"This Barcelona really play like a team and they have more quality overall than my Barca. However, looking at individual quality, we had more players who could make the difference," Deco was quoted as saying by Terra Brasil.

"The current team plays better football, is more complete and always finds solutions for every situation. However, we had more star players and individual class."

Do you agree?

Sort of. But then again football isn't about individuals. I think it's in erefernce to the scoring goals really. Messi seems to be the oly one on fire atm. Hard to say. This sums up the two sides. This Barcelona is more collective with messi as the individual outlet, that Barcelona was more Individual with Ropnaldiho as the Individual outlet.

The only people that made the difference in Deco's time was Ronaldinho, Messi and Eto. Now, we have Messi, Inestia, Xavi and also Alves, Villa.

^ What about deco?

And you also forget that we still had iniesta and xavi then, albeit they were as good as they are now..

paxtonpale wrote:The only people that made the difference in Deco's time was Ronaldinho, Messi and Eto. Now, we have Messi, Inestia, Xavi and also Alves, Villa.

The whole make a differnce is arguable. Guardiola has created a system specifically where your team doesnt depend on individuals bar messi. Collectivity > individualism

I get what he means, he could be correct.

It sounds like he is saying his team was more individual and relied on that more.

This Barca is more collective.

Its not about quality at all, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa have quality just like the old side. But they play with a more shared responsibilty. I think other then Messi, we are less relient on individuals in this team compared to Deco´s team.

I agree with him, we needed more individual quality to decide games back then (hence more decisive), now even if messi doesn't bring his A game, we can still win purely due to teamwork, we can have 0 decisiveness in a game and still win it (except for finishing)

xavi, iniesta, puyol wouldnt be considered difference makers in the barcelona team that deco played in.
iniesta was only just starting to feature and xavi wasnt the guarenteed starter that he is now!
he makes a good point though, himself, dinho, eto'o, giuly, messi, LARSSON, could all turn a game in the blink of an eye. These days while we do have players who can do it, its not called on as much cos the teamwork makes it unneccessary for the most part!

The Franchise wrote:I get what he means, he could be correct.

It sounds like he is saying his team was more individual and relied on that more.

This Barca is more collective.

Its not about quality at all, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa have quality just like the old side. But they play with a more shared responsibilty. I think other then Messi, we are less relient on individuals in this team compared to Deco´s team.

Excellent explanation - very similar to how I interpreted the comment. Ultimately he said this one is the better team and if the level of talent between two teams is equal then a team with responsibility shared is anyway likely to be better. So altogether it makes good sense.

Prometheus wrote:xavi, iniesta, puyol wouldnt be considered difference makers in the barcelona team that deco played in.
iniesta was only just starting to feature and xavi wasnt the guarenteed starter that he is now!
he makes a good point though, himself, dinho, eto'o, giuly, messi, LARSSON, could all turn a game in the blink of an eye. These days while we do have players who can do it, its not called on as much cos the teamwork makes it unneccessary for the most part!

prom, great to see you after a long time.

By and large I agree with your comments. The only point I am not so sure about is I do think Xavi was even then a guaranteed starter as has been the case right through his career. Yes he wasn't considered one of the key stones of the team but I don't think anyone wanted to drop him. The only time he didn't feature much was in the 2005-06 season when he had that long injury. Otherwise our starting midfield at that time was Deco, Xavi and Edmilson. When Xavi got injured, Mark van Bommel came in. Also van Bommel sometimes played in place of Edmilson who had his own injury problems. Iniesta was largely used a substitute by Rijkaard if all players were available. Then in the summer of 2006 we sold van Bommel. Edmilson's level deteriorated so much that at times we played Deco, Xavi and Iniesta together. In the summer of 2007 we bought Yaya Toure. Often it was Deco who was dropped and the other three played. So overall I can't recall a time when Xavi was intentionally dropped.

haha good to be back!!

i dont know, ive followed barca for years, since back in the 90's and the one thing i remember is that i didnt really consider xavi a guarenteed starter til after the 06 CL! while he started a large amount of games, he was more subject to squad rotation then the likes of deco! maybe im wrong, but its just what i seem to recall!

Prometheus wrote:xavi, iniesta, puyol wouldnt be considered difference makers in the barcelona team that deco played in.
iniesta was only just starting to feature and xavi wasnt the guarenteed starter that he is now!
he makes a good point though, himself, dinho, eto'o, giuly, messi, LARSSON, could all turn a game in the blink of an eye. These days while we do have players who can do it, its not called on as much cos the teamwork makes it unneccessary for the most part!

But iniesta and xavi were still quality. Wasn't Iniesta arguably our best player in the semi-final against milan in the CL 06 and our best after larsson in the final? That's what I call difference makers.

As I said, they were not as good as they are now but they were still quality player..

i think he is right

I think 'difference makers' is not a judgement of the quality of a player but of the ability of that player to do one magical play and win the game, in the sense that we use it in Argentina anyway (and I'm guessing it's not that far off from what it means in Brazil). We have Messi and Iniesta, who else does this in a consistent basis?

Alexis could be a "difference maker" given some time. Fabregas has some indvidual quality that could make a difference too. These players still need time to settle down though.

Prometheus wrote:
i dont know, ive followed barca for years, since back in the 90's and the one thing i remember is that i didnt really consider xavi a guarenteed starter til after the 06 CL! while he started a large amount of games, he was more subject to squad rotation then the likes of deco! maybe im wrong, but its just what i seem to recall!

Yes that makes good sense. He played most of the time but was perhaps not indispensable.

harhar11 wrote:
But iniesta and xavi were still quality. Wasn't Iniesta arguably our best player in the semi-final against milan in the CL 06 and our best after larsson in the final? That's what I call difference makers.

As I said, they were not as good as they are now but they were still quality player..

Excellent comments. I can't recall the Milan game well but I remember very clearly that we played much better right from the start of the second half in the UCL 2006 final than we had done in the entire first half and the main reason for that was the introduction of Iniesta. He gave the midfield some fluidity and verve that was badly lacking before that.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:I think 'difference makers' is not a judgement of the quality of a player but of the ability of that player to do one magical play and win the game, in the sense that we use it in Argentina anyway (and I'm guessing it's not that far off from what it means in Brazil). We have Messi and Iniesta, who else does this in a consistent basis?

Very well said but we should call Xavi and D.Alves also difference makers and maybe a few others as well.

I don't agree with him, and I don't think he says in a good way. I thihnk he is butthurt because Barça became the best side in the world when he left and his career went downhill.

He said this side are better then his, how is he butthurt?

Nostalgia made Deco a great individual player. after some years nostalgia will make iniesta xavi alves and others great individual players too

Completely disagree with you Free... he's not being rude and I think he does make a reasonable point. However, I also think that its harder for individuals to make a big difference these days because of the tactics used against us now.

While we have so many players with amazing quality, only Xavi, Iniesta and Messi are real cracks right now who can straight up turn the game in a blink of an eye on a consistent basis. I can see Sanchez also maybe becoming such a player though. In Rijkaard's team there was Ronnie, Deco, Messi and possibly a few others... But its quite close, but Messi nowadays is the only player in a very advanced position who rips teams open. Villa, Pedro and Sanchez all stuggle to do it without him.

What I miss from Deco’s years is Giully. That’s all

I am with free here,although not the butthurt part.
This Barca has just as many difference makers if not more than that Barca.

maybe so alex, but back then we relied on that ability to change games in a flash from the likes of dinho and deco, whereas now we rarely do except when we run into a brick wall! the teamwork now has more than supplanted it!