Honestly, watching Espanyol get steamrolled by Barcelona again got me thinking. I mean, what are we supposed to do against that? Decided to actually sit down and figure it out properly. Wasn’t easy.
First up, needed to look at how we lined up against them recently. Man, digging for this stuff online took forever. Checked the official sites, some news reports, even a few fan forums where folks argued about who played where. It was messy. Found a few key games from last season and this season too.
Here’s the grunt work part:
- Gathered Lineups: Wrote down the starting 11 for Espanyol and Barca for each game I picked. Just scribbled names on paper first. Messy, but felt real.
- Stared at Formations: Tried to see the basic shape. 4-4-2? 5-3-2? Sometimes it looked like players were all over the place, especially us when chasing shadows!
- Tracked Positions (Sorta): This bit sucked. Players move! That winger who started on paper was suddenly a wingback, or that midfielder dropped deep. Tried focusing on where they mostly were without the ball.
Basically, broke down our shape into broad chunks:
- How many were we sticking back? Usually a bunch!
- How high up were our midfielders? Often not very.
- Where were the strikers? Isolated, mostly pinching pennies up front.
Yeah, mostly we were deep, like really deep. Parking the bus? Sometimes felt like parking a whole airport. Tried to draw little diagrams. Looked like a squashed accordion compared to Barca’s nice, spread-out shape. Their fullbacks were basically wingers! Ours? Barely crossed halfway.
Looked at what happened when we did try pushing up slightly. Scary stuff. Photos or clips showed massive gaps behind. Barca would just ping the ball through like we weren’t even there. One pass, maybe two, and suddenly they’re through on goal. Made me almost cry remembering some of those goals. Felt stupid trying to push high.
Then checked the games where the scoreline wasn’t a total disaster. What changed? Usually, we had an extra defender. Like, maybe five across the back instead of four. Packed the box even tighter. Told our wingers to forget attacking, just help out. Pure survival mode. And hoping for a set piece miracle or a mistake. Sometimes it almost worked. Almost.
Overall conclusion? It’s rough being an Espanyol fan against Barca. Forget trying to play “football” like them. They play chess while we play checkers. Our plan boils down to: hide in the trenches, throw bodies in front of every shot, pray like hell. Feels bad admitting it, but the proof was right there in how we lined up game after game.
Spent all afternoon on this, felt like I’d run a marathon just thinking about that midfield scramble. Doesn’t solve anything, but hey, at least I understand why my blood pressure always spikes during these matches!