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.