Milan 2-2 Real Madrid: Real lead, mistakes put them behind, Leon grabs a late equaliser
MILAN: 32 Abiatti; 20 Abata, 13 Nesta, 33 Silva, 19 Zambrotta; 21 Pirlo, 8 Gattuso, 27 Boateng; 7 Pato, 11 Ibrahimovic, 80 Ronaldinho. REAL MADRID: 1 Casillas, 4 Ramos, 3 Pepe, 2 Carvalho, 12 Marcelo; 14 Alonso, 24 Khedira; 22 Di Maria, 23 Ozil, 7 Ronaldo; 20 Higuain. (Usual diagrams back soon, it's not intentional)
A pulsating game that finished all square, with both sides disappointed to have given up the victory.
Milan recalled Ronaldinho in place of Robinho, and moved back to a 4-3-3 rather than the 4-3-1-2 they used in the first half against Juventus. Only Alessandro Nesta remained from that back four, with Gianluca Zambrotta, Ignazio Abate and Thiago Silva coming into the side.
Real Madrid played what appears to be their strongest line-up at present. No major surprises – 4-2-3-1, Cristiano Ronaldo on the left, Angel di Maria on the right.
Real were by far the better side in the first half – dominating possession and territory, whilst creating more goalscoring chances. There is so much creativity in their side that they don’t have a particularly set way of building up play – direct balls to Ronaldo are common, and he caused Ignazio Abate problems (Abate was lucky not to be sent-off) but the creativity of Xabi Alonso, Angel Di Maria and Mesut Oezil are also potential sources of creativity.
Real full-backs forward
As has become standard when discussing Milan, the best way to attack them is to get your full-backs forward – the carrileros are slow to come out to meet them, and the Milan wide forwards have no interest in tracking back.
This was Real’s most promising source of attack in the first half. Marcelo, a player in fantastic form, scampered up and down the left flank and dribbled directly at the Milan defence. He and Sergio Ramos took it in turns to move forward, and a Ramos cross produced the best chance(s) of the opening period of the game, when Andrea Pirlo cleared Gonzalo Higuain’s header off the line, then got a block on the subsequent rebound too.
Pirlo v Alonso
That was actually Andrea Pirlo’s most notable contribution of the first half, since in open play he was dealt with very well by Real. The key to why the away side dominated the majority of the game lies in the frequency they could get their deep-lying playmaker on the ball. Pirlo and Alonso are both superb technical players – World Cup-winning registas who get their side playing from the centre of the pitch.
The difference was that Alonso had time on the ball as Milan’s midfield three backed off and sat deep, whilst Pirlo was immediately closed down by Oezil when he had the ball, and was tracked closely when he did not. The Chalkboard below shows that, for this reason, Alonso was much more of an influence on the game than Pirlo.
Pirlo completed 25 passes, Alonso completed 63, including creating five chances
Chances
The downside to Oezil’s role here was, of course, that he was rarely free himself when Real won possession, and he was not a particularly big influence on the game. Pirlo followed him, whilst Rino Gattuso played a deep role to the right of Milan’s midfield, keeping an eye on both Oezil and Ronaldo, shuttling between the two zones to help out Pirlo and Abate.
Ronaldinho gave the ball away far too often
Real were wasting chances but Milan simply weren’t creating them – Ronaldinho and Pato rarely got the better of the full-backs, with Ronaldinho at his frustrating worst and Pato barely involved. Real eventually took the lead when Higuain controlled Di Maria’s disguised pass and finished well.
Second half
The first significant change of the game came when Milan introduced Pippo Inzaghi for the ineffectual Ronaldinho, who had been incredibly wasteful in possession, trying the killer ball every time, when Milan needed to retain possession slightly more and more higher up the pitch. His pass completion rate of around 50% sums up his disappointing night, and he was deservedly the first player to make way.
Inzaghi may be more of a central striker than Ronaldinho, but the fact he sprints his legs off non-stop made Milan more fluid upfront. He, Pato and Zlatan Ibrahimovic covered the forward area between them, rotating and causing the Real backline much more problems then when the starting three were spread out across the pitch in predictable positions. Ibrahimovic came shorter and dragged Pepe around, Pato moved into the centre and found some space, and Inzaghi gave Milan some urgency – even in a bizarre moment when he shoved Alonso to the floor when chasing down a loose ball, he at least showed more desire and commitment than the man he replaced.
Same tactic
Despite the change, Milan persisted with the approach they used throughout the game – long balls hit over the top. It seems strange that a side with so many creative players can be so keen on using such a primitive approach to football, but throughout this season it’s worked rather well, with Ibrahimovic racing onto through balls with his speed, and holding defenders off with his strength. The goal Milan scored against Ajax, for example, came from this very approach.
Milan were frequently caught offside from balls over the top, but eventually went ahead through this method
Real were playing a high defensive line, which further encouraged Milan to knock the ball over the top. Their strikers were frequently caught offside, and the Chalkboard to the left shows that this almost always came after passes from the Milan midfielders near the halfway line.
Balls over top
There are three ways playing a high offside line can fail. First, the defenders can make a mistake. Second, the attacking team can simply break through with a well-timed pass and run. Third, the linesman can make the wrong decision. Here, we had the first and third scenarios for the goals Milan scored.
The first Milan goal saw two player mistakes – one from Pepe, who couldn’t cut out a pass to Ibrahimovic, and one from Iker Casillas, who flapped the Swede’s cross-shot towards his own goal, for Inzaghi to tap in.
Inzaghi scored the second from an offside position (where he was born, according to Sir Alex Ferguson) from another lofted pass over the top, and again Casillas didn’t cover himself in glory – jumping to anticipate an Inzaghi lob, so the veteran merely passed it into the net beneath Casillas’ leap.
Real comeback
Milan tried to shut up shop by moving to two banks of four with Massimo Ambrosini on for Pato, but perhaps they invited too much Real pressure. Because of this change, Mourinho could afford to take centre-back Pepe off and bring on Pedro Leon, a flying winger – and it was Leon who scored the equaliser, meeting Karim Benzema’s excellent pass and squeezing the ball through Christian Abbiati’s legs.
A frantic finale and a frantic final change from Mourinho in the 94th minute – Oezil off, Raul Albiol and a return to a back four for the final few seconds.
Conclusion
Both sides should have won this game. Real shouldn’t have conceded simple goals, Milan shouldn’t have thrown away the lead in the last minute.
There was relatively little creativity from Ronaldinho, Pato, Ronaldo or Higuain, and the real battle in terms of creativity took place much deeper in midfield. Alonso saw more of the ball than Pirlo, and therefore Real dominated the majority of the game.
Milan’s favoured approach and biggest weakness is clear – they like hitting balls over the top, they don’t like being attacked from full-back positions. The inability to deal with a deep-lying playmaker is another problem Max Allegri will be thinking about over the next few days.
Real’s downfall here was from individual errors. Playing with a high line always leaves you prone to balls over the top, but until Pepe’s mistake, the high offside line (reminiscent of the approach used by Mourinho (and Carvalho) at Porto) was working very well.
Chalkboards courtesy of TotalFootball iPhone app
Milan 2-2 Real Madrid: Real lead, mistakes put them behind, Leon grabs a late equaliser
Do you think there’s any particular reason why Mourinho has reverted to the high defensive line of his Porto days after abandoning the tactic when at Chelsea and Inter? It does seem like a suicidally risky option to take at times.
I think it’s because at Real Madrid Mourinho has more access to technical players, so it would make sense to have a strategy that let his players have the ball most of the time, thus high pressing and high D-line, rather than in Chelsea and Inter where he had more physical and muscular players, which playing with a deep line and on the counter would suit them more.
chelsea pressed high under mourinho though, hence why we dominated possession against almost every team we played…pressing high up the pitch with a normal positioned defensive line has proven to be effective.
I remembered Chelsea under Mourinho only pressed hard when chasing a game or playing against teams they should win, I tend to take performances against teams of equal calibre as a benchmark, and they tend to sit deep against them.
I think it was a try by Mou for games that wod really matter for future – Milan is a attacking team. He tried his options in a less risky game to see if he could use it against attacking teams like Barca
to Ronan
that’s because the never-satisfied Real Madrid fans want to see free-flowing, attacking footballs as well as to get trophies
Playing Robinho instead of Ronaldinho would have made Milan sharper in the first half. It is quite sad to see Ronaldinho playing so bad. He did give an excellent pass which Zlatan promptly wasted. High time Milan injects more young blood in their defence and attack too.
I cant help appreciating Mourinho’s substitutions yesterday. The urgency he was showing to send a defender in on equalising, was more than interesting.
“” balls to Ronaldo are common, and he caused Ignazio Abate problems (Abate was lucky not to be sent-off)”" – I cant recall such an incident, did I miss something here. I thought Ronaldo should have been carded at least for his Best actor performance, which he followed up with a spike stamp on a Milan defender, both were excused by Howard though.
Ronaldo has enough ‘Best Actor’ trophies, his attic must be getting full by now… lol
Regarding the possible red-card. I remember Abate tripping Ronaldo near the halfway line when Real where on a dangerous breakaway and he already had a yellow.
It wasn’t a trip. It was a Ronaldo Marcelo one two and Abate bear hugged the pretty boy, which was probably the only thing he could do to stop Ronaldo from blitzing past him.
I thought Milan were very rigid. In the first half especially, Pato, Ibra and Ronaldinho stuck to their positions and Showed no flexibility or interaction. It reminded me of when I used to coach young kids. If you gave them a position they stuck rigidly to it and never moved. Real were by far the superior team and they should have won. Ronaldo still lacks a winning mentality. The game seems to be all about his ego and his merchandising profile. If any manager can truly harness his talents for the good of the team, he will have quite a team.
what? there’s a lot of ways you can criticize Ronaldo but “lacking a winning mentality” isn’t one of them. just look at his performances in the past month. against Hercules he scored 2 goals in a 2 goal victory. against Racing he scored 4 goals. against Milan he scored or created both goals. against Malaga he scored or created all 4 goals. against Iceland he scored or created 2 goals in a 2 goal victory. same with the Denmark game. with the exception of the Racing game (Racing were extremely poor and even without his contribution, they probably would have won), seems to me he was the catalyst in all of these victories…
the other criticism I see is that he doesn’t perform in the big games. well guess what? in the big games, you’re playing better opposition, and the opposing manager is usually better at tactics. of course a player is going to perform better at home against Racing than away at Milan – Milan have better players, a better coach, and a much better idea on how to stop a player like Ronaldo.
i’m an Arsenal fan by the way.
“well guess what? in the big games, you’re playing better opposition, and the opposing manager is usually better at tactics. of course a player is going to perform better at home against Racing than away at Milan – Milan have better players, a better coach, and a much better idea on how to stop a player like Ronaldo.” – But my friend, it didnt look at all like Milan had any specific tactic for Ronaldo yesterday. Your point is quite valid if you take the Barca – I.Milan match of last season. Mourinho had 2+ players assigned only for Messi.
Its true, its not fair to say Ronaldo lack a winning mentality. But I am afraid he always put himselves ahead of the team. Since Mourinho in RM, there seems to be lot of difference as he is passing more, but miles to go before he will be a real team player.
Obviously they did have a specific tactic since they deployed Abate as right-back with instructions to never go forward. Abate is quick enough to deal with Ronaldo’s pace. Also, Gattuso was also stickin close to Ronaldo and Marcelo.
Admittedly I haven’t followed Ronaldo much since he left United, but for us he performed in the big games – does a goal in the Champion’s League final count as doing so?
Agreed
Ronaldo while probably the best in the world is averaging around 7 shots a game (41% clip on target). This is almost double the likes of a messi/villa/eto, not the most efficient by any means.
He also never goes to celebrate with a goal scorer if he assisted. Ever since he started doing that at United I’ve lost loads of respect for him.
I hate players who do that – or don’t thank the assist maker when they’ve set up a tap in for them. Selfish.
By lacking a winning mentality I meant that he is less concerned with his team winning than he is by his own personal performance. He is not prepared to do what it takes to help the team win, unless he can see personal glory in doing so. Citing the goals he scored does not contradict that point. He seems to me to be a fundamentally selfish player, who plays for the name on the back of his short rather than the crest on the front.
“By lacking a winning mentality I meant that he is less concerned with his team winning than he is by his own personal performance”
Wow, you can read minds and intentions now? When someone’s critizism doesn’t concern anything factual but rather goes into reading minds you know that they don’t have a real critizism at all, just a bias they would like to make abundantly clear.
I’m not a fan of Ronaldo and agree he is selfish, and sulks around when things doesn’t go his way, but to say he is less concerned with the team’s performance than his own is just false accusation and your personal bias. I’ve read articles from esteemed managers praising him for his professionalism.
Wouldn’t you say he’s in a ‘damned if he, damned if he doesnt’ situation then.
If he plays for himself and scores a bucket-full of goals, he gets slated for “not being a team player” but if he sacrifices the selfish element in his game he’ll be criticized for not scoring enough or being past his best!
I agree that he has a long way to go before being a complete team player(which admittedly messi is, although he certainly has a selfish streak aswell) but surely if this self-centeredness is winning games then why try to remove it?
Didn’t ol’ purple-nose tell rooney last season to forgoe the team play(i.e. spending part of the game at full-back) and tell him to be much more selfish. Didn’t do to badly for him…
ol’ purple-nose? Fergie? He told rooney to be selfish, what?
Critisizing Ronaldo for not having a winning mentality is a joke of the highest caliber. Regardless of where he has gone, his managers have always said that Ronaldo is the hardest worker, in the training first and last to leave. And surely his winning mentality was there when as a focal part of the Man United team they went to the champions league finals in back to back years winning it once? Winning the player of the year in the process? Being the focal point of one of the most dominant teams in the history of club football? Surely he had the winning mentality back then, lol.
I am Celtic fan and can thus be impartial here. In the 2009 Champions League final against Barca, Ronaldo was outplayed and completely neutralised by Carlos Puyol (a relatively slow centre back playing out of position).Ronaldo spent the entire game throwing his hands up in the air when Man U lost the ball, trying to dribble through the whole Barca defence himself, then bad temperedly lashing out at Puyol after being dispossessed. There are also many other examples of him going missing when his team needed him in big games.
He is a wonderfully talented footballer, but it I believe it is true that he plays for himself before the team.
And another thing! Fascinating to see on the Total Footbal App that Ronaldo did not attempt to take on any players. He was too. concerned with histrionics and pointless step overs. Obviously.
the videolink is dead
Hello ZM, this has been something that’s been bugging me for a while…when Kaka’ gets back from injury(he is injured, right?), how do you think Mourinho will play both Kaka and Ozil together? They are both too good to be dropped (or are they?). Unless he wants to drop a holding midfielder, to play them both he will have to drop either Ronaldo or di Maria(who has been in superb form). I can’t see them both starting together too often…
Perhaps a system with Ronaldo as the striker, with a fluid 3 of Kaka’ Ozil and Di Maria behind? then what about Higuain?
Does anyone else think that Kaka’ will leave RM in the January? I hope he comes to Man Utd
Don’t think Mourinho will be highly interested in using him, so I do think he will leave RM – maybe not in January, but during the summer probably.
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Kaka as a player is finished on the highest level, he lost his acceleration and he’s very injury prone these days. So whatever team will get him, they will be making a huge mistake. With all the financial limitations at Old Trafford I can’t see Ferguson being interested, maaaaaaybe Chelsea, or Manchester City would try. There’s always Milan as well
Nah, i knew Utd would never want Kaka… But it would be hilarious if he went to citeh… Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he went back to Milan, or maybe another italian club. Italy’s slow pace should be good for him
Mourinho said he wont play ronaldo as striker, as he’s too good to play so advanced (with the idea of him seeing more of the ball on the wing). Meaning, the only way he could fit kaka in is if he plays him out of position on the wing ahead of di maria, or if he reverts to a 4 4 2 diamond, with ronaldo roaming with higuain up top, ozil in the hole, and kaka in the centre of midfield amongst xabi alonso and khedira.
i think kaka will stay at real but he will be rotated with ozil from game to game
dude can you ditch this numerical method of showing starting squads (in the first/headline pic). the older method with names was MUCH better. thanks.
Agreed.
Try reading more closely, chief.
“Usual diagrams back soon, it’s not intentional”
That’s it.
Sorry, Michael, but stopped reading midway through. Ibra had 2 chances on the first where he should have scored. He has actually buried similar chances to Auxerre and Genoa this season. So this ‘no-chances-for-Milan-till-Inzaghi’ is rubbish.
In order for 4-3-3 to work at the highest level, there must be some degree of pressing and intensity which, Pato aside, Milan’s attack simply do not display.
Perhaps their laconic approach is best complimented by the solidity afforded by bodies in midfield; hence a diamond with Seedorf at the tip (who would at least have hassled Xabi Alonso)could have played to their strengths.
Also, Robinho should only be used in a wide-attacking berth in this team
You Referred to Madrid as “Real” quite a few times, but i think “Real” refers to Real Sociedad. Real Madrid is referred to as “Madrid” for short. Just an FYI, it’s not that it’s important or i care. I’ve just found out that the Spanish really get up in arms about these kinds of things.
As far as I know there are at least four or five teams with the designation “Real”, and it’s used to describe all of them, so I would disagree with you. Given its popularity Real Madrid is probably referred to as such more often than the others.
Are you the “Real” Steve McManaman?
Hi,
I’m a real fan of this site – great tactical analysis.
I’m sure this has probably been discussed under another post, but I’d just to like to say that I much preferred the old formation drawings, with the player names on the pitch. I’m slow at linking the numbers to the players, so the new drawings are less user-friendly.
Thanks
He has mentioned several times that the diagram format now is only a temporary one. The old style will return soon.
Good article! Interesting to see what you say about Oezil’s role in closing down Pirlo, and this having the effect of both of them dropping out of the game — that’s something none of the press writers seems to have picked up on. All the articles I’ve seen simply say that Oezil had a bad game, which seems rather simplistic. Reminds me a bit of the way that Beckenbauer man-marking Charlton in the 1966 WC final took both of them out of the game as creative forces.
I was watching Cluj-Bayern yesterday, too. Probably not worth an article, as it was too one-sided to be really interesting, but Bayern played pretty good. Unusual (for them) tactical variations by playing Schweinsteiger in attacking CM instead of further back, allowing him to set up all three goals in Mario Gomez’ hattrick.
Oh, and I agree with the previous comment that the old-style chalkboards were much clearer — with the numbers, I keep forever glancing up and down to match them with the names. Any chance of switching back?
Oops — sorry, I’ve only just spotted the annotation on the new chalkboard “Usual diagrams back soon, it’s not intentional”. Ignore what I said.
What about the Match Mainz v Dortmund from last weekend? It was a exiting Game and also tactical interesting.
Is that Analysis still to come?
as usual i’ll comment on keepers, as i can’t improve on anything else you’ve said !.
3 bad errors – 2 from casillas & 1 from abiatti. if you’re going to make a gaff as a keeper, you’ve got to react well & move on. casillas didn’t. it just shows that the greats are fallable too. i’ve just looked up casillas goals against/saves ratio ( per yahoo spanish fantasy football- which uses soccernet /opta stats ) . it’s 5/12= 0.41 . the general guide i’d say are 0 to 0.1 = excellent ; 0.1 to 0.2 = v good ; 0.20 to 0.30 = good/average ; 0.30 to 0.50 average/poor & higher than 0.50 = poor/useless.
as a comparison v valdes is on 6/26= 0.23 ; calatayud of hercules is 12/50= 0.24 ; de gea 10/47 = 0.21 ; alves of almeria has 8/46 = 0.17.
in the prem: cech = 3/33 = 0.09 ! ; friedel 13/40 = 0.325 ; van der sar 12/22 = 0.55 ( & his form has been bad lately- signs of improvement though ) ; joe hart 10/31= 0.32 ( slight dip in form recently from early season high ) ; fabianski 3/14 = 0.21 ( in 4 games only, but clearly in form anecdotally & per the stats ) reina 14/22 = 0.64 ( poor start to season . signs of improvement at bolton )
bit unfair to use those stats alone to judge a keeper though. defensive mistakes mean a lot of the time the keeper has no real chance of stopping some goals.
for example, even though van der sar has made a couple of mistakes this season a lot of the goals united have conceded have been due to problems with the defending, not necessarily bad goalkeeping.
not true. gilks of blackpool has a ratio of 21/44 = 0.48. no team or keeper has conceded more goals than him but his ratio is still accurate ( give or take 5% pt’s ) . but gilks has a better saves ratio than van der sar or reina. if you play in front of a bad defence you risk conceding more goals but also pick up more saves. keepers on great form never look like they’ll be beaten like joe hart at spurs ( 1st game of season ), whereas kirkland early season was horrendous -btw his ratio is 11/5= 2.2 ( in just 3 games ) . the ratio’s will, like lge tables, will make more sense when even more games have been played.
interestingly re wigan/kirkland. when al habsi came in as kirkland was dropped for spurs away , he instantly kept a clean sheet vs a top 6 side & earned 2 more clean sheets to move wigan into the top half of the clean sheets table.
almunia’s ratio of 7/12= 0.58 doesn’t compare very well with fabianski’s stated above of 0.21. almunia let 3 in at home to west brom, being directly at fault for some. whereas fabianski has faced tough away games at citeh & chelsea , obv keeping cl sheet at citeh, and only letting 2 in at chels ,with an indiv saves ratio for the game of 2/5= 0.4 , therefore still better than almunia’s average !
Your statistic is a very flawed representation to say the least. Real Madrid only conceded 5 goals in 9 games in La Liga, less than any team. 12 saves in 9 games is a stunning statistic. It means Real Madrid have an excellently organized defence, and Casillas is part of that defence.
you’re easily “stunned ” !. i quoted cech’s stats but you chose to ignore them. a keeper who has made 33 saves in 10 games . & who also conceded fewer goals, despite playing 1 game more.
Sorry, can someone explain what makes a winger a “flying winger”?
It’s hard to classify but easy to identify one. I wouldn’t, however, classify Pedro Leon as a flying winger. I usually use the term to define a winger who has a lot of pace and is very powerful and direct in their running, very rarely coming inside to collect the ball. For example Walcott, Lennon, Bastos, Bale, Joaquin or Valencia.
I suppose it’s a colloquialism that is also used to describe in-form wide players but even then it seems misused. If that’s the only criticism of the piece then it’s really clutching at straws.
Haven’t seen the game but the Pirlo/Alonso comparison is interesting. Pirlo’s average position looks even deeper than normal judging from his passes and for him to attempt only 4 decisive passes in 90 minutes and complete none of them is unheard of.
Alonso seemed to have so much success on Gattuso’s side of the field but then you have got the movement of Ronaldo and Ozil to deal with in those positions so even opting for the superior fitness and timing of Flamini probably would have proved futile.
I assume from Real’s apparent high line, Milan’s problems in possession stemmed from the work rate of the forwards when out of the possession, rather than their invention and movement when in possession?
If Kaka returned to Milan they would have to once again re-think their system; if Kaka’s pace has deserted him then there is no use playing this up and over type of offence, so they would have to play the ball along the floor to get the best out of the Brazilian. How would this change affect the trident of Ibra, Robinho and Pato? Wouldnt Ibra take up the space that Kaka is supose to work in if they change over?
Bring back the old diagrams! No excuses. Be champions!
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wow – interesting!