More quarterfinals

Attack, attack, attack was the theme of the first three quarterfinals, beginning with Atalanta’s.

In the second quarterfinal, RB Leipzig, which came into existence just eleven years ago, outplayed and defeated Atlético de Madrid (who’d so impressively ousted title-holders Liverpool). Leipzig sliced through Atlético’s middle for the first goal. The winning goal was fired in after a clever low cross.

Leipzig’s young center-back, Dayot Upamecano, bossed Atlético’s strikers.

The next game was one of the most breakneck-paced contests I’ve seen at this level. Both Baryern and Barça threw caution to the wind. Bayern’s high defensive line was especially shocking.

Indeed, the Catalans had early chances. They didn’t take enough of them. The Bavarians romped to a 4–1 victory in each half, improving upon their 7–2 group stage victory over the Potato Tots.

The experts are predicting that Barça will be renovated through and through.

There was less attacking in Lyon’s surprising victory over Manchester City. The Citizens possessed the ball but lacked ideas. The “signature” moment occurred when Raheem Sterling missed the tying goal just feet from the empty net.

Outcomewise there are various possibilities, but Bayern has the best team this year.

Poor Liverpool

… tore through the English Premier League this season in pursuit of some amazing feats. Would they join 2003–2004 Arsenal as EPL “invincibles”? Would they repeat as European champions?

They would not.

In the EPL, they lost to Watford.

Then, Atlético de Madrid eliminated them from the Champions League.

Liverpool could have surpassed Manchester City’s EPL points record. But City thumped them as soon as they clinched the title; and today, needing a draw to be able to accumulate 100 points, as City had done two seasons before, Liverpool suffered a lackluster defeat to Arsenal.

I watched on Peacock TV, NBC’s new streaming site, as Liverpool became also-rans in comparison to other champions. The futility was palpable. Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool’s manager, seethed.

This acclaimed team is, ultimately, a less memorable one than the 2015–2016 Leicester team that accumulated just 81 points.

The sports

Yesterday, Samuel and I viewed the best match of the last two or three years: Atlético de Madrid’s victory, in extra time, over title holders Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League’s round of 16. As brilliant as last year’s semifinals were, this game was superior – at least in terms of the overall quality of play. Both teams did what they do well. Both were fairly successful. The Liverpudlians attacked ferociously, the Colchoneros defended, and Jan Oblak was a monster at blocking shots. The Liverpudlians slowly clawed their way into the lead. But then the series was turned around by substitutes who scored three crisp goals. Thrilling, heady stuff.

I happened to watch this game rather than others because it was held in a stadium with fans. To contain the new coronavirus, fans were kept outside of other games played at the same time.

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Rumbo a la gloria eterna said the arch over the players entering the field of the Copa Libertadores Group A match between Independiente del Valle and Junior de Barranquilla. (This slogan, too, was in step with the coronavirus pandemic.) IDV won 3–0 with cracking goals, what Argentinian commentators call goles de altura – goals characteristic of the altitude.

My own team, Barcelona, lost 3–0 at title holders Flamengo. Elimination stares us in the face.

Why the twerp Griezmann isn’t succeeding at F.C. Barcelona

This article points out what should have been obvious before Griezmann moved for €120 million from Atlético de Madrid. Griezmann is accustomed to playing directly behind another striker. At Barcelona, Messi is the only striker who is permitted to consistently drop behind another striker.

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Tonight, Karin & I celebrated three and a half years of marriage. We went to a burrito restaurant. We silently ate and admired our sleeping baby.

As November winds down, Karin dreads her return to her regular work schedule.

The good news is, I’m improving at giving Samuel the bottle.

Contrary to mystical prognostication, the missing copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock has been found (by Karin).

There’s a storm coming

The final of the UEFA Champions League will take place in about one week, on Saturday, May 26. Liverpool and Real Madrid are the contestants. Neither came close to winning its respective domestic league this year.

How, then, did these teams manage to do so well against the cream of Europe?

This article by Simon Kuper explains a key tactical concept: “storming,” or relentlessly trying to steal the ball in the other team’s end of the field.

Storming is my preferred way of playing small-field soccer. Imagine playing a full-court press on a basketball court against opponents who aren’t allowed to use their hands. The odds of stealing the ball are good.

On a full-sized field, however, ball carriers have more space, and those who press must sprint farther. Storming is much harder to pull off.

Regular soccer is like stone/paper/scissors. Teams that specialize in keeping possession and passing out from the back are vulnerable against teams that specialize in storming. This is because storming creates turnovers near the goal. But teams that are good at storming suffer more against less skillful teams that settle for “parking the bus” in front of the goal with nine or ten defenders. This is because teams that storm are more vulnerable to counterattacks. They also thrive in chaos, which is what other teams avoid succumbing to when they park the bus.

This explains why F.C. Barcelona, the renowned master of keeping possession and inflicting “death by a thousand cuts,” continues to dominate in the Spanish league. Barcelona and the stormers at Atlético de Madrid both play against less skillful opponents who try to park the bus. Over the course of a lengthy round-robin tournament, this favors Barcelona over Atlético. (Real Madrid isn’t a pure representative of any of these styles. More on R.M. later.)

On the other hand, in the Champions League knockout stages, Barcelona must occasionally get past a storming team without relying on its superior record against other contestants. Barcelona faces much worse odds when it goes head-to-head against such foes. And so it has been knocked out by such stormers as Atlético, two years ago, and Roma, this year.

In its quarterfinal, Liverpool, a storming team, knocked out Manchester City, which likes to do some storming but is more of a possession outfit. Liverpool then outstormed like-minded Roma in the semifinal.

(In the English league standings, however, City left Liverpool in the dust.)

Of the three strategies, “death by a thousand cuts” and “storming” require the most specific personnel. (Just about any team can “park the bus” as long as it has one speedy forward who can retain possession long enough.) In particular, it’s hard for a team to acquire midfielders who are good possession-keepers and good stormers. The mindset required for making sustained charges into the thick of things is the opposite of the mindset for drifting into space, receiving the ball, slowing things down, and making judicious passes.

This is where Real Madrid, with its great wealth, has the advantage over everyone else. It has enough good players to try either strategy. When an opposing team parks the bus, R.M. can inflict the thousand cuts. And when R.M. comes up against a storming team, it can bring in players to switch out of its usual possession mode. Thus, at each new knockout stage, it adapts itself to its opponent.

This ability to match up well against a variety of foes is what allows R.M. to get through knockout tie after knockout tie, year after year, even in a very bad year. Of course, all it takes to be eliminated is one bad matchup. Liverpool isn’t built to win a round-robin league against good possession teams, but it is built to shred even the best opponent on a given night.

If I were coaching Real Madrid against Liverpool, I’d have my defenders simply kick the ball down the field and hope for my skilled attackers to retain possession. And if they couldn’t, I’d switch tactics and park the bus.

Whatever happens, I don’t think this game will offer much by way of midfield sophistication.

Quarterfinals

In the quarterfinals of the Champions League, a rather poor FC Barcelona team was ousted by Juventus, and Cristiano Ronaldo scored two offside goals to nudge Real Madrid past Bayern Munich. Real’s patsy, Atlético, also made it through, defending fiercely against Leicester.

Of the victors, only the Monacans don’t seem stale. They’ve scored, what, three goals in each of their last four knockout games? (They dispatched Dortmund in their quarterfinal.) They played in the final as recently as 2004, but in 2011–2013 they languished in Ligue 2. An influx of Russian cash restored their loftier standing.

I didn’t watch any of these games.

India

I had to buy a certain cheap-looking DVD for the high school Social Studies Dept. The back cover says:

Discover the enchanting and vibrant land of India and its people. INDIA – ONE COUNTRY, A MILLION WORLDS lets you explore ancient civilizations, phenomenal architecture and brings you up-close to India’s dynamic and diverse culture. Learn of India’s past and present, including Mahatma Ghandi’s struggle for India’s freedom and present day city life including customs and religious ceremonies. Everything from India’s geography and climate to present political formation is all here in INDIA – ONE COUNTRY, A MILLION WORLDS.
Running Time: 24 Minutes.

My Juan Bosch paper, which was due last Sunday, is nearly, but not completely, written. (I have excuses, but surely no one wants to hear them.) The teacher is breathing down my neck just a little. My loved ones are breathing down it quite a lot more. I want to curl up in a dark, small room so that I can watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit in peace.

I do allow myself to check the soccer scores. Leicester City have won the English Premier League title, shocking the world. Atlético de Madrid have eliminated Bayern Munich from the Champions League. Independiente del Valle have eliminated River Plate from the Copa Libertadores.

Rumor has it, David has arrived from Houston, two weeks before the wedding.

Independiente vs. River; Atlético vs. Barcelona; Atlético vs. Bayern

I don’t know if Independiente del Valle even have 30,000 supporters; but last night the Estadio Atahualpa was full, and its crowd wore blue and black. The game itself lacked luster. Though Independiente hardly were breathtaking, River Plate, the defending champions, were cautious in the altitude.

Independiente’s goals came in the last half-hour.

Two goals to zero is a good home-leg result. In the second leg, River must again be cautious: receiving just one goal obliges them to tally four.

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Atlético de Madrid must surely be the world’s toughest team to play against. Every touch of the ball is, for them, a matter of life or death. And not only are they gritty; not only do they close up shop in front of the goal; they can be rather brilliant, too.

Lately, their astounding player has been the midfielder Saúl Ñíguez. See his outer-footed cross, to Antoine Griezmann, versus Barcelona; see his personal wonder-goal versus Bayern Munich.

See also Fernando Torres’s near miss.

A regrettable law

Wed. afternoon I watched Bayern Munich vs. Juventus. Their prior encounter, in Turin, had ended 2–2. So in Munich all that Bayern needed to do was to keep from getting scored upon.

But Juve quickly went up 2–0. Juan Cuadrado made a golazo, assisted brilliantly by Álvaro Morata. The quality of that goal had me cheering for Juve.

Bayern clawed their way back into the contest. They got the tying goal around minute 90.

Extra time suddenly immanent, Guardiola spoke some encouraging words to his players.

However, to my mind, that wasn’t what made the difference. Once the score was leveled, it always looked pretty grim for Juventus.

The game would unfold according to “John-Paul’s Law,” which says that when a team plays to win in 90 minutes, as it should, and then has the misfortune at the end to let in the tying goal, the other team, which has been playing for a regulation-time draw, will win in extra time; there will be no penalty shootout. This is one of the great unfairnesses of soccer. One notorious instance was the Champions League final of 2013, in which Real Madrid beat Atlético de Madrid. (An exception was the final of 2012, which went to penalties; but that was an odd case, because both teams’ goals came at the end of the regular period.)

Bayern would end up beating Juve 4 to 2. On the whole, what happened was entertaining – but regrettable.