Barcelona fans all could cry about all those missed chances, but the bottomline is Real Madrid was the better side and emerged as a deserving winner.
In the end, every Barcelona fans would agree that Real Madrid deserved to be the winner in last night's Clasico. It all came down to who wanted it more and 'Los Blancos' clearly fought for it. Barcelona, on the other hand, did well at times but there was no intensity and hunger. That's criminal at this level.
The match will not cover Setién in great light considering the tactics on display. He kept on making the same mistakes in a week which was dubbed extremely crucial for Barcelona's ambitions. And let's be honest, he bottled it.
Vidal as a Winger/Wide Player Made no Sense
When I saw Vidal in the side, instead of Ansu Fati I was expecting him on the right side of the front trio. But Setién opted for a traditional 4-4-2 formation with Vidal wide on the right. That was a big mistake, as he remained stuck on the right, failed to make those runs into the box and occupied the natural space needed for Messi to run at the defense.
That precisely Zidane did, he got Vinicius Junior on the left and most of the attack arose from his wonderful runs into the box. Even though he looked amateur with his final ball and looks a lot overrated, but he can run at the defense. Meanwhile, with Vidal staying on right constantly Barcelona struggled for any speed on the wings and Messi when he was dropping back, was quite well guarded by Valverde and Casemeiro.
In the early parts of the first half this was the pattern, but the players especially Messi and Vidal made a neat switch of tactics. Barcelona looked extremely dangerous when Vidal made those runs into the box between the central defense, suddenly we had space and the defense opened up. We had at least four wonderful chances, all wasted by our players. They never appeared to have a hunger for such a brilliant game.
Real Madrid Dominates the Second Half
The first half ended with Barcelona in clear ascendency and was unlucky not to have been ahead by at least two goals. The second half started the same fashion, but all of this changed when Isco out of nothing produced a magical shot which was saved even more brilliantly by Ter Stegan. That save may be the candidate for the best save of this season!
That changed the mentality of the home side and they started coming to Barcelona like caged tigers. Barcelona technically didn't have much of an answer, apart from our defense holding well. In the end, Vinicius Junior should consider himself lucky to have scored, but no one will deny that he didn't deserve it.
Barcelona could consider themselves unlucky after wasting a lot of chances. Either one of them went in, the entire nature of the game would have changed. But that didn't happen. The worst thing was the realization that most of the opportunities were squandered by our players only, not saved brilliantly by Courtois. Setién has a lot of things to worry about following this defeat, the most will be the complacent nature of his players. At no stage, they displayed a will for a fight!
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