French sporting daily L’Equipe has published reports claiming that Jose Mourinho has been offering advice to PSG coach Carlo Ancelotti on how best to defeat the Catalans. L’Equipe went on to claim that Mourinho prepared and delivered two videos outlining his tactical approach to dealing with Barcelona, and emphasizing the team’s weaknesses. Mourinho himself has not publicly commented on these claims, but his assistant, and frequent mouthpiece, Aitor Karanka called them “ridiculous.”

Image: Tom Hevezi [AP]

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As well as leading Argentina to World Cup glory as coach in 1978, César Luis Menotti led FC Barcelona during the 1983-1984 season, and several other top clubs throughout his career, including River Plate, Boca Juniors and Santos FC. Menotti recently sat with El País to harp on the beauty of Guardiola’s game, Argentina’s aggression toward Messi and the sea of Mourinhos in the modern game. Read on for the conclusion of a truly epic interview.

The following is a translation from an article from El País. The original article can be found here. Part I can be found here.

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The new coach of arch-rival Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho, took a little time recently to analyze the situation between his own club and FC Barcelona before the start of the new season. Mourinho confessed that there is a major difference between the play of FC Barcelona and his new team. As reported by Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo,  the 47-year-old coach believes that Barca has a great advantage when it comes to familiarity between the players and the team’s style of play. 

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Much was made before Tuesday’s match in Milan about the tactical battle that would unfold on the pitch between Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho. And while Barcelona fans are licking their wounds and contemplating next week’s second leg, we thought it might be therapeutic to analyze the match tactically and dissect exactly what went wrong. In that spirit, we’re featuring an article from the superb site Zonal Marking that explores the match in detail, albeit from the point of view of a neutral but keen football spectator.

Read through the article and post your thoughts about the match in the comments. And be sure to check out zonalmarking.net for great tactical explanations of key football matchups.

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