Islam Bouafif 🇹🇳🇵🇸

1/Lineup: Flick's only misstep in the lineup was starting Szczęsny, which proved to be a significant error. Considering Szczęsny’s costly mistake in the Clasico, Flick should have realized that the team’s high defensive line strategy demands a goalkeeper proficient in sweeping.

Unfortunately, Szczęsny’s weaknesses in this area were evident once again. The consequences were clear, particularly on Benfica’s second and third goals, both of which I believe Peña’s consistent sweeping abilities could have prevented.

2/First half Benfica tried to high press early on but we managed to bypass it with relative ease, especially down the left flank. Balde’s excellent ball-carrying ability played a key role, as he frequently dribbled past his marker and drew midfielders toward him, freeing up Pedri

Pedri, in turn, used his exceptional vision and passing to progress the play. However, Barcelona struggled to capitalize on breaking the press. Unlike our usual quick transitions, our attacks were slow, giving Benfica enough time to recover and drop into a compact low block

Benfica’s defensive transitions were remarkably fast making it difficult for for us to exploit spaces directly. Even when Lewy dropped deep to drag CBs out of position and create space for Rapha, Benfica’s disciplined defense refused to follow him and maintained their structure.

When faced with their low block, we avoided our previous game mistake of relying heavily on wide plays, which would have suited their defensive setup, because a low block wants to force you to go wide and make you rely on crosses so we focused on attacking through the centre.

This was achieved by overloading the central areas with Lewy dropping deep, Rapha cutting inside, or Pedri/Gavi advancing. While this tactic consistently gave us a numerical advantage in central areas and allowed for line-breaking passes, the issue lay in execution.

Players receiving the ball between the lines—Raphinha, Gavi, and Lewy—failed to make an impact. They frequently lost possession through poor touches, inaccurate passes, or weak finishing, which hampered Barcelona’s ability to create clear chances despite easy central progression.

Benfica also prepared well to neutralize Lamine Yamal on Barcelona’s right flank. They anticipated Barça’s tendency to overload on the left and switch play to Yamal on the right. Their left-back resisted shifting too far centrally, staying close to Yamal to limit his space

While this created gaps between their left-back and their left center-back, Barcelona failed to exploit them, as most players were focused on the left-side overload. Despite heavy marking, Yamal still managed to beat his man on occasions but couldn’t create anything significant.

Koundé and Gavi, his nearest teammates, were below their usual standards and failed to combine effectively with him. Even when Yamal dragged defenders centrally to open space for Koundé, the latter failed to take advantage, offering little in terms of attacking output.

When we tried to attack directly from the overloaded side, the left side, although Balde contributed effectively in buildup play, his final delivery in terms of crosses and chances was lacking. The only notable opportunity came from a Raphinha cross that Yamal missed.

Defensively we used our usual pressing setup, which worked a lot of times, helping us dominate possession and win the ball in dangerous areas (like the chance Raphinha missed near the end of the half), but it also caused us a lot of defensive problems.

First the press itself was beaten a couple of times, mainly because Yamal’s pressing intensity was inconsistent, often allowing Benfica’s goalkeeper to easily find the left center-back or left-back, which disrupted Barcelona’s press and opened up spaces for them to beat it.

Even when they failed to bypass it and played long balls, if in any occasion we loose an aerial duel or a second ball, it left our fullbacks exposed, as the high-pressing wingers couldn’t recover in time, often resulting in 2v1 situations against Balde or mostly Koundé.

Also on several occasions, Barça seemed unprepared to press after losing possession, leaving the player on the ball with a lot of freedom, combined with a high defensive line, it allowed Benfica to play long balls that bypassed Barça’s offside trap easily.

Another problem was with Pedri playing a more advanced role alongside Gavi, we often saw Casado isolated as the lone pivot. This lack of midfield cover was exposed during transitions, such as in the sequence that led to Benfica’s penalty and third goal.

Overall defensive vulnerabilities, compounded by individual errors, led to 3 conceded goals. With the lack of usual attacking sharpness, it was a poor half, and being behind at halftime was a fair reflection of our performance despite it being mainly due to individual errors.

3/Second half Unfortunately, the defensive issues persisted, leaving Koundé in 1v2 situations, allowing the player on the ball a lot of freedom,... . As a result, they created some dangerous chances early in the half, though they failed to capitalize and score a 4th goal

On the attacking side, there were noticeable improvements. Barça began relying more on the left flank, giving Balde opportunities for 1v1 situations rather than overburdening Yamal as the sole wide threat. Balde's passing also improved, leading to some dangerous chances.

Significantly, Yamal was granted more positional freedom, moving centrally or to the left instead of sticking strictly to the width. This created more solutions. Koundé often held the width on the right, exploiting space left by Benfica's LB, who was focused on marking Yamal.

With Pedri gaining more freedom and being able to have the ball in comfortable situations close to the box because Benfica lowered their block even more in this half, Pedri was able to exploit Kounde's freedom with perfect passes but Koundé struggled with poor attacking output.

Around the 60th minutes with barca still trailing by 2 goals, Flick introduced Frenkie de Jong and Fermín López for Casado and Gavi. This substitution had an immediate impact. Fermín played as a left winger, while Raphinha moved centrally as a CAM, leaning toward the right.

This tactical shift allowed Raphinha to support Yamal more effectively and exploit the space between Benfica's LCB and LB that we talked about earlier. Frenkie de Jong, meanwhile, improved the team’s ball progression with his precise passing and ability to find Raphinha’s runs.

With Frenkie controlling deeper areas, Pedri advanced more freely, constantly positioning himself between the lines and excelling in tight spaces. This resolved Barça's earlier issue of failing to capitalize on central progression, as Pedri provided key passes in the final third.

Despite these improvements and several great chances, poor finishing continued to plague us and we weren't able to score, even when Benfica’s goalkeeper gifted us a goal with a mistake, we immediately gifted them a goal back with a miscommunication between Szczęsny and Araújo.

With little time left, Flick made bold changes by substituting both fullbacks for Eric García and Ferran Torres. The structure shifted to an aggressive 3-2-4-1, focusing on overloading the right flank rather than overloading the left and relying on long switches to Yamal.

Raphinha played wider, occasionally switching roles with Yamal, while Ferran acted as a second striker. This setup created constant triangles and numerical advantage on the right side, leading to a lot of danger including Yamal winning a penalty, bringing us back into the game.

On the left, Fermín provided width. Though not his preferred role, he found plenty of space because of the overload we made on the right so he was able to contribute by even a random cross or winning corners, one of which led to the equalizer after Pedri's wonderful delivery.

Even after equalizing, we continued to press for a fifth goal, and we didn't change our risky structure, leaving significant gaps at the back which was very greedy as Benfica nearly scored a winner, but Szczęsny made a crucial save.