As if awakened by Yang Yang's sudden volley, Barcelona quickly stabilized its position.

From the opening ten minutes or so, the most outstanding passing team in the history of world football began to find a sense and stabilized its rhythm, and began to follow its own way of passing and possession, slowly but steadily advancing, constantly reversing its feet, and gradually putting pressure on the heart of Real Madrid.

Real Madrid did not directly switch to defensive counterattacks because of the lead during this period of time, and still actively adopted the tactics of pressing and pressing in the front court, and the defense line was still pressing forward, wrestling with Barcelona near the middle line.

Barcelona created their best chance to score in the 16th minute, Xavi sent a quick free-kick, Busquets went straight into the box, Pedro did not cross to Messi and Villa at the first time, but tried to get past Casillas, only to be pounced on by Casillas in the box.

The referee did not signal a foul, but the Barcelona players pressed the referee and decided it was a penalty.

Judging from the slow-motion replay of the live broadcast of the game, Casilla's timing of the attack was very good, and he pounced directly at Pedro's feet, and the Barcelona winger just fell to the ground by inertia, which had nothing to do with Casillas.

A minute later, Barcelona played a delicate combination, Alves crossed low into the box from the right, Messi pushed the goal head-on, but the referee signaled offside, it was an indisputable accurate decision that even Messi himself did not argue.

Under the strong attacking pressure of Barcelona, Real Madrid also showed great bravery.

In the 21st minute, Real Madrid successfully pressed in front of the court, and passed to Yang Yang on the left rib after breaking the ball.

After Yang Yang got the ball away from Alves, he passed straight to the penalty area to find Ibrahimovic, the Swedish center blocked Puyol with his body, and then inserted a chance to get his feet near the penalty spot, facing the goalkeeper directly, but a push shot failed to create a threat, and Valdés saved the ball sideways.

It was a great opportunity, and Ibrahimovic was so angry that he slammed his head with both hands, obviously very frustrated by what he had just done, and if he didn't push and pick it up, the ball would be nine out of ten.

Sometimes the game is like that, it's ever-changing, and players have to make decisions in a split second, whether it's right or wrong.

If the first 30 minutes, the two sides were still attacking and defending each other, and Real Madrid did not retreat, then in the last 15 minutes of the first half, after Barcelona completely controlled the situation on the field, Real Madrid had to retreat to the 30-meter area of their side.

The back three lined up to protect the defensive line and block Barcelona's route to Real Madrid's penalty area and goal.

In the last ten minutes, Real Madrid also played a counterattack, but the strategy was conservative, as long as the situation was not right, immediately retreated quickly to their own half, even within 30 meters, and tightly blocked Barcelona's passing line.

Even though it has been two years, Barcelona still has no way to start in the face of Real Madrid's defense.

As a weak link in Real Madrid's backline, Barcelona also tried to create a threat on the right side, Alves and Pedro frequently attacked Marcelo's side, but Marcelo performed well, not only completing his defensive tasks, but also often filling the team's defensive holes.

In the end, with the team's defense and the opening attack, Real Madrid managed to maintain a 1-0 lead until halftime, but the pressure on the players was still very high.

……

At half-time, Rafael Benitez made adjustments to some of the holes that appeared in the first half, but also affirmed the team's performance in the first half, especially the opening attack, which Real Madrid played very successfully.

This is also a testament to the progress of Real Madrid in the past two years.

In Benitez's first derby of the century in charge of Real Madrid, although the team beat Barcelona 5-0 away, it was somewhat lucky, when Real Madrid's opening attack did not work, but was caught off guard by Barcelona.

Two years later, in the Champions League final, Real Madrid's opening attack directly attacked Barcelona to score, and even fought evenly with Barcelona for half an hour, which shows that Real Madrid is constantly narrowing the gap between itself and Barcelona.

Of course, it can also be said that Barcelona is on the decline.

Puyol is 33 years old and Xavi is 31 years old, and both of the main players of the central axis are clearly going downhill in their careers.

The most obvious is that Barcelona have been slow to get into the game in recent times, which is a sign of the aging of the players.

That's the case with Carlo Ancelotti's AC Milan senior team, except that they have the Italian team's defense to maintain, while Barcelona maintain the team's pass-and-possession system.

Barcelona themselves are clearly aware of this problem, so they are in full swing to finalize Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas, hoping to buy Fabregas back to fill Xavi's vacancy.

……

In the second half, although many people, including Real Madrid themselves, were speculating whether Barcelona would take a faster offensive advance, more direct passes and diagonal passes, and play the offensive style behind Real Madrid, Barcelona still used a slow forward style of play.

Pep Guardiola's team still insisted on passing on the ground, controlling the ball and slowly advancing little by little.

Real Madrid made two plans for this, which obviously did not come as a surprise to Real Madrid.

As an opponent, Real Madrid knows Barça.

Yang Yang has heard Benitez mention more than once that Barcelona regards ball control as life, and in order to ensure the stability of ball control, their passing control is basically based on stability, so direct and oblique passes that can improve the team's speed, and long passes that are more risky have never been considered by Barcelona.

Benitez's statement may be a little biased, but it basically says what is wrong with Barca.

It was as if after the start of the second half, Barcelona passed the ball slowly and methodically, and after entering the first half, they met Real Madrid, who were waiting for them, and they simply struggled to create chances and threats.

There are a lot of shots on goal, but basically they are mainly long-range shots and blocked, and there are only a handful of goals that can really shoot on target.

…………

…………

The stalemate on the field made the game look a little dull.

Barcelona made a substitution in the 65th minute, replacing Villa with youngster Afele.

The Spanish striker was really out of form in this game, and against McConn, he basically didn't put in a good performance.

This also made the Real Madrid management in the stands look straight and shake their heads.

"Villa is no longer in his prime." Zidane shook his head.

It's a sad story, because Villa is only twenty-nine years old.

Florentino was also a shrewd man, and as soon as Zidane said this, he immediately knew what he meant as a special adviser.

Zidane is reminding him to pay attention to Yang Yang to avoid repeating the mistakes of Villa and even other players.

With Yang Yang's current style of play, his state can be maintained for a few years, no one knows.

As we get older, injuries will continue to increase, and each injury will lead to a decline in physical performance, which is no joke, if Real Madrid are really determined to use Yang Yang as the core of the team in the next few years, then they must protect him.

Ancelotti's previous opinion was right, if you want to prolong Yang Yang's peak, then he must change his style of play, just like Ronaldo was lazy to run and concentrated all his physical energy to sprint to score.

The same is true for Messi now, and Guardiola put him in the middle of the pitch, not without the intention of changing his position on the pitch.

They are all smart people, Zidane is a little bit, Florentino knows it, but he doesn't respond.

"Judging from the current situation, in a short period of time, we still have to continue to use this traditional Italian style of strict defense and quick counter-attacking play, which is also the most effective way." Baldano analyzes the team's technical and tactical trends from the perspective of the team's technical director.

Although Real Madrid would like to be able to play a more beautiful and aggressive attacking football than Barcelona, this is simply not possible if they can't hold the ball and can't take away from Barca.

Baldano's words undoubtedly put a chip in Florentino's heart, because in the current list of candidates for the manager of Real Madrid's management, there is only one person who is the best at this kind of Italian defense, and at the same time can enrich the team's midfield organization and attack in detail.

That's Carlo Ancelotti.

……

Ten minutes went by in the blink of an eye.

In the 75th minute, Pep Guardiola made his second substitution of the game, replacing Pedro with Bojan.

This also made everyone see the problem with Barcelona, that is, Guardiola did not dare at all, or rather, he simply refused to move the midfield.

Sergio Busquets, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Messi up front, this is the guarantee of Barca's possession.

Previously, Pep Guardiola once replaced Iniesta with Sedou Keita, but as a result, Barcelona made more passing and possession errors, which was quite fatal for Barcelona, so they quickly adjusted back.

Now, Pep Guardiola has made two substitutions, replacing the left and right wingers who started respectively, but he just didn't dare to move the midfield.

Benitez made a substitution at the same time, replacing Kaka with Robben.

After Real Madrid's adjustment, the team returned to a four-three-three formation, Yang Yang, Ibrahimovic and Robben formed a front trident, once the ball was grabbed, the first time was to make a long pass to Ibrahimovic, or directly to the back of Barcelona's defense, and Yang Yang and Robben chased it.

In this case, Ibrahimovic's center advantage, Yang Yang and Robben's speed, is very obvious.

As the game was about to enter the 80th minute, Barcelona launched an attack, but just after crossing the halfway line and about to pass into the 30-metre area of Real Madrid, Javier Martinez scrambled to make a tackle and shoveled the ball to Mascherano.

After the Argentine midfielder won the ball, he quickly moved forward, and Real Madrid's front trident launched a counterattack.

A through ball was pinpointed to the front, Ibrahimovic retreated, turned his back to the attack, blocked Pique with his body, stopped the ball, turned to the right and passed behind Barcelona left wing-back Adriano.

Dutch Flyer Robben, who had not been on the bench for long, cut straight behind him at breakneck speed and scrambled to catch up with the ball.

Almost at the same time, Yang Yang also shook off Alves and cut diagonally from the left rib to the left side of the goal at the fastest speed.