Copa del Rey final: Who has the advantage in El Clasico?

Real Madrid and Barcelona meet in the Copa del Rey final

As it is famously said, the world is going to stop for two hours tonight. It is El Clasico time, yet again. Tata Martino and Carlo Ancelotti are all set to fight for their first Copa del Rey title. Although none of the teams can really boast of much positives while going to lock horns at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium, Barcelona enter the clash after suffering back to back defeats which saw them out of the Champions League and ebbed the chances to win La Liga while Real Madrid are not so bad on confidence after beating Almeria in an emphatic fashion over the weekend.

Psychologically, Real Madrid may be slightly better off going into this big match, but there are more important factors that decide a present day football result, that too if it is a title decider. In fact, usually, form becomes very less important, as the motivation to win the big game over takes the pressure to perform in the case of big teams. For example, the out of form Catalans edged the in form Real Madrid in their own back yard in the last outing between these two sides. So, let us analyze the key details that potentially play a major role in deciding the encounter.

Tactical outlook – Strengths and weaknesses

With the absence of their star player Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid will look up to their Galactico signing, Gareth Bale, to rise to the occasion. The Welshman who had a decent season so far by netting 19 times and assisting 15 more times, is yet to perform on a big occasion.

Bale failed to create any impact in both the defeats to Barcelona in La Liga. While the first performance should not be scrutinized critically due to lack of pre-season and fitness problems, one can say that the former Tottenham man was outrun and kept under control by Jordi Alba in the recent Clasico. I expect that Bale, who finds it difficult to perform under pressure from opposition players, will once again prove to be ineffective when facing the equally pacy Alba.

However, Real Madrid has more than Bale in their ranks who can win matches on their day. Expect Di Maria to once again cause havoc in Barcelona’s defence with his incisive crosses, which will look more threatening with Javier Mascherano defending them. Isco, who is expected to start tonight in the absence of Ronaldo, proved to be a valuable asset for Madrid with his dribbling and shooting in small spaces.

Barcelona, who are too vulnerable at set pieces and counter attack, are even more so now in the absence of Gerard Pique. Ramos and Pepe will love to cash in on set pieces. Though Benzama and co are not as devastating as they were at counter attack, they have enough pace in their front line to cause problems to Barca’s high line defence.

On the other hand, the brilliance of Luka Modric, Isco and Xabi Alonso might not be enough to win the midfield battle against Serrgio Busquets, Xavi and Andres Iniesta, as was evident from the last two clashes. Los Blancos, who performed decently with their new passing style of football – scoring plenty of goals in both La Liga and UCL – still lack two important aspects which are very essential to win against Barcelona; pressing and compact defending.

Teams like Atletico Madrid, Ajax, Valencia, Real Sociedad and recently Granada religiously followed the above two principles and came out on top of Barcelona. In fact, pressing and suffocating the players is the best way to push any team off their comfort zone. But, it seems Ancelotti has never emphasized on this aspect of their game, as it is evident from all their matches. Except Di Maria, no other player works very hard off the ball. This will be an added advantage for Barcelona’s midfield trio who will try to control the game and easily knock the ball around looking to create chances as well as deprive Madrid of chances to go at goal.

Real Madrid holds a perfect record of not conceding a single goal in the competition so far this season. However, Ancelotti’s men are not famous for their compact defence. It could potentially allow for enough space at the back for the likes of Messi, Iniesta, Neymar and Alexis to penetrate the defense. This is evident from the number of chances created by Barcelona in the last two meetings. Add to that are the frequent lapses in concentration of Ramos and Pepe as well as Carjaval’s bad positioning which will be exploited by Messi and co.

As against the two attackers system used recently which failed to create many chances against Atletico, Martino is expected to field three forwards tonight in the form of Messi, Neymar and Alexis. Neymar found it difficult to finish the chances from the right flank in the recent times including the latest El Clasico, but will definitely fancy a goal to his name playing from the left with Messi and Iniesta feeding him with wonderful through balls.

Both Neymar and Alexis performed so well, playing from left and right respectively in the first Clasico of the season. What is more problematic for Madrid defence is to control the magical feet of Iniesta who will be back in his favoured midfield position and a fully fit Messi, who was without any doubt the man of the match in the previous Clasico.

Conclusion

Though it is foolish to expect Real Madrid, with its attacking prowess, not to score and Barcelona, with its problematic defence, to keep a clean sheet; it is wise to assume that Barcelona’s pedigree and footballing philosophy will enable them to outscore this Madrid team with a not so compact and ineffective defence – but only by a slight margin. After all, it takes 8-10 highly committed players defending the ball to stop Barcelona from scoring.