After pushing Theo Walcott up front, Arsenal adopted the same tactic that Barcelona had been worried about before: long balls and slings.

Barcelona is a team that pays great attention to ball control, and to control the ball, it is inseparable from the tandem of the midfield, so Barcelona has been attaching great importance to the construction of the midfield over the years, from Figo, Rivaldo to Deco, Ronaldo, and now Xavi, Messi and others, although some of them have the name of the striker, but people who often watch the game know that they often retreat to the midfield to get the ball, staring at the name of the striker, but they are actually very different from the style of play of a genuine striker like Fei Luo, and they are also responsible for the organization and tandem of the midfield.

Even strikers like Ronaldo and Messi often retreat to the midfield to get the ball, which shows how harsh Barcelona attaches to the midfield, but it is also this luxury midfield line that they are proud of, which has brought Barcelona glory in recent years, and it is no exaggeration to say that Barcelona's midfield has been the world's top configuration in the past ten years.

We can say that more than 80% of Barcelona's possession is completed by this midfield line, and Barcelona's defense, this midfield line also bears at least 50% of the heavy responsibility, otherwise how can a player like Pique, who can only be regarded as a second-rate central defender in Europe, let Barcelona only concede so few goals throughout the season.

Don't be convinced, it's not unreasonable to say that Pique can only be considered a second-rate defender in Europe, in the 2010-2011 season, Pique's stats totaled 52 steals and 30 fouls. 1 red card, 9 yellow cards, and in the same season, Nesta's stats are 41 tackles, 18 fouls, 0 red and 3 yellow, but it should be noted that Nesta has only played a total of 31 games this season due to injury, while Pique has played almost all the leagues in La Liga, while also playing 12 more Champions League games. He has played at least 50 or more games.

If this set of data does not intuitively illustrate the gap between the two. Then let's take a look at Pique's one-on-one success rate in his life, in the marking of the opponent's arrowheads, Pique's one-on-one steal success rate is only 42%, while Nesta is as high as 79% in this data. Even Ramos and Pepe, who have always been known for their frizziness, are well ahead of Pique with 71 per cent and 69 per cent respectively.

Let's take a look at another set of key figures. The number of successful headers. In the 10-11 season, Pique made more than 50 appearances and won just 14 successful headers. And even Vidic, who is 3 centimeters shorter than him, has been recorded 22 times in this statistic.

Of course, these statistics also have something to do with Barcelona's overall defensive strength, but doesn't that just show how important Barca's midfield line is to this team?

And now Arsenal's strategy is to bypass Barcelona's strongest point and directly use long passes to break through their defense.

It is true that the long pass is not easy to play, otherwise so many weak brigades, when they are besieged by strong teams, wouldn't they be able to create opportunities with a casual long pass? In order to play a successful long pass punch, there are several more elements that are essential:

First, of course, it is a precise long pass. No matter how far you kick, you can't kick your own players or get the ball by the opponent, it is also in vain;

Second, the ability to respond to the player. Needless to say, the height is not enough or the speed is not enough, even if the ball is in neutral, you can't hold it, it's not still blind;

Third, accurate timing. This point is very subtle, but this is the case on the football field, a lot of counter-attacking goals, what you see is the speed-like speed and the amazing cooperation of three passes and two feet, but what you can't see is the disconnect between the offensive and defensive transitions of the opposing players and the positioning mistakes of the opposing defenders.

Just like Pirlo and those ordinary midfielders, you often find that Pirlo's pass seems to be how to pass, he casually transfers a big foot, and just has his teammates appear in that place, while other ordinary players open big feet, but they are often pushed back or destroyed by the opponent.

Of course not, in fact, this is the grasp of the timing, Pirlo has observed the opponent's flaws before passing, the ball he passes, just fell in the opponent's gap, so there are often wonderful long pass assists, but those ordinary players, their overall situation and awareness can not keep up with the development of the situation on the field, so they can only kick indiscriminately, kick where it counts, as for whether their teammates can get the ball, or whether it is smooth after taking the ball, this is not in their consideration.

This is the ideological gap between top stars and average players.

Do Arsenal have such players? Of course, Cesc Fabregas certainly had the ability, and Descartes was definitely a master at finding the enemy's flaws.

With these two players in the backfield, Walcott's advantage was suddenly brought into full play, although most of the time he is still alone in the front court, but Xiaofa and Descartes pass the ball is very "thief", their rush is not high, but fast, with the fastest speed through all the defenses of Barcelona, let Walcott chase the ball like a mad dog, this kind of passing accuracy is difficult to say, the success rate is also difficult to say, but there is only one advantage, that is, to be able to fully play the advantage of Walcott's speed, So that he can always chase the ball in the gaps.

The chances of success in this kind of counterattack are not too high, but as long as it succeeds once, the consequences are beyond Barcelona can afford. Walcoat may not be as good as Descartes in terms of awareness and technique, but he can trample Barcelona's defenders one by one with just one move, and that is speed.

This unreasonable style of play quickly caused Barcelona's unease, and although they had dropped back a bit in their previous defence against Descartes, they were still able to press down in Arsenal's half as a whole, because Descartes was not very fast, and the likes of Pique and Puyol were fully confident that they could intercept him from a greater distance.

But when the likes of Descartes, Walcott and others turned Barcelona's empty backfield into a racetrack, everything changed. Especially when Walcott got a single chance and was saved by Valdés near the line of the penalty area, the Barcelona players had to look at Guardiola on the sidelines, and if we didn't think about it, we would collapse!

Pep Guardiola also knows that Arsenal have found Barcelona's goal, and that is their sheer speed.

Don't look at Barcelona's football is known for its "fast and smooth" cooperation, but in fact, the so-called "fast" here refers to their passing and overall movement, not to the absolute speed of their individual players. Even Henry, who once ran like the wind. It is no longer sharp with the passing of years.

As for Messi, his man-ball speed is indeed unparalleled in the world, but this advantage is actually due to his low center of gravity and fast cadence, which has little to do with his absolute speed. In the various statistics of the World Football Federation. Messi has never been a fast-horse player.

And put it on the back line of Barcelona. This lack of speed is even more acute, and the absolute fastest of the Barcelona defenders in the 2008-2009 season is the 30-year-old captain Puyol!

Puyol's 100-meter speed reached 10.8 seconds. This speed is more than enough to chase Descartes, but compared with the young and strong Walcott's 9.7 seconds, it is not enough, not to mention that the general team is responsible for the responsibility of right-back in this game, and he is also responsible for inserting assists, so it is impossible to put all his energy on the little tiger.

In addition to Puyol, Pique 100 meters speed 11.3 seconds. Toure's specific stats are unclear, but it can be seen from FIFA 2010 that his speed is not as good as Pique's, so he can also be ignored, so with Barcelona's current back line and goalkeeper separated by more than 30 meters, this is simply a tailor-made battlefield for Walcott.

Even Wenger suddenly realized at this time, it turns out that Walcott still has the potential to be a center forward? Later, based on the experience of this game, he gradually transformed Walket into a standard center forward, so to speak, Arsenal lost the east corner of this game, but won the mulberry.

But Guardiola is not unprepared for this, Barcelona and Mourinho have been fighting for so many years, and Muhammad's high-speed counterattack has always made them fearful, so Guardiola naturally made careful arrangements before the game, he immediately turned back to the bench and gave orders, and the black Keita stood up.

Keita is not a high-profile player at Barcelona, but he is a versatile midfielder that Guardiola relies on, he is not tall, but his combination of awareness and skill is excellent, he is not only able to organise attacks, but also has a lot of brains when defending, and before Busquets, Guardiola has always used him instead of Yaya, who is more physical. Toure is the team's main midfielder, and that speaks volumes about his ability.

In this game, Barcelona put Busquets, who has a stronger ability to play the ball, into the starting list for tactical reasons, but in Guardiola's heart, Keita is definitely the chess piece that can be used at critical moments, and his appearance is of great significance to Barcelona.

Because when Keita appeared on the pitch, Barcelona changed to a double midfielder, Keita replaced Andres Iniesta, and pushed Xavi into the middle of the midfield.

Previously, Barcelona had always been dominated by Iniesta on the left side, Xavi was set up as a right midfielder, actually performing the duties of a forward midfielder, and Busquets sat in the midfield, forming an inverted triangle; However, after Keita came on, he and Sergio Busquets were divided into two left midfielders, Xavi appeared directly in the middle, and Barcelona's midfield became a positive triangle again.

The meaning of this is actually to put Keita in charge of blocking Descartes in midfield and cutting off Arsenal's pass to Walcott.

Fabregas, Arsenal's other goal, was handed to Xavi, who moved to the middle.

Xavi's defensive prowess has always been underrated. He is known as the "lungs of Barcelona", since the era of Van Gaal, has been the absolute tactical core of Barcelona, has experienced Van Gaal, Rechsak, Rijkaard and Guardiola four managers, no matter who is under him, he is regarded as Barcelona's "brain", so when it comes to him, people often think of technical players, and ignore his physical fitness.

In fact. Xavi's physicality is quite impressive, although he is only 1.7 meters tall and weighs only 66 kilograms, he is quite fit, and in the 04-05 season, he played all of Barcelona's leagues, including eight Champions League games, and was the most played player in Barcelona in the whole season.

His injury history is even more impressive compared to the number of appearances he has made, with his most serious injury coming in the 05-06 season. He was out of action for 5 months because of a torn muscle. Since then, however, he has had no medical records that require major repairs, and he has played in at least 40 games every season since. It can be called an "iron man" comparable to Frank Lampard and others.

And such players. Even if the defensive skills are poor. People don't think of them as a defensive weakness of the team, let alone Xavi's man who claims to be a man who "can think through football", and his defense is by no means as weak as the outside world thinks.

Whether it's Rijkaard or Pep Guardiola. Their high-pressing tactics are based on the outstanding defensive ability of "technical" players such as Xavi and Iniesta!

Later, Guardiola left the team, Vilanova took over Barcelona, he gave Messi Guardiola a defensive immunity that he did not have when he was in office, and then in the case of the coach living abroad for medical treatment all the year round, Barcelona still relied on inertia to win the 2012-2013 La Liga championship, Xavi and Iniesta and other La Masia descendants in the midfield continued to play a high pressing role.

And now why are so many people in Barcelona so dissatisfied with the current head coach Martino? In fact, it is because he abandoned the tradition of high pressing inherited from the time of Rijkaard, making Barcelona look more like a team playing defensive counter-attacks, fans do not buy this conservative and ugly football, and even Xavi and other team bigwigs are very unhappy with this change.

It can be seen that Xavi is not afraid to defend in the front court, and he even admires this tactic, which shows that he is quite confident in his defensive ability.

And when Xavi got tangled up with Cesc Fabregas and Keita blocked Descartes, Arsenal's start-up of a counterattack was once again extinguished.

The biggest difference between Walcott and Descartes is that his way of handling the ball is very simple, even if the ball is at his feet, he basically wades through and passes, and his ability to grasp the situation and control the rhythm is almost none, or not at this time, so when the support from the back is cut off, he can only run blindly.

Xavi and Keita are both smart and they know that it is impossible to completely keep a player like Xiaofa or Descartes from passing the ball, so the method they use is not to blindly block, but to interfere at the right time. When making long passes, especially long-range long passes over a distance of 3 or 40 meters, there is absolutely a world of difference in accuracy whether they are disturbed or not, and they only need to shake it in front of the passer's eyes, which may affect the opponent's senses and thus make the pass skewed. And as the so-called miss is a thousand miles, this kind of deviation when the foot is a little bit, after arriving at the destination, there may be a gap of several meters or even more than ten meters, this gap is definitely not good news for offensive players.

If all Walcott needed to do was use his speed to get rid of the defender's entanglement and then level the ball in front of goal, the extra step he needs to do now is to judge where the ball will land and compete with the opposition defender for the ball.

But judging where football is left has never been Walcott's forte, and it's easy to see from the stats, with Walcott scoring 0 headers throughout his career (up to the end of 2013)!

Headers are one of the most important data to have the ability to judge the landing point of football.

From this point of view, Walcott deserves to be a wonder, his physical fitness and his football awareness form two distinct extremes, which is why even Ramsey was able to come first and was praised by the English media as the pillar of England in the next decade, while Walcott, who became famous earlier than him, has always been able to float between the national team substitute and the main team.

When Descartes and Cesc Fabregas' long balls were suppressed, Arsenal lost their last counter-attack and Barcelona once again dominated the pitch.

It was definitely a very frustrating game for Descartes, the team was overwhelmed overall, and his own efforts of several times could not help the team to open up the situation, even the running that he was proud of. was also compared to Barcelona's overall non-stop running, and the only thing left for him was to break through with the ball himself.

It's just that when the team is completely at a disadvantage, no one has ever been able to redeem the disadvantage on the field just by virtue of the breakthrough, like Maradona's classic of connecting several people, it is absolutely impossible to meet on the field, if you deliberately break through, it is easier to be valued and encircled by the other party.

Descartes was soon under closer scrutiny from Barcelona after a number of attempts, and this time it was Keita who followed him. Even Barcelona left-back Silvinho was brought up. and Keita formed a flank momentum.

If Descartes was only ten or twenty meters away from Barcelona's goal at this time, he might have been able to use a short break to open up the distance and shoot the goal, but he was now forty or fifty meters away from Valdés' gate, even if he got rid of the defense for a short time. It will still be chased back. What can he do?

It was 70 minutes into the second half. The flames of Arsenal's counter-attack were finally extinguished when Barcelona scored their second goal, this time on target. It's "Cheetah" Eto'o from Cameroon.

We have said before that Eto'o is actually the most suitable center forward for Barcelona when he looks horizontally and vertically, his flexible movement, excellent ball control skills, and extremely fast speed, whether it is changing positions with Messi and others, or waiting for support with the ball in the front court, he is a good player, Barcelona exchanged him for Ibrahimovic, in fact, it was a big failure.

Admittedly, Pep Guardiola also has his own considerations, whether it is image or temperament, Ibrahimovic is definitely more powerful than the black and thin Cameroonian, even if he sells jerseys, he can sell a few more pieces, you know, the reason why Real Madrid abandoned Eto'o in the first place was because his "image does not match the temperament of Real Madrid" - what kind of contempt does it take for a club to say such a thing to a player?

It is no wonder that Eto'o later hated Real Madrid, and shouted "Real Madrid, roll over and salute the champion" at Barcelona's championship ceremony, and the broken heart of the African cheetah has never healed.

And Guardiola insisted on exchanging Ibrahimovic, in fact, it was more to let Barcelona have more offensive means, after the ground penetration gradually became known to other opponents, Guardiola also hoped to use Ibrahimovic's height to add another offensive means for Barcelona.

This idea is understandable, but unfortunately, Barcelona wants a "superman" who can exceed 20 goals and assists, preferably more than 30, and this "superman" can't steal the limelight from the number one star Messi, is this possible?

As a result, Ibrahimovic, who was even more unruly than Eto'o, only stayed in Barcelona for a year before leaving with hatred, and Barcelona had no better choice at this time, they had to spend a lot of money to snatch the gourd baby from Real Madrid.

And now, Barcelona shouted for a while to buy Falcao, and then said that they fell in love with Cavani, but these two players are very smart, they have already seen through the "trap" of Barcelona buying a center forward, and they don't want to go to Camp Nou, the "hell of a center forward", to carry the black pot, but they have spent a lot of money, leaving Barcelona in place and sighing "There is no excellent center forward on the earth".

What they didn't know was that the most suitable center forward had already been abandoned by them back then.

Eto'o didn't stop there, he shook off his teammates who came up to celebrate, rushed directly to Guardiola's seat, clenched his fists and shouted: "See, I'm the best!" ”

This move is actually a counterattack to the previous club's intention to use him and Ibrahimovic in exchange, Eto'o doesn't want to go to Inter Milan at all, he wants to stay in Barcelona as the boss, his seniority is old, his ability is good, why Barcelona must be supported by Messi as a pillar, and to abandon him, a veteran with many achievements?

It's a pity that Eto'o couldn't see clearly, Barcelona even dared to kick away a world footballer like Ronaldinho in order to correct Messi, how could he care about him, an "ordinary player" who can't contribute more to the team outside the competitive field?

As a world-renowned football club, Barcelona pursues not only success in competitive sports, but also pursues more competitive benefits, no matter how good your skills are, you can't sell jerseys, you can't attract fans, who will want you?

Barcelona is not the kind of small club, finding a good player is like holding a baby, they are one of the most prestigious clubs in the world, some good players cry and beg to come to them, don't you see that even the captain of Arsenal has jumped here one after another, what is your little African black boy called here?

So in the face of Eto'o's unexpected venting, Guardiola did not show any anger, he just quietly straightened his suit, and then looked in other directions with a cold face.

In fact, in his heart, Eto'o had already been sentenced to death at this time, don't look at him scoring in such an important game, Guardiola has already thought about it, and he will play to Inter Milan next season, and he has to go, if he doesn't go, he has to go!

This episode did not cause much fluctuation in the stands, at the moment Italian fans are like Descartes, immersed in depression, they originally came to enjoy a wonderful football game, but did not expect to see Arsenal was beaten one-sidedly, and their support of "own people" Descartes, although there were a few short wonderful performances, but in the end they were submerged in the superior strength of Barcelona, failed to give a wonderful performance to the fans.

The final result came to an end in this slightly depressing atmosphere, and Barcelona kept their advantage until the referee blew the whistle for the end of the game, and the Barcelona players jumped up with excitement as if they were celebrating the holiday, chasing and laughing wildly on the pitch, while the Arsenal players silently swallowed their tears in their stomachs and walked out of the stadium with their heads hung down with the curtain down.

They don't want to stay here and watch their opponents celebrate, because every laugh from their opponents is equivalent to another stab in their chest, just four days ago they were strong contenders for the Treble, but four days later, they lost two of the most important titles in a row and became the laughing stock of European football.

At this time, Descartes' "each" seemed to be still floating in the sky above the Olympic Stadium, but even he himself had already bent his back, leaving only a lonely back for the tens of millions of fans inside and outside the Olympic Stadium.

It was an unmistakable fiasco, and it made Descartes wonder what was between him and victory. (To be continued.) )