Barcelona vs AC Milan 4-0 (12/03/2013)

This time, I decided to observe a match in which Barcelona had a comfortable win.

Observations:

Busquets was placed higher up in this match, but was not man-marked - as a result, he took on the role of Xabi and Iniesta, providing passes to the forwards who were in dangerous position, allowing them to score. - giving space at all is not acceptable.

Dribbling - retaining the ball for too long in the midfield by dribbling is very risky - losing the ball even once opens up a lot of space, which Barcelona players will take advantage of without hesitation - retain ball with passing, and avoid dribbling if possible.

Zonal marking clearly did not work in this match - though man marking has the risk of players leaving space in some areas, AC Milan, in this match, gave the forwards too much freedom to roam.

Unlike the first leg, the covering play of AC Milan wasn't as good.
Also, David Villa playing higher up prevented the defenders from moving forward, giving Messi more space - a distraction for Mexes, who marked Messi in the first leg.

Real Madrid vs Barcelona 2-1 02-03-2013 LigaBBVA

Observations from this match:

Barcelona defense is concentration in the middle, or the center - this leaves the side flanks relatively vulnerable, which allowed Real Madrid to make crosses from both of the sides to create goal opportunities.

Real concede the goal when its final defense line was too high - this is risky against Barcelona because Messi is good at running into spaces, and is able to accelerate better than any defenders on the pitch.

Set pieces are effective against Barcelona - the average height of the players are relatively small - this allows direct free kick to have better chances of going over the wall and under the bar.
This also applies in indirect free kicks - Barcelona players have harder time winning the ball from the air - headers are a good tool against Barcelona, which Sergio Ramos was able to utilize in this match to score the winning goal.

AC Milan vs Barcelona 2-0 (2/20/13)

There are several observations to make in this match:

Initially, AC Milan made good use of long passes. Because high balls are more difficult to control compared to low balls, it leaves space for more competition, and chances for AC Milan players to win the ball in dangerous areas - and as a result, they have created more chances than Barcelona in this match.

Again, one of the goals came from a set piece - now, it can be decisively said that Barcelona is weak with set pieces.

Finally, AC Milan put very little space in between the final and the second defense line - this limited Barcelona's mid fielders - notably Xabi and Iniesta, freedom to create space and find the teammates with the ball. With Iniesta and Xabi effectively controlled with this tight spacing, Messi had no support, and could not even make one shot on target in this match.

Real Madrid vs Barcelona Copa del Rey Semifinal Second Leg

Barcelona collapsing due to Real's stable defense and ruthless breaks.

We can clearly see that Barcelona is most susceptible to breaks because its defense line is kept very high in order to contribute more to attacking. As a result, there is much space behind the defense line, which allows Real Madrid to use that space for its breaks.