The knockout stage of the Champions League has begun and this tie was one of the most anticipated of the first leg matches. Milan have been a dominate force in Europe over the last ten years, having won the Champions League twice, and Barcelona have become the team to beat in Europe in the last decade, lifting the trophy three times.

My friend gave me a phone call the Monday before match day one and told me that his company was doing a Champions League bracket competition and asked if I would help him out as I’m the only one he knows that has a blog about football. I told him this match would probably end in a 1-1 draw. Here was my thought process:

Despite the fact that Pep Guardiola is no longer the manager of Barcelona (and Tito Vilanova wouldn’t be there either due to his throat cancer treatment in New York), I looked at Barcelona’s Champions League results away from home during his tenure, something I knew didn’t show Barcelona at their best. As it turns out, they haven’t done terribly, but more often that not, they would either draw or lose away from home and that doesn’t include the loss to Celtic this year. So from 2008 to 2012, Barcelona won 11, drew 10, and lost 3 and up against a team like Milan, even though the Rossoneri have had their problems at home in the group stage this year, I thought Barcelona would stutter. I also took into account last year’s meetings, when Barcelona won 3-2 at the San Siro thanks to a Van Bommel own goal in the group stages and then drew when they met in the knockout stage.

Milan’s Plan

Massimiliano Allegri came into the match saying that he’d play the best formation to get the result which was telling of how Milan setup. On paper, Allegri decided his best formation was this:

Pazzini was brought in for Mario Balotelli who is ineligible to play for Milan in the Champions League as he appeared for Manchester City in the group stages prior to his transfer, other than that, Milan were at full strength.

Milan set out with a very clear and rigid plan; they wanted to contain Barcelona and counter when possible. It became more obvious that they wanted to try to exploit the space behind Dani Alves and Jordi Alba. It is well known that the Barcelona backs like to get themselves high up the pitch, so whenever Milan got the ball they would look for either Kevin-Prince Boateng or El Shaarawy to quickly get into the space that Alves and Alba left open. It worked as well for the first 20 minutes or so as Barcelona weren’t really settling into the game. El Shaarawy got in behind Dani Alves after a clever flick from Pazzini, but failed to make the chance pay.

Up until the 24th minute, Barcelona were keeping the ball well, but Milan were able to win the ball back quite a few times and break into Barcelona’s half to create chances. This changed significantly at the 24 minute mark, right has Mexes got his yellow card for bringing down Messi. For the rest of the first half, Barcelona were dominating possession of the ball, but couldn’t seem to create any chances as we saw what Milan set out to do.

Some may call it tactical genius; I call it anti-football. Italian sides are always well respected for their defensive displays, it is the most important part of their football. Can Milan be faulted for their display? They took a page out of Jose Mourinho’s time at Inter, when he beat Barcelona in the semifinals and took note of Chelsea’s anti-football display against Barcelona last year. So whatever you want to call it, I’ll examine how they did it.

From that 24 minute mark, as soon as Barcelona would get into Milan’s half, all 11 Milan players would get behind the ball. If Barcelona were about 15 yards into Milan’s half, Milan would get into either a 4-5-1 or 5-4-1, depending on what side Barcelona had the ball on. If they were more on the right, then Boateng would drop into a right back position, allowing the back four to shift over. This worked as Pedro would drift inside to allow the wing to used by Alves. Whereas on the left, Alba would almost always have either Iniesta or Fabregas in support. So here is how they looked in a 5-4-1:

You can see Pedro in between Mexes and Constant, with Dani Alves on the touchline out of frame. You can also see Boateng is about to push on a bit and make the shape more of 4-5-1 as the ball shifts to the left side.

The deeper that Barcelona got into Milan’s half, the deeper everyone would drop. Depending on what side the ball was on, either El Shaarawy or Boateng would drop into the outside back position, with Pazinni dropping in to make it a 5-5 or 6-4, shown below. They were very disciplined in their roles. The best example maybe El Shaarawy who is a young, attacking player and so being able to get him to be tactically aware and to track Dani Alves back throughout the game was a bit of managerial class by Allegri.

Barcelona couldn’t break this down. They found it incredibly hard for either back to get in behind the Milan full backs and when they tried to go through the middle, they were simply crowded out. Messi found himself dropping very deep, usually in the centre circle, in order to get on the ball and it was rare that any Barcelona player was able to receive the ball with their back to goal near the penalty area as Milan defenders would usually get a foot in and rarely fouled around that area. When a Barcelona player did get a ball in the area, they were quickly surrounded by Milan players:

Despite their deep defending, when Milan did get on the ball, they were able to create a half chance, more than Barcelona were, through Prince Boateng who whipped in a cross that El Shaarawy was inches away from getting a telling touch on.

The second half, Milan came out a bit more adventurous, trying to press a little bit higher up the pitch. They also took advantage of a set piece to make it 1-0 early on in the half, though it probably never should have come about as moments before Sergio Busquets, just named Catalan Player of the Year, was deemed to have fouled Pazzini after clearly winning the ball. From this free kick, in Milan’s half, they were able to get the ball into Barcelona’s half and after a poor free kick by Victor Valdes, Dani Alves fouled El Shaarawy about 30 yards out on the left side of the pitch.

The resulting free kick was set up for Montolivo to get a shot on goal, but it deflected off of Jordi Alba and up against the arm of Zapata, falling kindly to Boateng to slot home. The ebb and flow of the match continue, as Barcelona pushed for an away goal, hoping to get a draw at the San Siro, but without really creating chances and it was Milan who got the next goal. Near the half way line, Montolivo lofted a ball in behind Puyol for substitute Niang to get on to and after winning it against Puyol, he played it to El Shaarawy who produced a moment of magic with a delightful touch into Muntari who volleyed past Valdes.

Post-Match

So Milan have a 2-0 going into the second leg of the tie at Nou Camp. If their tactics today were to sit deep and invite the pressure, they will surely continue to do so with a two goal lead away from home. They’ll look for a counter attack to try and get a crucial away goal, but if it doesn’t come, I can’t see them being too displeased by it as long as they defend like they did today.

People were quick to criticize Lionel Messi for not having a great game. He was crowded out every time he got the ball by at least three Milan players. He surely didn’t have his best game and I would be okay if it were just people on Twitter and Facebook that were doing the criticizing, however, it was Mark van Bommel that made the most of Messi’s poor performance. He said that Messi wouldn’t be successful in Serie A so I thought I’d look into in a bit.

Messi has 56 goals in 75 games in the Champions League in his career and has been the top scorer in the last 4 years of the competition. He has played Italian teams 8 times, including this past match. Three times against Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan side, who parked the bus against Barcelona, 4 times against Milan last year as they were in the same group as well, and this first leg. He has 3 goals in those 8 appearances, which isn’t a great return, unless you think about how difficult it is when the opposition sets up with the sole purpose of keeping you from scoring. In a Serie A side, one would think it would be harder to justify the need to close up shop as there isn’t a side with as potent as an attack as Barcelona’s.

Stray Observations

Sully Muntari was brought to Portsmouth by Harry Redknapp in 2007 and won the 2008 FA Cup. Kevin-Prince Boateng was sold from Tottenham to Portsmouth by Harry Redknapp and lost the in the 2010 FA Cup Final. Harry Redknapp factor somewhere in there.