Match date: 12 March 2014
Since the first leg, both sides have had poor performances; Barcelona have lost to both Real Sociedad and Real Valladolid, while Manchester City were ousted from the FA Cup by Wigan, who beat them in the final of last year’s competition.
For this match, Tata Martino named just one change to the side that beat Manchester City in Manchester with Neymar replacing Alexis Sanchez.
Pellegrini was forced to watch the match from the stands, but made several changes to his side with Aguero in for Negredo, Milner in for Clichy, Nasri for Navas, and Lescott for Demichelis. As they did in the first leg, Manchester City played with just one striker, which they’ve rarely done in their domestic campaign.
City’s Early Pressure
While Barcelona had majority of the ball throughout the match, Manchester City had good spells of possession and created a good number of chances, but failed to make them pay.
In the tunnel before the players walked out, on the program I watched the match on, a very audible “aggressive!” was shouted out by one of the Manchester City players (I think it was Joe Hart). That word, aggressive, did well to sum up the opening half hour of the match with Manchester City pressing well and, in turn, committing a large number of fouls. In that opening third of the match, Manchester City committed 14 fouls, with Barcelona committing just two, their first coming in the 23rd minute.
Of course Joe Hart was not advocating committing fouls all over the pitch, but rather making sure that it was a bit harder for Barcelona to keep the ball and play a patience game. Half of the fouls above were committed in Barcelona’s half as Manchester City did well pressing Barcelona as they attempted to play the ball out of the back. Below, you can see two images. The top one shows six Manchester City players in Barcelona’s half, with the English side also playing a high line as both Kompany and Lescott looked to get in front of Messi and intercept the ball, and did so on a number of occasions. The next image, just a few seconds after, shows a good press by the six Manchester City players in Barcelona’s half as the Catalan side struggle to work the ball out of the back.
While Manchester City’s pressing did disrupt the flow of the match through the fouls that it led to, with disrupting the flow of Barcelona’s play a secondary motive behind the intense pressing other than winning the ball back, Barcelona were still able to work their way out with City mistiming or failing in their tackles high up the pitch, meaning that Kompany and Lescott were left to either get in front of Messi and Neymar to pinch the ball or had to drop off quickly. Below, however, you can see that City’s pressing was effective in Barcelona’s half, but left a lot of work to be done by the defenders to make risky decisions in near the midfield line.
Messi
With the criticisms pointed towards Barcelona in the last few weeks, many of them have been pointed towards Messi, who has not quite reached his normal heights since coming back from injury. On the night, however, the Barcelona number 10 looked lively and threatening throughout.
In the above section, the bottom image of the two depicts the Manchester City press when the Barcelona centre backs had possession near their penalty area. It also shows a huge space between the Manchester City midfield and back four, which Messi used to his advantage, dropping into to allow Barcelona to have an out ball. Kompany and Lescott were both brave on different occasions at attempting to get into front of Messi and intercept passes, but majority of the time, Messi was able to receive the ball and either play it to Xavi and Fabregas coming to support him or to Neymar or Iniesta to either side of him.
However, it was the opportunities when Messi was able to receive, turn with the ball, and dribble at the Manchester City defense that made them look most vulnerable. Some of his best runs came when he was able to dribble at Lescott, who was lucky not to concede a penalty for a foul on Messi that was not called and who was certainly poor compared for Vincent Kompany. One opportunity in the first half saw Messi get by Yaya Toure and then Lescott only for Hart to get hands to the ball. Another saw him beat Lescott in a 1v1 only to hit the post with his shot in the second half.
City Struggle, Then Create
There were certainly questions after the first leg about if the scoreline would have been the same had Sergio Aguero been fit to play. When the news came that he would be fit for the second leg, there was something to be hopeful about, despite the history of sides being 2-0 down after the first leg in the Champions League. Aguero offers Manchester City a different option than their other two forwards in Negredo and Dzeko, who are both good in the air, but lack Aguero’s pace to get in behind a defense, which is important against a side like Barcelona that play a high line.
However, on the night, Aguero struggled to have any real impact on the match, barely getting a touch of the ball in his 45 minutes of the pitch and failing to get a shot off. While Aguero’s movement is usually one of his best traits, he was lacking on the night, perhaps due to his injured hamstring that saw him substituted at half time.
The lack of an outlet hurt Manchester City as they struggled to get the ball forward and consistently sustain good pressure in the attacking third of the field. Along with Aguero’s lack of contribution, Busquets was able to keep David Silva’s influence at a minimum as well during the first half. Manchester City could have looked to cause Busquets more problems in the first half by allowing Samir Nasri to drift inside and create a 2v1 with himself and Silva overloading Busquets, but this didn’t really happen until the second half.
At halftime, Edin Dzeko came on for Aguero and his impact on the match was evident at first as he had more of a presence in the Barcelona penalty area than Aguero had in the first half, but his influence began to fade as well. The more significant change, however, was Samir Nasri coming inside more. Below is the UEFA tactical charts from the match. The image on the left is the Manchester City players’ positioning in the opening 15 minutes of the first half and on the right is their positioning in the opening 15 minutes of the second half. Nasri is 8.
AS Nasri moved inside, Manchester City were able to get another body in the centre of the pitch against Busquets, which allowed Silva and Nasri to play around the Barcelona holding midfielder, thus allowing Manchester City to retain more possession in the attacking third and have more of a presence in the Barcelona penalty area with Silva and Nasri able to support Dzeko.
Conclusion
It was always unlikely that Manchester City were going to be able to come back from being down two away goals and while their performances on both nights show improvement in their European pursuits, they still seem to have a long way to go to compete in Europe’s top competition, especially as Barcelona never looked like they were at their best in either leg.
Barcelona, and perhaps more so Tata Martino, will be relieved that they were able to come out as victors in the match itself after their recent failings in La Liga. While the team was not at their best, both Messi and Iniesta looked refreshed, which will undoubtedly raise Barcelona’s play.