(Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)
Some matches really don’t need building up. We all know the score, we all know the history and there is no easy way to predict the outcome of Chelsea verses Barcelona in the second leg of the Champions League semi final.
It seems that 0-0 is a score line that both teams are confident with going into the Wednesday's second leg.
Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola has already claimed that the Spanish League leaders will go to Stamford Bridge and book their place in the final, while Chelsea fans were happy to be the first team to go to the Nou Camp and come away with a clean sheet after the first leg last Tuesday.
The same questions are raised again, the most obvious being—Can Chelsea stop Barcelona scoring?
Maybe, maybe not, but with the team touted as being the most attractive attacking team in world football coming to town, they may have to play ugly and be ruthless in exposing Barcelona’s weaknesses.
Before we look at the second leg on Wednesday, let’s look back and see what Chelsea did right in Spain, after all certain aspects of their game plan may once again benefit the Blues who many believe have to take aspects of their “anti-football” display in order to set up another all English clash in the final of the European cup.
While it is easy to point the finger at Chelsea, who were up against it for the entire match and poor with the ball when they were in possession, it is fair to say that Guus Hiddink got his tactics spot on and although they rode their luck at times, this was a defensive master-class from Terry, Cech & co.
Chelsea stopped Barcelona from playing, they got men behind the ball, congested the areas in and around the box and saw move after move of the neat, intricate, flowing football break down.
In the process they stopped the “big three” of Henry, Eto’o and Messi from tearing them apart like they have done to most teams they’ve faced this season. This is impressive when you consider that the three of them have scored more goals that any other team in Europe between them.
Although they showed glimpses of their outstanding ability, Chelsea’s full backs did a fantastic job of stopping Henry and Messi who played from the wide positions in the three-pronged Barcelona attack.
Both of these players like to cut inside at every opportunity and it was crucial that Bosingwa and Ivanovic stuck with them as they did and in doing so providing a further hinderence as the pair tried to make things happen in the already congested areas around the box.
Despite the obvious positives, this, of course, left Chelsea vulnerable as they became extremely narrow and left certain areas exposed, notably the wide areas.
Later in the game, Barcelona would begin to use this to their advantage as Abidal and more often Dani Alves would be found in the space created by the in cutting runs of Messi and Henry.
Barcelona’s best chances came from the right hand side and Alves put a number of decent deliveries into the box, notably the cross for Bojan who saw his header go over the bar in what was the home team’s best chance of the game.



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