No. 32—Soccer, Spanish: Villarreal vs. Barcelona: Barcelona Dominated the Mid Field but Could Not Penetrate Villarreal’s Strong Defense

By Soccer Coach Albert M. Luongo

The match was held on January 24, 2008 and ended in a scoreless tie. Villarreal, in very bright yellow uniforms, could not seem put together cohesive attacks from the midfield, which Barcelona dominated. Barcelona’s midfield was strong and their passing attacks were excellent, except when near Villarreal’s defended goal. Villarreal had a strong defense and required that most of Barcelona’s shots at the goal be taken from well outside the penalty area. They did make one defensive mistake however, they allowed Iniesta to be unmarked at the 77th minute. Iniesta, all alone in front of the net, could have scored wining goal, but he missed.

Barcelona's Leo Messi was installed into the game at the start of the halftime. He had been out on about 5 weeks on an injury. He played well as he set up a few chances for his team to score, but the team could not make the right connection to score.

Barcelona also maintained a strong defense, but was less tested as many of Villarreal’s attacks were generally thwarted in the midfield. And most the shots on goal were from outside the penalty area. Barcelona outclassed them as they settled the ball from nearly all passes. Villerreal sent too many desperate long passes up field and most were intercepted as could be observed as the ball settled down. They also made some trapping mistakes. These mistakes could be related to their lack of optimum conditioning.

It was a clean game for the first three quarters, but it got a little rough in the last quarter.

Here is my analysis of the game.
Barcelona owned the midfield for most of the game with Villarreal’s disappointing passing.

This is what I believe went right and wrong for Barcelona.
Barcelona was aggressive to win the loose ball and had the energy to constantly make good passes and traps under pressure of nearby opponents. But, they met their match when they went against Villarreal’s defense. Their own defense disallowed any goals from being scored--there were only a few attempts at scoring by Villarreal.

This is what I believe went right and wrong for Villarreal.
Even though Villarreal could not develop many attacks on goal, they made a great showing with their defense. Goalkeeper Diego Lopez well defended the goal along with taking command of his defensive team as elaborated on in my books. On the attacking side, the team did not appear too aggressive to pressure their opponents into making passing mistakes, yet they made several passing mistakes of their own; but fortunately, their strong defense kept them from losing: This is commendable. However, I believe that they could improve offensively with better conditioning.

A further note: If I were the manager of this team, I would do something about the blaring color of the "phosphorescent" yellow uniforms. I could be wrong, but if I was playing against this team, one glance would immediately alert me as to where the opponents are located and aid in the distribution of passes to relatively unguarded teammates. Even though one might say that the bright color also helps Villarreal’s players easily identify their own teammates, my opinion is that it is more disadvantagous than advantagous.

All of the above information is the author's opinion. This article in no way is meant to degrade, discredit or defame any team or person. Its sole purpose is to improve the skills of young soccer players, coaches and the game itself.