Barcelona is coming off two straight losses. For a club that has grown accustomed to their particular brand of domination, you can probably understand why some are in a bit of a panic.
Well, the boys over at Barca Blaugranes are in no mood for panic. But they do recognize that some chinks may have been discovered in Barcelona's armor. Namely, the effectiveness of the particular brand of counter-attack that both Chelsea and Real Madrid used to score their two victories.
That style has been compared to Internazionale's famed Catenaccio, but Aaron Duckling saw it a little differently:
For a start, there was no libero to start attacks (nor end Barca attacks I should add for balance) and while a 4-5-1 hints at a balanced if slightly defensive approach, a more accurate description would 4-4-2-0, with four defenders behind a line of four defensive midfielders and two players occupying the usual midfield positions (Mata and Drogba). Some described it as a 9-0-1, but ultimately all this does is display the limitation with using a sequence of three or four numbers to describe a formation. Perhaps it would make more sense if we described the midfield as a quadruple pivot, or as I would prefer to call it, a "quadrivote"?
Whatever you call it, Barcelona must now figure out how to beat it.
We'll have pre-game and live game coverage in our Barcelona vs. Chelsea, 2012 UEFA Champions League StoryStream. For more on the two teams, head over to Chelsea FC blog We Ain't Got No History and FC Barcelona blog Barca Blaugranes.
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