BARCA’s superiorityIt was matchday 12 of the UEFA Champions League semi finals, second leg between Chelsea FC and FC Barcelona. Catalonians arrived to Stamford Bridge to prove its domination in 2008/09 edition of the UCL, after 0-0 draw fortnight before at Camp Nou. BARCA played Total Football throughout the campaign and Hiddink expected difficult match. Pep Guardiola, FC Barcelona’s manager, at the press conference prior to the start of the match, ensured that BARCA will keep playing its offensive style of football.There were many concerns for BARCA as to what approach should be taken to over come obsticles such as:missing Puyol, Henry, Marquez; playing very phisical competitior; away game.Let’s see how FCB (FC Barcelona) performed.The analysis concentrates on three factors of FC Barcelona Team.

1. BALL POSSESSIONIt’s difficult to manage ball possession throughtout the match at rate above 60%. Following characteristics of the team must be developed:- combination play: one touch passing with players’ movement, playing to open space, playing under direct opponent’s pressure, short passing - playing out of pressure: support for a player with the ball, one/two/three options avialable minimum, using goalkeeper, calm reaction from goalkeeper- quick ball movement = ball makes the play: players understand their roles on the field = braziliana (playing safe football)- highest percentage of ball possession (see chart #1)- accurate passing (see chart #1)- chelsea defends in its defensive half with whole team- teammates concentrated all the time

2. IMMEDIATE PRESSURE- Abidal red carded - BARCA played 3 man in defense line- Alves~Toure~Pique- Pique moved up as game progressed in second half, pressure in opponents half- offside traps- defenders vulnerable to counter attack- number of fouls commited

Chelsea FC - FC Barcelona

Presented by Tomasz WilczakCoach - UEFA B

3. OFFENSIVNESS- Pique moved into offensive third- penalty box penatration, playing to player under pressure- LFB, RFB offensive support; flank runs & play; eventually crosses deep into the penalty area/goal area- changing direction of the attack by concentrating opponent in one sector of the field and switching play into different sector- accurate passing- players movement

RFB,RD,SW,SO,LD,LFB,ID

Chelsea FC - FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona

Roster:1 Víctor Valdés3 Piqué6 Xavi Hernández8 Iniesta9 Eto'o10 Messi15 Keita20 Daniel Alves22 Abidal24 Touré28 Busquets

7 Gudjohnsen11 Krkić16 Sylvinho

66' - (red card) 22 Eric Abidal85' - (In) 11 Krkić / (Out) 28 Busquets90'+3 - (goal) 8 Iniesta90'+6 - (In) 7 Gudjohnsen / (Out) 8 Iniesta90'+7 - (In) 16 Sylvinho / (Out) 9 Eto'o

MATCH FACTSChelsea FC

Roster:Čech 1Cole 3

Essien 5Lampard 8Drogba 11Ballack 13

Malouda 15Bosingwa 17

Terry 26Alex 33

Anelka 39

Belletti 35

9’ - (goal) 5 Essien72' (In) 35 Belletti / (Out) 11 Drogba

Chelsea FC 1 - 1 FC BarcelonaSemi-Final 2nd leg - Wednesday 6 May 2009Stamford Bridge - London

FC Barcelona 0 - 0 Chelsea FCSemi-Final 1st leg - Tuesday 28 April 2009Camp Nou - Barcelona

FC Barcelona advanced to the final on away goals, and evntually won the 2008 European Champions League.

Note:FC Barcelona was losing 1-0 since 9th minute of the first half and scored equlizing goal at added time in the second half.

RFB,RD,SW,SO,LD,LFB,ID

Chelsea FC - FC Barcelona

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Analyzing chart#1, FC Barcelona Team doubled and in some cases trippled Chelsea FC in ball passing, delivery/solo runs and shots off target. That shows domination on the pitch and having on average ball possession at 64%, converting into minutes gives little less than a half of the game. Although, Chelsea FC had more shots on target, the shots total is in BARCA favor.These statistics clearly indicate very offensive, focused approach by Catalonians where on the other hand english side shows defensive and looking for opportunity for counter attack approach.Charts#2 & 3 shows players passing distribution. In red squares is indicated ball distribution above 20 and yellow between 10-19. The purpose is to contrast two teams.

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TP-Time Played; PC-Passes Completed; PA-Passes Attempted

ball distribution 20+ ball distribution 10-19

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from TP 1 3 5 8 11 13 15 17 26 33 39 35 PC PA %Petr Čech 1 100'05" - - 1 5 - 7 3 4 1 3 - 24 38 63%Ashley Cole 3 100'05" 2 1 6 2 3 5 - 1 - 1 - 21 30 70%Michael Essien 5 100'05" 1 - 1 1 3 3 2 - - 2 1 14 29 48%Frank Lampard 8 100'05" - 3 4 4 3 6 2 1 2 3 - 28 41 68%Didier Drogba 11 74'42" - - 1 1 1 3 1 - - 1 - 8 19 42%Michael Ballack 13 100'05" - 3 1 4 1 4 4 - 1 - 1 19 31 61%Florent Malouda 15 100'05" - 3 1 10 - 2 - - - 4 - 20 39 51%José Bosingwa 17 100'05" 5 1 4 1 2 3 1 - 1 9 3 30 44 68%John Terry 26 100'05" 3 3 1 - 1 2 3 1 1 - 1 16 20 80%Alex 33 100'05" 1 1 2 - - - - 3 1 - - 8 17 47%Nicolas Anelka 39 100'05" - - 3 3 1 4 1 3 - - 1 16 30 53%

Juliano Belletti 35 25'23" - - 1 2 - 1 - - - - 1 5 9 56%

Team total: 209 347 60%

Chelsea FC

total

ball distribution 20+ ball distribution 10-19

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from TP 1 3 6 8 9 10 15 20 22 24 28 7 11 16 PC PA %Víctor Valdés 1 100'05" 10 - 2 - 1 2 6 1 8 1 - - - 31 40 78%Gerard Piqué 3 100'05" 7 11 6 5 4 7 5 2 7 7 - 1 - 62 71 87%Xavi Hernández 6 100'05" 1 8 22 12 12 6 20 2 6 21 - 1 - 111 127 87%Andrés Iniesta 8 98'17" - 1 17 3 9 5 7 3 1 5 - - - 51 63 81%Samuel Eto'o 9 99'37" - 1 6 2 9 2 2 2 1 5 - - - 30 40 75%Lionel Messi 10 100'05" - - 11 8 7 4 10 2 - 4 - - - 46 59 78%Seydou Keita 15 100'05" 3 7 6 6 6 2 4 4 3 2 - - - 43 51 84%Daniel Alves 20 100'05" - 1 19 8 5 12 1 - 6 3 - - - 55 74 74%Eric Abidal 22 68'34" 1 6 2 6 - 2 6 3 - 2 - - - 28 36 78%Yaya Touré 24 100'05" 4 12 15 2 - - 2 5 - 10 - - - 50 58 86%Sergio Busquets 28 87'48" 1 11 23 6 2 4 3 2 4 7 - - - 63 71 89%

Eidur Gudjohnsen 7 1'48" - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 0 ####Bojan Krkić 11 12'17" - - - - - 1 - - - - - - - 1 1 100%Sylvinho 16 0'28" - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0 0 ####

Team total: 571 691 83%

FC Barcelona

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3

MATCH STATISTICS

1st half 2nd half Total 1st half 2nd half Total

1 0 1 Goal(s) scored 0 1 11 0 1 Goal(s) scored (open play) 0 1 10 0 0 Goal(s) scored (penalty) 0 0 00 0 0 Goal(s) scored (direct from free-kick) 0 0 00 0 0 Goal(s) scored (penalty shootout) 0 0 04 8 12 Total shot(s) 5 9 142 2 4 Shot(s) on target 0 1 12 3 5 Shot(s) off target 4 6 100 3 3 Shot(s) blocked 1 2 30 0 0 Assist(s) 0 1 12 4 6 Corner(s) 3 3 61 4 5 Offside(s) 0 0 00 0 0 Save(s) 1 2 3

48:03:00 52:02:00 100:05:00 Total time played (mins) 48:03:00 52:02:00 100:05:00

12:14 10:52 23:06:00 Ball possession (mins) 19:18 20:51 40:09:00

39% 33% 36% Ball possession (%) 61% 67% 64%

54 55 108.102 Distance covered (metres) 54 54 108.00128.73 28.35 28.73 Top speed (km/h) 26.61 29 29

0 4 4 Yellow card(s) 1 2 30 0 0 Red card(s) 0 1 18 8 16 Foul(s) committed 7 10 17

177 170 347 Passes attempted 368 323 691109 100 209 Passes completed 305 266 571

62% 59% 60% Completion rate 83% 82% 83%49 43 92 Long passes attempted 46 47 9322 17 39 Long passes completed 23 34 57

45% 40% 43% Completion rate 50% 72% 61%84 89 173 Medium passes attempted 238 216 45458 52 110 Medium passes completed 209 179 388

69% 58% 64% Completion rate (%) 88% 83% 86%44 38 82 Short passes attempted 84 60 14429 31 60 Short passes completed 73 53 126

66% 82% 74% Completion rate (%) 87% 88% 88%10 17 27 Delivery/solo runs-attacking third 35 40 759 9 18 Delivery/solo runs-key area 23 31 543 7 10 Delivery/solo runs-penalty area 3 6 9

Discipline

Passing & solo runs

Distance & speed

Scoring situations

Time

Chelsea FC FC Barcelona

POSSESSION+COMBINATION=OFFENSIVNESSChelsea FC - FC Barcelona

The Kick-off.The following situation is a very good example of how the FC Barcelona maintain possession by combination play and as the final product creates very dangerous offensive opportunity.

pic

#1

pic

#2

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#3

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#4

pic#1The build-up started by playing thru Busquets (28) to the defensive line. At the same time the fullbacks made fake run forward and came back to support in case central defenders (3, 24) got pressured. Strikers (8,10) pushed up and RMF (6) made appro-priate movement in midfield.

pic#2Again midfiled plays major role of distributing the ball. When the team in position of the ball plays thru back formations that in eyes of opposition seem like chance to pressure even more because that might create breakthrough. But it gives FCB the needed concentration of the ball in certain sectors of the field.

pic#3Building on this, quick ball distribution and combination play under pressure and in tight spaces creates momen-tum for very dynamic attack. Its shown here that three opposite players ended up behind the ball and additional three were concentrated in the middle within close range from each other. Touré (24) plays to Iniesta (8) which plas one-touch to well supporting Xavi (6).pic#4The final stage of this build-up was a long kick by Xavi (6) to far left side where was Eto’o (9).