’t think any team is as equipped to beat Barca as we are…

Forza Inter!

Intermilano90 said:

Since the start of the new year, Barca are a different team. I know that they were outplayed by Real Madrid at the Camp Nou last time but still they won. The thing is that this year Messi has some special super powers installed in his body. Nobody can stop him. He justs enjoys himself on the pitch just like in training.

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Hello everybody. My first post on this forum.. hope we can discuss a bit about this great tie. Cant wait!

It's not superpowers.. what happened this year is that guardiola changed messi's position in barça's formation. He plays in the middle now, behind the CF and with total freedom to move around.. and since this change he's scoring like hell.

That means that the formation is a bit different from the typicall 4-3-3.. and it's a kind of freestyle 4-2-3-1, because players shift positions during the game.
It could be something like:

..............................Valdes.............................
Alves...........Pique.................Puyol............Abidal
.....................Xavi............Toure.....................
Pedro......................Messi................Iniesta.....
.............................Zlatan.............................


arty:

1899 said:

Hello everybody. My first post on this forum.. hope we can discuss a bit about this great tie. Cant wait!

It's not superpowers.. what happened this year is that guardiola changed messi's position in barça's formation. He plays in the middle now, behind the CF and with total freedom to move around.. and since this change he's scoring like hell.

That means that the formation is a bit different from the typicall 4-3-3.. and it's a kind of freestyle 4-2-3-1, because players shift positions during the game.
It could be something like:

..............................Valdes.............................
Alves...........Pique.................Puyol............Abidal
.....................Xavi............Toure.....................
Pedro......................Messi................Iniesta.....
.............................Zlatan.............................


arty:

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Messi plays on the right. He is not a center forward. His position is still the same and you can see that he receives the ball from the right and pushes forward throught the defence of the opponent.

I see couple of people started to think

My bet also goes for 4-2-3-1. Barcelona is very strong on the wings, especially when their fullbacks push very high up the field. I think Jose will think the same as when we played Chelsea, and he used 4-2-3-1 for exactly the same reason.

4-4-2 rombo. The weakness of this formation is that it is vulnerable on the sides of the pitch, especially when the ball is changed quickly from side to side, and Barcelona can do it. 4-2-3-1 covers the whole pitch on the other hand (it's weakness though is that it is not as well covered centrally as 4-4-2 rombo), and it will be very impotant versus Barcelona, as their main strength is the wings.

4-2-3-1 is my bet.

it's simple: Inter must play it's own game. And there is no reason to fear Barcelona. There is only one fear: a handy referee...

kaiseresc said:

it's simple: Inter must play it's own game. And there is no reason to fear Barcelona. There is only one fear: a handy referee...

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correct!!

The important thing in this match is that there is no refereeing mistakes.

Intermilano90 said:

The important thing in this match is that there is no refereeing mistakes.

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oh, but there's like a HUUUUGE chance there will be lots of "mistakes". Inter's not a "pretty" club, doesn't play "pretty" football, isn't "full of" cantera players, isn't "spanish", etc etc. Long story short: Inter's a bit of an ugly duckling, like Chelski was.


and I read some of the Quaresma comments, psssst stop dissin' Quaresma, people :nono:

If our players concentrate they won't commit a lot of fouls. Samuel should be careful because he is a booking away from suspension, and we desperately need him at the Camp Nou. The same goes to Maicon and Zanetti.

Intermilano90 said:

If our players concentrate they won't commit a lot of fouls. .

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lmao

when last did you see a barca game?

apart from Ibra, Yaya, and sometimes Keita, the entire team is a bunch of pansies who go to ground on the slightest contact

lol

iniesta? dani alves? puyol? BUSQUETS? pedro?
these guys are ridiculous


and strangely enough, they are the most aggressive tackling team i've seen in a while.....not tackling in terms of sllding/dirty tackles, but they heckle opponents with small kicks and grabbing of shirts....it is really amazing the amount of shirt pulling they get away with..

Barca pass the ball around instead of tackling opponents, just like us. They get the most tackles, just like how much Busquets have suffered recently.

Playing 4-3-1-2 is definelly the worst way to play against barcellona


In an hypothetic midfield with Motta, Cambiasso and Stankovic/Zanetti, Cambiasso would find himself alone against Xavi and Iniesta cause the first Inter player who would cover on Dani Alves and Abidal are Motta and Zanetti/Stankovic...

Long life to 4-2-3-1.

There's no logic increasing the number of midfielders especially cause our midfielders are way too slow compare too barca's one...

I prefer not to play Motta because the last time he played against Barcelona in the group stages he screwed big time. He was at fault for Barca's first goal.Our midfield must consist of Cambiasso, Stankovic and Sneijder. Maybe Motta can enter in the second half for helping the defense if everything goes well.

Messi plays on the right. He is not a center forward. His position is still the same and you can see that he receives the ball from the right and pushes forward throught the defence of the opponent.

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I didnt write that he's a CF.. I said that in the last months he's playing most of the games in a position behind the center forward.. with freedom to move to right or left. You can watch the last barça games and you'll see. A couple of links to show this:


http://rsshunt.ro/stire/bar-a-4-stuttgart-0-bar-a-win-5-1-on-aggregate-/208567516

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/06/barcelona-arsenal-4-1-messi-tactic/

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/03/19/barcelona-4-2-4-formation-guardiola-messi/

Cheers!

1899 said:

I didnt write that he's a CF.. I said that in the last months he's playing most of the games in a position behind the center forward.. with freedom to move to right or left.

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I think he won't have freedom this time as our defenders will keep a close eye on him. I am just curious at how Ibra will perform? Our fans better welcome him with applause after all that he did for us. I will give him a random applause myself.

Intermilano90 said:

I think he won't have freedom this time as our defenders will keep a close eye on him. I am just curious at how Ibra will perform? Our fans better welcome him with applause after all that he did for us. I will give him a random applause myself.

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Same for Etoo at Camp Nou.