From the 5-0 humiliation Mourinho really went to the drawing board to re-think a lot of things, the first issue was the suicidal high defensive line.
The reality is if you give Barcelona too much space they will punish you, so the high defensive line was meant to compress the pitch & suffocate Barcelona, but Mourinho learned the hard way that real Madrid does not have the type of player who can defend that intelligently, because a high line really puts the positioning of your defenders to the ultimate test.
To solve this problem Mourinho studied a lot of the Rubin Kazan matches and out of then he realized there is another way of making the pitch smaller without playing a high defensive line. Mourniho realized you can also make the pitch small but using more aggression in midfield, so as a result Mesut Ozil was replaced by Pepe & this became one of Mourinhos greatest innovation.
In the first 10 min PEPE was only allowed to play deep, then as time went on Mourinho tested him by playing him higher up the pitch and he kept getting better & better. The inclusion of PEPE is so impressive because when you look at the midfield players of the first match Sami Khedira, Xabi Alonso, Mesut Ozil, none of them had pace, but when you replace Ozil with Pepe then it becomes a different story.
To tell you the truth when Pepe was tested in the midfield role against Tottenham I was not impressed, but I soon understood that Tottenham were always coming through the wings so you could not notice PEPE's contribution. Pepe's contribution was so good that all the players who scored the first 5 goals were nowhere to be found.
Alonso struggled in the first match and already Mourinho came up with plan B for him in the name Ozil, whom came in dominated Barcelona. Karim Benzema was still kept in the first 11 because he has brilliant first touches, which could be crucial in counter attacks.
It is now clear what is happening at training, before Saturday it was about how to press but today most of the attention will be on the final pass from Di Maria and the front three's movement during counters.
This is the end of the precious Barcelona era and they will never beat Jose Mourinho again.
By Mr. Majesa ("AKA The Black Einstein")
