Hello guys and welcome to my first blog entry.

Today I’ll begin my blog with a game between my favourite Clubs in Football:
The small Rayo Vallecano and the mighty FC Barcelona.

Many of you may not even know Rayo Vallecano. It is one of the four clubs in La Liga who are from Madrid, it is the club with the least budget (7 mio) and they are still successful under one of the most underrated Coaches in the world: Paco Jémez.

But who is he? He played in his career as a centre back for clubs like Depor, Zaragoza, Córdoba, Murcia, Lugo and of course Rayo Vallecano (55 games). He played 297 La Liga games and retired 2006. One year later he became a manager for RSD Alcalá, another small club of Madrid.

He later moved on to his old club Córdoba, Cartagena, Las Palmas, then came back
to Córdoba again and now since 2012 he is the coach of Rayo Vallecano.

What people mostly appraise about him is the fact that he don’t care who he trains. Normally coaches who coaching a small club with such a small budget like Rayo would rather play defensively-minded because they don’t want to go back to the Segunda Division so easily.

But Paco Jeméz is not like that. He plays very attacking-minded with a superb pressing. In his first season he marched through La Liga and Rayo got the 8. Place, which means that Rayo would play in the Europa League, but the UEFA didn’t gave them a license which is a shame. For them the 9. Place will get qualified which was FC Sevilla who won the Europa League afterwards.

When people watching Rayo they see more than a small club, it is a club full of passion. When you watch Rayo you’ll see a lot of similarities to Barca. Both playing aggressive pressing, both want possession, both playing very attacking minded. But what happens when both teams meet each other?

I analyzed the game between them (21/09/2013)

The begining of the game was very fast and Rayo directly began with their typical high pressing.

Barcelona didn’t know exactly what to do since their midfield is to far away and Rayo covering their players. They decided to play it to the right side where Piqué is. Piqué is playing a non-accurat pass because of the high pressing and they ended up losing possesion. Viera conquers the ball with his speed but
played a bad cross despite there were better options.

One difference between Barca and Rayo is that Rayo feel actually comfortable on the wings, while Barca doesn’t and attacking through the middle.

2 Minutes later the same attack was built by Rayo. Cross from the wing, Piqué misestimate it and Rayo has their chance with a header. Valdes must clear it and he is noticeably angry which is more than understandable.

Barcelona is trying hard to built an attack but it is hard since Rayo man-marking everytime.

 

Almost everytime when Rayo has the ball as many as players are coming to the player who has the Ball. They combine in a tight area to bring up as many as Barca players in that area and then trying to play it fast to the other side.

 

Barcelona didn’t came the whole first half into the game. Individually Barca has the stronger players but the first half was a tactial disaster. Bad passes everywhere, losing posession to quick. Not interegating Messi. But when they do it will be dangerous.

 

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The first half of Barca was full of errors. If they didn’t have the individual class that would have ended not well. Rayo got a penalty in the 36. Minute and Victor Valdes is the one who saves Barca again.

 

After the Half Time Barca came back and they played that game which was criticised a lot of Tata Martino. Their Counter playing. Barca wins the ball, Cesc runs (well, okay, more than faster walking) Pedro starts running into the six yard box and he scores again.

 

 

And 20 minutes later the same attack goes on and Rayo conceding again.

What is my résumé of this game?

Rayo could have get here at least one point but made too much errors in the defensive and not using their chances in the finish. They played well, tactical great, attacking-minded like they always do. But at the end they were got counter-attacked 4 times to much. They needed to switch their game faster after losing possession and they would have done more great. But at the end they also won a bit. You may ask why? Because this was the second time in 6 years where Barca had less possession than their opponent (Rayo: 54%, Barca 46%).

If you just watch at the result you’d have thing Barcelona crushed Rayo Vallecano but at the end the small Barcelona had made it for the mighty FC Barcelona extremely hard to score and this game was only decided by individually class.

Thank you for reading and sorry for the typos.