Manchester United 'Schooled' by Barcelona: What now?
Apart from the first 10 minutes, Barcelone gave Manchester United a footballing lesson. Crisp, pacy and incisive passing and great close control versus laboured, slow and predictable from Manchester United. Too often the ball went backwards or for long and cross-field.
What went wrong, after such a good start?
Was this just a great performance by a technically superior side? Were Man Utd made to look bad because Barcelone just wouldn't let them have the ball? Did this game expose real weaknesses in Manchester United's game or was it just a poor performance?
If they didn't perform on the night, as opposed to being outperformed, then the most likely explanations are psychological. We can make educated guesses or hypotheses about the weight of expectation, of the impact of the goal against the run of play, about a loss of focus, but only the players hold the real clues to what happened.
We can be sure that the game will be dissected by analysts in the media, on public forums, in pubs, bars and by the coffee machine/water cooler, but nowhere more so than within the club.
As with all setbacks, all that they can do now is review, learn and make the changes needed to play better next time around.
Performance reviews need to be done in the cold light of day, after the emotions of the event have subsided. The focus should
- be on learning - ensuring that positives aren't ignored in the 'post mortem' (as areas for improvement should not be ignored in the euphoria of victory) ;
- take into account the preparation for the game as well as the game itself; and
- consider the physical, tactical, technical and mental dimensions.
Once the learning points have been recorded, everything else should be left behind as history, along with the result. These learning points can then form the basis for process and performance goals for the following season.
--
Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com
Tags:
barcelona,
champions league,
football,
learning,
manchester united,
performance review,
review,
soccer
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