Barcelona Wins Fifth Title after Defeating Superb Juve (Part I)

Barcelona weren’t able to dominate the Champions League final in the way they were expected to do, as an excellent Juventus made it a tight and thrilling game.

Though the 3-1 scoreline of the final was something that most of those who bet on sports in the EU have expected, Juve were actually far closer to Barcelona during the game than it was predicted by experts, fans and punters at online sportsbooks. They posed a real challenge for the Catalans, defending superbly and containing Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar in the first half. The early goal ruined their plan, however they were able to come back into the game with a dominating performance in the second half.

• Assists in three finals from Iniesta
• Juve were able to recover after conceding early
• Bodies were packed between Messi and the goal

In the end though, Barcelona completed the second treble in club history and bid farewell to Xavi with another trophy, making it 25 for the team captain, who is on his way to Qatari outfit Al Sadd. Barcelona’s productive front three proved to be decisive in the second half, and interestingly, they scored two goals on the break. That might be not very Barcelona-like, but a common feature when meeting a team that is able to dominate possession against them for certain periods of the game.

Iniesta and Rakitic ruined Allegri’s game plan

Massimilano Allegri asked Juventus to press high up the pitch from the beginning, and his players started exactly in that fashion, making it seemingly uncomfortable for Javier Mascherano and co. to build from the back. Stunning many punters wagering via online sportsbooks in the EU, the Argentinian defender made a couple of errors early in the game and it looked that the Old Lady will pose a real threat for La Blaugrana, if they can maintain this type of pressing game. Then only a couple of minutes later Luis Enrique’s team took the lead with a typical Barcelona goal.

Though every outfield player of Barca touched the ball before Ivan Rakitic fired it home from a close range, Juventus clearly had a well-worked plan about how to contain the most terrific attacking trio of the world. They were doing it well, however Barcelona’s two attacking midfielders made their way into the box of the Italians, virtually occupying the places of the forwards and ending up doing their job properly.

After Andres Iniesta rushed into the channel just opened in front of him by Neymar drifting towards the sideline, the Spaniard picked up the ball passed towards him by the Brazilian. Iniesta stopped before the goal line enabling himself to find the brilliantly positioned Rakitic, who opened the scoring in the 4th minute. Iniesta now registered an assist in all of his last three Champions League final appearance, which is a feature nobody did before him.

Juve Recovering

After the goal Juventus were confused while Barcelona were rolling, creating chances after chances and they could have been up by three after 15 minutes of football had their strikers been more prolific or Gianluigi Buffon hadn’t been that good. Juventus recovered for the middle part of the first half though, recording chances, mainly long range shots, and they were able to deal with the forwards of Barcelona without the injured Giorgio Chiellini, whose place in the starting line-up was filled by Andrea Barzagli.

Though Pep Guardiola said that Messi is unstoppable, and he might be right after having worked with the Argentine for four years, winning everything in club football, Juventus players made a very good effort while trying that. Arturo Vidal helped the actual fullback, Stephane Lichtsteiner or Patrice Evra, and the wide midfielder, Paul Pogba or Claudio Marchisio, to deal with Neymar and Messi and the overlapping right backs, Dani Alves and Jordi Alba on the flanks. When either of the Barcelona attacking midfielders was also involved, the centre-back of Juve responsible for the side of the field in question was still there, so the Italians were up in numbers and bodies were stacked between the outside forwards and the goal.

Some of the mobile betting audience might realized that Arturo Vidal tended to defend on the left, since Messi was playing on the right wing of the Barcelona forward line, but the middle of the field wasn’t exposed either. The two Juve strikers, Carlos Tevez and Alvaro Morata came back to protect the double bank of four, and as all the lines were playing close to each other, there was hardly any space for Barcelona, who were dominating possession.

At the end of the first half, Juventus were somewhere they wanted to be regarding their display, and since Barcelona weren’t able to add more goals to Rakitic’s opener, the scoreline should have been acceptable as well. At that point however, Barcelona were in control of things, so Juve had to raise their game to challenge their opponents and they duly did so, creating an exciting second half, what we will discuss in the second part of this piece.