Match date: 6 June 2015

Both teams are in search of a treble after winning their domestic honours and both managers are looking to win their first Champions League and both are looking to do so in their first season at the club.

Juventus are without Chiellini as a result of a calf strain. Allegri was able to name a strong line up despite the centre back’s absence and continued with a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield.

Luis Enrique kept his line up as expected and continued in a 4-3-3. Xavi waited on the bench in what would be his final appearance for Barcelona.

Midfield Battle

This area of the pitch was always going to be a huge part of this game. Barcelona of course want to have good, sustained periods of possession and much of that comes through Busquets, Iniesta, and Rakitic coupled by the movement of the front three. Juventus, with a midfield diamond, theoretically outnumbered Barcelona in this area of the pitch, but it was rarely the case in the game. During the opening stages of the match, Messi and Neymar stretched the field, with their heels on the touchline, as they usually do under Enrique at the start of games. However, as games build, Messi tends to come inside, which allows him to get on the ball more often and allows Dani Alves to move into the space in front of him. This of course allowed Barcelona to match up with Juventus, but Luis Enrique had a plan to win the midfield battle.

In order to stop Juventus from playing, it is imperative that Pirlo is not able to get on the ball. In the matches against Real Madrid, Juventus were able to bypass the Real Madrid midfield as Pirlo was allowed time on the ball and Tevez was not properly marked by Toni Kroos or a centre back tracking the Argentine’s checks into midfield areas. One quick pass from Pirlo into Tevez’s feet allowed Real Madrid to be opened up and it was far too easy. To ensure that this would not happen to his side, Enrique had Suarez track back and stay tight to Pirlo for most of the match. The Uruguayan was relatively good at sticking with the midfield maestro, but the Italian was still able to get on the ball from time to time. On the other end of the Pirlo-Tevez connection was Sergio Busquets. The holding midfielder played an excellent game and was able to occupy the space that Tevez wanted to get into.

With Pirlo unable to get on the ball much because of Suarez, it did, however, allow Bonucci to see a good amount of the ball. The Italian centre back has excellent distribution as well and this will be discussed later in the piece.

When Barcelona moved the ball past the halfway line, Juventus’ diamond midfield began to collapse into a flat midfield four with Marchisio on the right, Vidal and Pirlo through the middle, and Pogba on the right. Morata and Tevez floated up top together, but they were not looking to press Pique or Mascherano and neither marked or put any sustained, good pressure on Busquets, which allowed those three to keep the ball if needed.

While Juventus’ diamond became a flat four, it still remained very compact and would shift from side to side as a unit. This allowed Barcelona to play quick switches into the likes of Neymar, Messi, Jordi Alba, and Dani Alves and catch the Juventus midfield shifting far too slowly. The opening goal of the game was a prime example of this as well as the other faults in Juventus’ midfield. For Rakitic’s goal, Messi had the ball on the right side of the pitch, which meant that Marchisio, Vidal, Pirlo, and Pogba were all shifted to the right side of the pitch. This left a huge hole for Messi to play a ball into Neymar, who was isolated in a 1v1.

This happened far too many times in the game and it was one of the weaknesses of Juventus that Barcelona took advantage of throughout. The end result of this move was Rakitic’s opening goal which exposed another weakness in the Juventus’ midfield when defending in a deep block and that was tracking the runs of Iniesta and Rakitic, both were unmarked when they received the ball inside of the penalty area during this move and Marchisio and Pirlo were both ball watching in the build up. The movement of Neymar, Messi, and Suarez in and around the penalty area when Barcelona have sustained possession in the final third is dangerous enough for the defending team and draws focus, allowing Iniesta and Rakitic to move a bit more freely into pockets of space that open up from the movement of the front three.

Messi, in particular, found Neymar and Alba in behind the Juventus defence a number of times, especially in the first half when the Argentine received the ball and then came in from the right. As mentioned, it that Juventus’ midfield had shifted over, allowing Alba to have a huge amount of space and Barcelona were able to switch the ball over to him quickly to unbalance the Juventus’ lines.

Juventus’ Pressing and Vidal

How Juventus approached the game when they did not have the ball was always going to be interesting. The opening minutes saw them put high pressure on Pique, Ter Stegen, and Mascherano, with the latter twice giving away the ball as a result of the pressure. As the game went on, Morata and Tevez stopped their high press and Juventus defended in a mid to deep block. As mentioned above, the Juventus midfield diamond became a flat four most of the time, but Vidal found himself leaving the that line to try to put pressure on the Barcelona ball carrier when the Spanish side had the ball in the middle third of the pitch.

A perfect example of this was just before Rakitic’s opening goal when the Chilean rushed out to try to close down Messi. Overall, while there seemed to be a plan from Allegri to allow Barcelona to have the ball and play through Busquets, Vidal seemed to want to put constant and immediate pressure on the ball carrier which caused disorganisation in midfield and allowed for more space for Barcelona’s midfielders to play. The Chilean lacked composure defensively, was somewhat lucky to remain on the pitch, and did not add much for Juventus going forward despite all his energy.

Second Half Changes

There were notable differences in the first half and a lot of it had to do with the positioning of Barcelona’s front three. During the first half, Messi stayed mostly in a wide right positioning, sometimes coming inside to get the ball, but usually he was doing as Neymar did on the other side, trying to stretch the field as much as possible. As the second half began, almost immediately Messi started to stay in a central area of the pitch. This led to a few different things that allowed Juventus to get back into the match. The first was that Pirlo was able to get on the ball a bit more often and even when Suarez stayed central to mark the Italian, Messi rarely put pressure on Bonucci. The times that Suarez and Messi were both central became limited as both Evra and Lichtsteiner were able to get further up the field as Neymar and Messi/Suarez began to let the full backs go. With the full backs further up the pitch, Juventus were able to put Barcelona under more pressure at the back and it meant that when Juventus had the ball, Alves and Alba were occupied, allowing Morata and Tevez to find 1v1 situations against Pique and Mascherano. Pogba also began to find himself in more space as he moved into the space on the left hand side of the pitch and the French international had some good moments on the ball.

Morata’s goal was a perfect example of this. Juventus applied good pressure that forced Dani Alves into a poor clearance. Lichtsteiner won the ball, continued his run after a good pass by Marchisio, got into the Barcelona penalty area and squared the ball to Tevez, who was in a 1v1 with Pique. The Argentine turned and shot only for Ter Stegen to save into the path of Morata who calmly put the ball in the back of the net.

When Juventus had the ball in deeper positions, they began to play more directly into Morata, who ran into the channels for these long balls fairly well. It was effective when Pirlo could not get onto the ball and allowed Juventus to get up the field rather than try to look to play into Tevez’s feet who was taken out of the game for large periods because of Busquet’s intelligent positioning.

Messi Turns the Page, Counter Attacks

Despite not getting a goal, Messi took control of this game after Juventus scored the equaliser. The Argentine had moved into a central area at the beginning of the second half and started to drift around in these areas of the pitch dictating the tempo of the match. Barcelona kept the ball moving, looking to spread the Juventus’ midfield as much as possible and recycled the ball through the likes of Busquets. Messi, however, was the one that changed the tempo. As soon as he saw an opening or a chance to create an opportunity, the tempo changed significantly and he took over the game, breaking the lines with his dribbling and intricate one-twos in the attacking third and around the box with the likes of Suarez, Iniesta, Neymar, and Rakitic.

While Messi made Barcelona look dangerous when they had sustained pressure on Juventus, Barcelona were also incredibly dangerous on their counter attacks, catching Juventus out in transitions. It is something that, traditionally, Barcelona have struggled to defend against because of the numbers that they typically commit forward for attacks, but under Luis Enrique, counter attacks have become a good source of goals for Barcelona. Against Juventus, the Spanish side had numerous good breaks with one resulting in what was the winning goal. Below is just before Suarez’s goal. Messi is running at the Juventus back line and there is a huge amount of space behind that line for the position on the pitch. Messi got by Barzagli fairly easily before getting his shot off. Buffon was only able to parry it into the path of Suarez.

Conclusion

Barcelona win the treble for the second time, becoming the first side to do so. It was a deserved win, especially considering Barcelona and Messi’s form since the turn of the year. Both have been excellent and this caps off the season for the Spanish side.

Allegri might have gone with a back three had Chiellini been fit, but he has much preferred to start games in a 4-4-2 and change to a 3-5-2 later in matches. Regardless, Juventus were outplayed for majority of the match and were unable to think of alternative ways to work the ball forward after Pirlo wasn’t able to get on the ball and the passing lanes to Tevez were closed off.

Barcelona have now won their four Champions League trophy in ten years and their second treble in ten years and second under a first year, Spanish manager.