After a busy midweek, Barcelona and Real Madrid had their own joys and sorrows.
The defeat to Paris Saint-Germain left Xavi's European record in the Barcelona era to a halt, and he continued to express his displeasure with everything, but the outcome has become clearer. On Real Madrid's side, Carlo Ancelotti and his players won a not good-looking, but important victory on the road, and continued to march towards the title.
There are so many differences between the two teams that there is no point in comparing them side-by-side at the moment, but no one wants Xavi to win a national derby to make his farewell performance a little more exciting.
Even if such a victory would be based on Real Madrid's lack of intensity.
After a hard-fought midweek campaign, Carlo Ancelotti was only able to field a semi-main squad for this game.
At the back, Camavinga and Vazquez played left and right wing-backs, with Luka Modric in the starting line-up. As for the likes of Toni Rudiger, Ernesto Valverde, Kroos, Bellingham, Vinicius Jr. and Rodrygo, they still need to play.
After all, Real Madrid can't give up victory at home.
So under the pressure of Barcelona:
Real Madrid are also actively attacking:
But in the 5th minute of the game, Barcelona won a corner kick opportunity by pressing and opened the score from the corner kick battle:
After conceding the goal, Real Madrid naturally need to pull up the intensity:
But it will also give Barcelona more space to attack, and there is the possibility of increasing the speed on Yamal's side:
It's a good development for Barcelona, but the direction of the game is clearly out of their control.
In the 12th minute of the game, Vázquez stepped forward to assist and created a set-piece opportunity for Real Madrid:
In this game, Real Madrid changed their tactical system, Ancelotti left Valverde more at the back, used to cover the space at the back, protect his teammates in the back line, and replaced his role of assisting forward as two full-backs:
Not only Vazquez, but also Camavin plus the previous strength.
Such a tactical choice can effectively make use of the lateral space in Barcelona's back line, and for Xavi's faction, they are not destined to rotate the central midfield to cover the exposed space, but to allow the wingers on either side to chase back to Real Madrid's full-backs and fall to the back.
In this way, Real Madrid can not only strengthen the attack through the assists of the full-backs, but also consume the physical energy of the Barcelona wingers by the way, and the purpose of the tactical system has been achieved.
On top of that, Vázquez had a problem with Cancelo in his small area, who not only sent a set-piece, but was also comfortably cleared by Vazquez in the 16th minute, forcing Kubasi to foul in the box:
Real Madrid equalised.
The score was back on the same running line, and both teams needed to start over, and as the game wore on, the problems began to come to light. On Barcelona's side, Raphinha, who has performed well in the Champions League recently, has been in average form, and there have been many low-level mistakes in handling the ball:
As Barcelona's de facto second striker, Raphinha's form generally has a big impact on the team, which means that he can't wear down opponents with open depth, and he can't use it to share the pressure on Lewandowski, which is a place that Barcelona can't do in this game.
On Real Madrid's side, their problem is a serious loss of personnel and physical fitness, which means that they can't easily play with high intensity except when the score is behind, otherwise there is a high probability that they will collapse at home, rather than crushing the opponent, so at the end of the first half, Real Madrid's attack was relatively simple:
Any additional spending will require the coaches to be on the sidelines, and Carlo Ancelotti is the best at that.
At the end of the first half and at the beginning of the second half, a series of changes became the first turning point of the game.
De Jong was injured before the end of the first half and Pedri came on, and after the second half, Andreas Christensen came off and Fermien came on. Both of these adjustments may have been due to the physical condition of the players, but regardless of the adjustments, the result of the adjustment is that the protection in front of the Barcelona back line has been greatly reduced, and in theory, the support behind the Barcelona forward line has been greatly improved.
So in the second half, Barcelona began to attack Real Madrid's defense with small balls:
So on Real Madrid's side, they can not only play counter-attacks:
It is also easy to open up space in positional warfare:
When there is enough physical fitness, Real Madrid will not be afraid of Barcelona playing small ball, because Real Madrid's midfield is not lacking in technical support at all.
Among Real Madrid's starting four defenders, in fact, only Rudiger is a full-fledged defender, and the rest are in the midfield, so when it comes to controlling the ball and dealing with Barcelona's pressing, Real Madrid is actually not false at all.
The only thing that can affect their performance is physical fitness.
In the 69th minute of the game, Barcelona used a long pass to divert the weak side, which can be seen from the speed of the Real Madrid players' lateral movement, the players are in a rather tired state, and in the end they can only barely get to the position.
That way, you don't have to expect them to be so clear-headed and conscious once they're in place:
Carlo Ancelotti's only minor flaw is his habit of making adjustments after they have happened, which is the only minor flaw, but as long as the opponent and the score force him to make up his mind, you can watch.
After conceding the second goal, Carlo Ancelotti brought on Fran Garcia and Brahim Dias for Camavinga and Kroos, who were already at the bottom of their fitness, and immediately filled the fitness gap on this side.
Two minutes later, Real Madrid explored forward from this flank and sent in a cross that was met again by Vázquez to equalise:
Under Xavi's thinking, Barcelona's wingers do not chase back, this is the result.
Next, on the basis of an already acceptable draw, Carlo Ancelotti replaced Militão to complete the fitness and resistance of the central defender, and at the same time, he replaced Joselu as a high point to suppress Barcelona's backfield.
One after the other, the two areas have been reinforced, and after the formation of an effect, it is reflected on the field, that is, Barcelona's third line has been completely opened, and the space available for Real Madrid's midfield has become extremely vast:
Here, Real Madrid's players can do whatever they want, whether it's Brahim Dias who takes a set-piece first:
Or make the final lore:
Barcelona's midfield disadvantage due to the characteristics of the players and the distance between the three lines, as well as Joselu's role as a central striker in front of goal, are extremely clear.
Faced with this kind of adjustment and layout, the current young coach will just sit back and watch it happen, and then repeat over and over again how good his team is playing after the game.
So what's the point?
So, there's not much to say.
Barcelona may also have their own objective reasons, but in the face of a Real Madrid team that consumed a lot of money in midweek, they also scored first on the road, led twice, and finally failed to get a good result.
Xavi didn't have much to say, just accept the fact that he was knocked out by Ancelotti's technical adjustments.
On the Real Madrid side, no matter what Florentino's ambitions are, the Galacticos never set sail smoothly because they have good players.
Twenty years ago, Florentino's Real Madrid collected many outstanding players on the planet like a stamp collector, but in the position of manager, the substitutions were like a passing eye, so that the Galaxy Battleship failed to meet the expectations of the world. From that moment on, Florentino probably understood the importance of a good manager.
Therefore, no matter what kind of bloody storm Real Madrid will set off this summer, the renewal of Ancelotti is the most correct and important signing.
Not one of them.