Alba to Messi. A classic play at Barcelona and now at Inter Miami.
Usually an outside back or winger tries to get to the byline to cross the ball. Cut the ball back to a player in the goal box. Lionel Messi and Jordi Alba do it differently though.
Moreover, they have such an understanding. Maps in their head of one another’s movements. Underlying their mind meld is the give and go.
Vintage Leo 🐐
Messi to Jordi Alba back to Messi for his 12th goal of the season! pic.twitter.com/2ZbHNTJtf3
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) June 2, 2024
Here, Abla plays a give and go with Messi near the top of the box. Abla playing a square ball right back to Messi who finishes first time is not a new thing, obviously. Don’t have the stats on this from their days at Barcelona but there must be a number of goals scored this exact same way.
Furthermore, Messi has even played a high ball out to Alba. It is no problem for Alba though. He calmly controls the soccer ball and plays it right back to Messi to score.
Just look at the image on this piece and see all the space that is open to Messi in the box. A gaping hole in the St. Louis City’s defense.
However, Alba can get to the byline and cross the ball as well. Later, in this same match, it is his ball across the goal line to Suarez that gets them back in the game.
In a way it comes down to just getting the ball to your best players in their best spots. And those best players getting to the right spots and asking for the ball. Easy to say but hard to do at the highest level. Yet Messi and Alba have mastered it.
What stands out too though in this video and the goal is the St. Louis City defender Tim Parker doing double time of trying to contain Messi and then turning his back and just leaving him unmarked.
All that hard work of defending Messi when his back is turned and only to give it away when he plays the ball.
Overall, if you’re going to try to man mark Messi, the best soccer player to ever play, you can’t stop all of sudden when he passes the ball. Messi has put Parker in the washing machine, spinning one way and the other, and Parker has stayed with him until he passes to Alba. Just an odd decision by Parker.
Perhaps Parker thinks that his teammate Eduard Löwen is going to continue marking Messi. That’s really the only reasoning you could see for Parker to leave Messi. It is Löwen who steps up to try and block Messi’s pass out wide to Alba. Yet he doesn’t continue to track him into the goal box.
Still, it is Parker who has been seeming to man mark Messi throughout this play. He should have just stayed with him. Just turning his back in itself is unwise.
