Barcelona vs. Espanyol – Spanish La Liga Review (Part 3)
The front three included; Lionel Messi, Pedro Rodriguez and David Villa.
These three have scored more than ninety five goals for Barcelona this season. That is exactly the reason why Josep Guardiola fielded these three strikers against Espanyol. The Catalan coach did not want to take any sorts of chances against the club’s local-city rivals and wanted to take all three points.
Pedro Rodriguez played on the right wing while David Villa played on the left. Lionel Messi played in his “new-found” position – centre forward. The Argentinean has played most of his season as a “false nine.”
Lionel Messi plays as a centre forward but falls deep to add an extra man in the midfield for the Catalan Giants. The best player in the world has scored 52 goals in the 53 appearances that he has made throughout this season. Even though this “new position” somewhat takes away David Villa’s goal scoring ability, Barcelona’s goal scoring form is only enhanced by this change.
On the other hand Espanyol’s coach Mauricio Pochettino fielded his favourite eleven. The goalkeeper Carlos Kameni featured between the two poles. Even though the Cameroonian goal stopper had a woeful night against Barcelona, he is still the best goalkeeper available in the Espanyol line-up.
Carlos Kameni was assisted by four defenders, Chica, Raul Rodriguez, Jordi Amat and Galan. All these four defenders kept themselves behind the ball in order to deny Barcelona all sorts of attacks.
Espanyol usually play with two centre backs who are aided by a single holding midfielder while the full backs make a run forward and act like “wing backs.” However, Pochettino decided to change his tactics against Barcelona and decided to stick his full backs behind the half way line to strengthen his defensive walls.
Mauricio Pochettino decided to play a 4-3-3 as well. The Espanyol boss tried to man mark all the Barcelona midfielders. However, Lionel Messi kept on falling back into the midfield to allow Barcelona to keep playing their usual free-flowing football.
Callejon played in the holding midfield role for Espanyol. Callejon was aided by Javier Lopez Rodriguez who worked tirelessly in the midfield and kept on pressing onto the Barcelona midfielders.
Callejon and Javier Lopez Rodriguez were assisted by Ivan Alonso in the attacking midfield position. The Espanyol midfielder played a little on the left hand side of the pitch to put a hold onto the threat provided by Daniel Alves on that wing. He was given a hard job by the Espanyol coach as he had to face Pedro Rodriguez, Xavi Hernandez and Daniel Alves on that wing.
There were three strikers fielded by the Espanyol coach. With the local city rivals coming to the Nou Camp, Mauricio Pochettino did not approach the game with a defensive strategy. The Espanyol boss wanted to play attacking football just like he usually offers with his tactics.
Mauricio decided to press onto the Barcelona players and wanted his side to keep possession of the ball in order to score goals. However, it was hard for him to beat Barcelona in their own game and they were the ones dominant throughout the full 90 minutes.
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