UEFA Champions League 2016/17: Juventus 3-0 Barcelona - 5 talking points
Juventus recorded a comprehensive 3-0 win over Barcelona in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League quarter-final clash. The win severely dented Barcelona’s hopes of winning a 6th Champions League title as they now need to mount another epic comeback in the second leg if they want to progress to the semi-finals.
Paulo Dybala was Juventus’ destroyer-in-chief as he netted twice in the first half to sink Luis Enrique’s side before Giorgio Chiellini headed home a rare goal to seal a 3-0 win for the hosts.
Here are the major talking points from the feisty encounter between Juventus and Barcelona:
#1 Barcelona undone by their formation
Barcelona used Luis Enrique’s newly adopted 3-3-1-3 formation to devastating effect in the second leg of the 6-5 comeback win over PSG in the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. The Spaniard opted to start his team with the same formation against the Italians but it proved to be the reason behind their failure.
Juventus were afforded far too much space in the wide areas courtesy of a narrow Barcelona setup and the Old Lady made the most of it. Cuadrado had the number of Mathieu in the first half and waltzed past him down the right at will, setting up the first goal among a couple of other good chances.
Such was the condition of Barcelona’s defence after the first half that Enrique was forced to take of Mathieu and revert to their usual 4-3-3 formation, however, by that time the damage had already been done and the Catalans were left chasing lost causes.