Just went through this Madrid Universal's opinion piece, asking whether Militao will play, who will stop De Bruyne, and whether Ancelotti will opt to a 2- or 1- striking position.
Imo, no way Militao will be fit enough to be back in the squad. But I'm not sure about 1 or 2 strikers.
by Aphrotit
3 comments
Rather than trying to figure out how to mark De Bruyne, Rodri and Haaland he needs to figure out how to keep the ball away from City.
City aren’t this God team that is hard to figure out. They play possession based football and when they do not have possession they will press until they do have possession.
You know what the best counter to that is? Don’t give them the fucking ball. During last season’s City second leg, Calo’s tactics was “give them the ball, sit back and spring into a counter”. You know what happened? We dot destroyed and we played the worst football I have seen a long while. He did the same exact thing against both legs of Leipzig this season.
Now I’m not saying keeping the ball from City is a easy thing to do. It’s not, they are an intense pressing team. But rather than trying to redo the same thing and expecting a different result, go out fighting.
At home aim for at least a 4 goal differential in our favor against them. And when we go there, just keep the ball away from them and press when they have the ball.
I think Carlo is going to change tactics a lot. So far we have played a really high line with Rudiger being able to beat strikers to the ball when they go long from the press. I think he won’t do this against City. It would be suicidal with Haaland/Foden speed and passing range of city players.
I think we will play deep and work more on counter. With this plan Vini and Rodrygo will play as two striker option.
For me the question of midfield. Does he start Kroos? Or we go young fast legs only. Will Bellingham be instructed to defend much or stay on top.
As for defense, I would like to go Rudiger Tchou as CB with Cama as DM and Kross on left.
They need to press, press and press. No fucking way should Kroos and Modric ever be put in the same Starting XI in a game as big as this ever again, no sirree.
Tchou should play in the Starting XI for both legs no matter what, we haven’t lost a single game with him in the starting XI. Rudiger will naturally be needed in the Starting XI as well to keep the likes of Halaand at bay in both legs. Madrid need to press really hard and avoid giving the ball to Man City as much as they can and they need to be on the attack constantly to breathe down Man City’s necks while the midfield works on marking Rodri, De Bruyne and Silva constantly.