Last Tuesday, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid played an exciting match in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semi-finals.
Both teams delivered an exciting match that resulted in eight goals.
The game ended in a four-four draw, taking scores level heading into the second leg.
It was very clear in this match that both teams focused heavily on set-pieces, which resulted in three goals from corners—two for Barcelona and one for Atlético Madrid.
In this tactical analysis, we will explain how both teams exploited set-piece tactics to score goals and how the tactical competition between coaches Hansi Flick and Diego Simeone played out in this aspect.
Atlético Madrid Corner Analysis
Lets start with the visitors, Atlético Madrid.
Despite the media focus on Barcelonas two goals, Diego Simeones side was good.
They scored their first goal with a brilliant short corner in the games first minute.
— Footie Clips (@FootieClips) February 28, 2025
As shown in the photo below, Barcelona defend with a man-marking defending system with only two zonal defenders (green), a short-option defender (yellow) and a rebound defender on the edge of the box (orange).
On the other hand, Atlético Madrid starts with six players in the box, two players on the edge of the box, a counterattack defender in the back, and the taker.
Atlético Madrids first player on the edge of the box runs quickly toward the taker to receive the ball and play it back to the taker, who will send the cross from a nearer position.
This exploits the quick 2v1 situation against the yellow short-option defender because the first zonal defender should take a long path to help.
In the photo below, we focus on the second part of the plan inside the box so that we will focus on the six attackers inside the box.
The first is Julián Alvarez (blue), who will score the goal.
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