Player Positional Tracker: Real Madrid v Atletico

Real Madrid 1 vs 2 Atletico

Atletico picked up from where they left off last season with a great away win at the Bernabeu

As usual, I've noted down a few things I picked up from watching the viz for the two halves; click on a gif if you want to enlarge it.

1st Half:

• Atletico played a Back 4, but their right back, Juanfran, played exceptionally high up the pitch (especially during the opening 30 minutes).  This left them defensively lopsided as it didn't appear anyone filled in for Juanfran, but Real didn't attempt to take advantage of this

• During the final 15 minutes of the half, Juanfran retreated backwards just as Atletico's left back Siqueira began to take up more attacking locations.  Interestingly, when this happened Koke dropped back behind his attacking left back to cover the space.  Presumably, with Bale being a constant attacking presence for Real on the right flank Atletico needed someone to occupy Bale

• According to the team lineups Ronaldo was to be Real's left sided attacking threat.  We can see in the viz that Ronaldo spent the entire first half in central positions, with no one really taking up wide attacking positions on Real's left side.  This is related to the point I made above about Juanfran spending so much time up the pitch for Atletico.  I guess this is the problem with playing Galactico shaped pegs in functional positional player shaped holes - everyone wants to be the superstar

2nd Half:

• The game became very compressed at the start of the second half as the majority of players are shown in the middle third of the pitch during this period.  It was noticeable was that Atletico moved to a very high line during this phase of the game

• After the restart, Fabio Coentrao immediately took up more attacking positions from left back for Real

• After Bale was substituted, Ronaldo moved across to the right and Isco provided a bit of width for Real on the left

Article by Colin Trainor