La Liga 19/20 - The new Era

It really shows how far Barca have fallen when people want Marcelo to start based on this game. Marcelo was finished at the highest levelat the end of 17/18. He should've left with Ronaldo if we are completely honest. Every single RW could take him on and put him on his ass these days. And offensively without Ronaldo he hasn't got much to show for his lack of defence

I agree that this is our best line up minus Marcelo. Yet we haven't started this XI since PSG home probably and that's on Zidane. He is doing everything to shoehorn Modric, Bale and Marcelo into the line ups and we are paying for it. We've now got a mountain tp climb against City, without Ramos no less. Hoping Vini comes through for us because he is the only one we can rely on offensively to make thongs happen. And with Cristiano Diaz coming in from the cold will hopefully give us anothet threat infront of goal

About Barca, individually their midfielders are probably decent on paper but together there isn't much connection between them. Arthur is the new Thiago. He just dwells and dwells and dwells on the ball until it gets stolen from him. FDJ is the sort of safety first type of player. He just passes it to the nearest player and Busquets has become a turnover machine. Actually Barca is a bunch of players with different styles glued up together. Vidal will never work in.a possession based team, did he put one accurate pass all game? I don't think so. Then you have Pique, Busquets and FDJ who need the possession to stop themselves getting exposed on the counter

Valverde did the right thing ditching possession for a counterattacking style. That's whete the likes of Griezmann and Vidal thrive. Barca are not press resistant anymore. This is the 2nd Clasico this season we've had it easy getting the ball back everytime we've lost it. Those midfielders are losing the ball far too easy. It's time to stop trying to play out from the back imo

Oh and Griezmann Mayoral>>>> Sports was dissapointed we missed out on him imagine having two players allergic to the box in one team

@futbol, kroos and pirlo are not defensive mids; their job isn't to cut the opponents offensive play. what they can do with the ball as far as long passses, free kicks/corners, long shots etc busquets cannot do. they've also been somewhat successful in teams that have played totally different from one another. the milan team pirlo played in is totally different from is juve and italian sides. same goes with his brescia team. same for madrid and bayern with kroos.

busquets is not a deep lying play maker, and i'm not going by what any tactical analyst or football columnist goes by, just going by what i watch. and let's for the sake of argument say he was one, he still only thrives in one system where his team has the ball for longer periods without him having to deal with much pressures. nothing to say about de jong

@danyjr, i don't tink we hate carvajal, but he has been lowkey bad/inconsistent in the last few years. i think because we have been bad especially in the league as a whole, nobody has really paid much attention to carvajal's mistakes. and because marcelo on the left hand side has taken a lot of attention off of im with his mess ups, carvajal's own poor form has gone under the radar

i wish we could have that second half attitude for the rest of the season. to have so many things fall in our favor and not to capitalize on them during this league campaign is nothing sort of criminal.

I’m just amazed at fans of both clubs talking about poor players and their team’s decline. Reality is both teams have declined badly and are no longer anywhere close to best in Europe.

And thus we are on to how best to recruit in this new world (i.e. Huge transfer prices and youth recruitment restrictions). Barca have chosen to pay the price and go after hottest hyped talent while Madrid have chosen to go after best youth available and only take proven experienced players for what they believe is fair value purchase.

Results - the majority of the 100+ signings have not worked out, either because the player was over hyped, played at wrong position, too young to handle the hype or injuries (or in one case, player would rather be off playing golf!) then there is the issue that proven players that are signed for 60+, do not expect to be bench players.

And with the youth recruitment, the earliest you can get a SA kid, is at age 18 and in Europe in general and specifically in Spain, the youth systems at all clubs is on a near par with the academies at Barca and Madrid. It used to be both Madrid and Barca could get any kid anywhere in the world for next to nothing at an early age. But no longer. As a result, the cost of that recruitment has gone up (and usually there is competition for these kids such as Neymar, Vinicius, Rodrygo and even the Asensio, Ceballos etc of this world). Then comes the issue of developing them. Just because they played for Betis or Espanyol for a spell does not make them developed. And because both Madrid and Barca’s academies have deteriorated, they can’t get to level 2 futbol and that’s a full level of futbol development missing.

So bottom line, neither approach is working. What Madrid needs to do is send all the kids out on loans until they are deemed ready (by the coach since if he is not convinced the kid won’t play) and they need to pay the price for starters and bench strength, say 16 players, but avoid the overhyping and purchasing players not suited for position required. Fill the rest of bench with the Nachos and Lucas’ of the world.

futbol_bill wrote:I’m just amazed at fans of both clubs talking about poor players and their team’s decline. Reality is both teams have declined badly and are no longer anywhere close to best in Europe.

Barca and Madrid are still top 5 teams in europe. yes Barca are not the monsters they were and we are not the team who defeated every team in CL for 3 years but still there is enough quality in Barca or Madrid to win against any team.

Try repeating that line in another month!

I don't think there's a dominant team in Europe right now... even Liverpool is falling off.

Every team looks fraudulent to me compared to the recent past.

Makes it more exciting to watch tbh. I like it. I never really like the super team era.

We looked fraudulent when we won three straight lol.

There’s hardly ever a team that doesn’t look like it at some point during a season

Freeza wrote:We looked fraudulent when we won three straight lol.

There’s hardly ever a team that doesn’t look like it at some point during a season

Yeah but the Robbery Bayern, CR Madrid, Suarez/Neymar/Messi Barca... would destroy any of the teams in Europe this year.

Those teams had subtle flaws. This year's teams have flaws the size of an ocean.

I do not hate Carvajal, just find that no major journalist has pointed out the serious inconsistencies of his general play for the past 2, possibly 3 seasons.

Carvajal, like Marcelo, is well loved by me but I'm a Madrid fan and I am seeing two fullbacks that struggled a lot and should be doing way more if they wanna be Madrid starters or replaced.

Doc wrote:I do not hate Carvajal, just find that no major journalist has pointed out the serious inconsistencies of his general play for the past 2, possibly 3 seasons.

Carvajal, like Marcelo, is well loved by me but I'm a Madrid fan and I am seeing two fullbacks that struggled a lot and should be doing way more if they wanna be Madrid starters or replaced.

Calma. Hakimi is coming

Hakimi will be our own rich man's jordi alba on the right.

Hakimi's speed, and offensive instinct, and crosses, would transform that right wing, and give that rw a new look

Well, once again I would say, Liverpool better not let Atleti KO them. That being said, fun first half vs Sevilla but Simeone probably told them stop dicking around and it went right back to boring boring Atleti.

Next up, Odegaard to outshine Frenkie.

Diego Llorente is so poor, man. Simulates injury after a challenge by Messi, then gets up super fast and runs towards his own goal to make sure that the offside trap is completely fucked

How's our boy doing against Barça, Thimmy?

The Demon of Carthage wrote:How's our boy doing against Barça, Thimmy?

He hasn’t seen the ball much. He’s looked a bit off since he got injured in their match against us. I’m hoping he can still orchestrate a win against these hobos

Pen awarded to Barca. Probably game over for Sociedad. Incredibly unjust decision, in my opinion. The ball hit Normand’s shoulder as well as part of his arm, and it clearly wasn’t intentional.

LMAOOO what a bs VAR call

@harmomica where you at? Continue explaining how refs are still screwing over Barcelona

Refcelona at it again.

That’s a clear penalty lol

Messi 1000000% should have been sent off. why they didn't check with VAR? disgusting.

Freeza wrote:That’s a clear penalty lol

How was that a clear penalty? He undoubtedly tried to clear it with his head, as was evident by how silly he looked when it occurred. That’s just as much a pen as shooting the ball at someone’s arm is a pen. It didn’t even hit his arm cleanly, and he held his arm in a natural position.

VAR is inconsistent. It was not intentional so no penalty. Didn't Real Madrid got bullshit penalty in their favor few weeks ago. So no complain. La liga needs to clear their agenda.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f74/19/24/95/18/20200310.png

What decade are you living? Handball doesn't need to be deliberate anymore.

Referee 2-0 LaReal

Both goals are a result of offsides that weren't even reviewed

1-0 FT routine win.