preface
In the first leg of the Champions League semi-finals, Manchester City played at home to La Liga giants Real Madrid, which was a strong dialogue, and in the semi-finals, every team will do whatever it takes to advance to the final.
This is not a single-game set-up, but two 180-minute matches, in which City narrowly beat Real Madrid 4-3 at home in the first 90 minutes.
With the elimination of the away goal advantage in the Champions League knockout rounds, this is very bad for Real Madrid and a positive for Manchester City. The 4-3 score is also very delicate, and a week later on the Santiago Bernabeu, there is still a lot of suspense in the battle between Manchester City and Real Madrid.
Both architectures have changed and are passive adjustments
As soon as the start of this game comes out, it is not difficult to find that whether it is real Madrid away or Manchester City at home, their starting lineup has some position fine-tuning with the previous main lineup, and these fine-tuning are unavoidable.
Right-back on Manchester City's side, Kyle Walker, missed the game due to injury, while The team's left-back Cancello was also unable to play due to suspension.
For Manchester City, the attack and defense of one left and one right will cause great challenges.
On the Real Madrid side, the main defender Casemiro can not play, and he is replaced by the No. 8 Kroos who is not good at this position.
During the game, left centre-back Alaba also played only half a game due to injury, so Real Madrid and Manchester City had many uncontrollable factors in the team's midfield arrangement (centre-back and back-back position; two full-backs), because their arrangement for this game and the original conventional structure have changed greatly.
So when analyzing this game, we have to take this into account, and it is worth noting that it is not the norm.
Kroos played as a single back, covering, moving, underfoot, experience being targeted by Manchester City
In the 433 formation, the single back position that is dragged back is very important. He and the two centre-backs behind him formed a defensive linkage organizational structure of the 433 formation in attack.
In positional warfare defense, a single back also needs sufficient coverage and physical confrontation.
Due to Casemiro's inability to play, Kroos had to make a cameo appearance in this position, which he had played in the German national team, but still had poor results.
Every coach uses Kroos as a technical back because He has a good big picture view and the ability to control the rhythm of the game.
But in the single-back position, in addition to passing and stabilizing the rhythm, it also requires greater lateral coverage and movement agility, including the close foot of the position defense and the empirical interpretation of the game situation.
Judging a back player from these angles, Kroos is obviously not up to the single back position in such a high-intensity game.
He chose to be relatively forward and left in the match against Manchester City, and his forward leaning consciousness was obvious, which put unlimited pressure on the Real Madrid centre-back who was not outstanding in his single defensive ability.
If returning to the Bernabeu, Casemiro can play, allowing Cross to return to his familiar left midfield position, and with Casemiro's protection, Kroos's passing and scheduling functions can be stabilized.
City need to pay close attention to the balance between attack and defence, and De Bruyne's form is unprecedented
City's starting right-back is centre-back Stones, who replaced Fernandinho at right-back before the end of the first half, but Fernandinho was not far behind the original main player Walker.
His assists in this game were very large, losing the asymmetric full-back offensive structure of Manchester City's right side and left attack, thus being used many times by Vinicius on the left side of the game.
Of course, Fernandinho still has a good advantage in the right-back position, and the cross footwork in the bottom cross and the defensive hardness on the right side can still be reflected in the position defense.
On the offensive end, De Bruyne is in better shape than ever, he can score and pass the ball, and the freedom of movement in the front court has been greatly released.
As long as there are teammates running in reasonable positions in the front, De Bruyne can send threatening passes on the counter-attack.
Therefore, Manchester City need to solve the problem of offensive and defensive balance at this stage, and look forward to Walker's return and Cancelo playing a "tactical fulcrum" role on the left side to help the team.