Chapter 810 - 59: First Battle Against Barcelona: Center Forward Chen
In the early morning of April 17th, Beijing time, the 32nd round of the Spanish Premier League, Real Madrid VS Barcelona.
This is the first of the four "El Clasico" battles between Real Madrid and Barcelona in 18 days.
Barcelona captain Puyol returned to the starting lineup, while Real Madrid deployed a "muscle" midfield, appearing intent on completely strangling Barcelona.
In this formation, Pepe’s position moved from central defender to midfield.
Real Madrid’s 4-3-3 formation was unexpected for everyone.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Chen Zhong, Kaka
Alonso, Khedira, Pepe
Marcelo, Cavaleiro, Albiol, Ramos
Casillas
In this lineup, the pre-game speculations about the center forward choice were all wrong; Chen Zhong moved from midfield to the forward line, taking on the role of center forward.
Evidently, Mourinho has great trust in Chen Zhong’s height and aerial duel capability.
Barcelona also lined up in a 4-3-3 formation.
Villa, Messi, Pedro
Iniesta, Busquets, Xavi
Adriano, Puyol, Pique, Alves
Valdes
Comparing the formations of the two teams, the most striking impression of Barcelona is their lack of height.
In the Barcelona camp, excluding the goalkeeper, only Pique’s height reaches 190CM, while other players are generally shorter.
As for the midfield, Real Madrid is packed with muscular men and fierce players.
Among Iniesta, Xavi, and Busquets, only Busquets is relatively tall, but his stature doesn’t provide any advantage compared to any midfielder from Real Madrid.
The first of the four battles between Real Madrid and Barcelona took place at Bernabeu. In front of the home fans, pre-game predictions suggested that Real Madrid should engage in a direct battle with Barcelona.
But Mourinho evidently has a different idea; Real Madrid is leading Barcelona on the points table, and Barcelona needs the victory more.
After the starting lineup was announced, various signs indicated that even at home, Mourinho would abandon the attacking approach used against Barcelona in the first half of the league, opting instead to repeat Inter’s strategy from last season to block Barcelona with bus-like defense.
Mourinho has long recognized that dense defense is the best way to counter Barcelona.
Before this match officially started, Spain’s Diario AS reported that in the league match against Barcelona, Mourinho is considering using a three-defensive midfielder formation to counter Barcelona’s attacking football.
Unexpectedly, Mourinho is not deploying the trio of Khedira, Alonso, and Chen Zhong but rather fielding the "quasi-three defensive midfielders" combo of Khedira, Alonso-Pepe.
Mourinho’s plan is to heavily populate the midfield, with Pepe playing as a Defensive Midfielder to focus on defending Barcelona’s right side with Alves and Pedro, ensuring defensive stability.
Real Madrid’s right-back will be Ramos, while Albiol and Cavaleiro will pair up as central defenders.
Upfront, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo will start.
Regarding the choice of center forward, because Adebayor has been inconsistent on the field, Benzema is fully recovered but can’t ensure form, and Higuain is also in a similar situation.
No one expected that Mourinho would choose to use Chen Zhong as the center forward.
Chen Zhong has played as center forward; his performance was decent, but no coach would lavishly use Chen Zhong in that position, yet Mourinho did.
Mourinho’s preparation for the match paid attention to every single detail.
Reportedly, in recent months, Mourinho has been constantly studying Barcelona’s tactics and ways to counter them. Whether with double or triple Defensive Midfielders, the sole aim is to stifle Xavi and Iniesta’s playmaking. In Mourinho’s view, these two players are more threatening than Messi; in fact, Messi has never scored against his team.
As long as the connection between Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi is cut off, Messi’s threat is halved.
Mourinho repeatedly stressed that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are among the world’s best players, but they can only exert decisive influence when receiving passes from teammates.
Without the ball, no matter how capable they are, they are rendered ineffectual.
In such a scenario, Mourinho views Xavi and Iniesta as the greatest threats. Against Barcelona, he demands his players to suppress the two players’ output, especially cutting off their passing routes.
Mourinho has racked his brain thinking about how to inhibit the performance of these two midfield maestros from Barcelona.
Reportedly, to prepare for the match against Barcelona, Mourinho repeatedly watched last season’s Champions League semifinal first leg where Inter defeated Barcelona 3-1, believing that Inter won by nullifying Xavi’s impact.
Inter made numerous interceptions in the midfield and utilized forwards’ pace to hit Barcelona on the counter.
Inter didn’t employ man-marking but still emphasized the defense of Barcelona’s creative midfielders.
According to pre-match reports from Marca, people predict that Mourinho will send the strongest lineup in Real Madrid’s match, not rotating for the King’s Cup or Champions Cup semifinals. The only question for Mourinho is whether to deploy three or two Defensive Midfielders.