free_cat wrote:

rsinatra wrote:

Fair enough, I might've taken your comment too personal. I'm going to try to explain what I think:

1 - Santos were not very good: agreed. Neither were Arsenal, Real Madrid, Napoli, Man Utd, etc, in their defeats to Barcelona last year and this year. My point is: Does that mean English, Italian, and Spanish football are over the edge too, or is it because Barcelona are just way above everyone else? I think that our biggest fault on the final was the thought that we could actually play against Barcelona as equals, and we couldn't.

2 - How do you mean we don't produce the same talents? The Brazilian NT has some pretty good players, what we really lack is a world class CF, but with the right coach we could be back as best in no time. However, we woudn't do so by playing the same beautiful football we once did, UNLESSS we had a lot of the same players in the same clubs, as do Germany and Spain.

3- And about the South American clubs: What do you expect, when all our best players are sold to European clubs as soon as they get good? There's a limit to how many good players a club can produce a year. Imagine this: if Barcelona sold most of the players they developed, and didn't have the money to buy stars, how good do you think they'd be? They'd have to make do with whoever was left, and buy some average players that they could afford, and thus would be an average team. Even your club has a limit to how many good players they can produce in their school. Therefore, I don't think it has something to do with talent, we have the players, they're just out of our hands. What I also say, is that it's changing, with Neymar's stay, Ganso hopefully staying, Lucas, etc, older players coming back and others following their examples, you'll see Brazilian football rising (it already is the best in the Americas) again.

4 - You talk about the Libertadores as a complete mediocre competition. Okay. But how much fun and how competitive is the UCL itself on group stage? There are some pretty boring, pretty weak teams there too, and it's due to the same reason as in South America: UEFA trying to be too democratic, aka too many teams. It's the same with the WC. But in the later stages, that's when it gets exciting. But I can imagine it's still boring if you don't really know the teams and the players.

5 - Why not Ronaldinho? Didn't he help Barcelosa rise up again and win titles? Sure, he left in a bad way, but what he did is undeniable. Valdés himself said that Dinho, together with Messi, is the best players he's seen. Puyol adores him too. I can understand that Riquelme flopped, but Dinho didn't!

1- Those teams weren't great vs. Barça, but they put up a fight and some of them beat us (Inter, Madrid, Arsenal). They did much better than Santos. Barça is better than most European Clubs, but they are not as far as Santos showed to be.

2- Brasil is a good squad, but nowhere the level you had from 1990s to 2005. A better CF won't change that. For some reasons Brasil is producing less talent than before, or simply, all other countries have picked up on Brasil.

3- South American teams always sold their stars to Europe asap. But before, Brasil NT was much better than now.

4- I agree with you.

5- Can't admire someone with such a terrible work ethic as Ronaldinho. Could have been the best player ever, but decided to retire as a professional footballer and become and alcoholic, damaging my Club with his decision in the process.

1 - You are right, Santos didn't put as much of a fight as of the other teams I mentioned have occasionally done. But I think harhar11 kind of made a good reply to this already: those teams are more accustomed to playing against the likes of Barça, have had more chances to do so, and therefore have much more experience. Read well: experience, not necessarily quality. Santos' players have been romanticizing that Final ever since they won the Libertadores, hell perhaps ever since they joined Santos or became football players (that's how important it is in South America), yet they had never encountered that sort of force before. One thing is to be Athletic Bilbao or Villareal, Palermo, Napoli, whatever, and deal with these superpower every few months, gather experience, knowledge, and work on ways to resists their power; another is to never have dealt with it before, only watched it on TV, and only try to imagine how good they can be. To a lesser extent, it's like trying to imagine how hot the Sun's surface is at 5,500° C, when the hottest you've ever experience is about 35° C. Anyway, my point is that Santos could've been just as strong if they had had more practice against that kind of team. That said, I know that that's just how it is, nothing you or I can do about it. Perhaps when more and more players start to stay in Brazil and our league is stronger, they'll have experience enough to be able to continuously challenge teams like Barça.

2 - That's the thing though isn't it? I've read a thousand article, or seen a lot of videos of older journalists and experts that claim that Brazil from the 1990's and early 2000's played bad and were nowhere near the "real" Brazil of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Generations change, things come and go. After '86, Brazil made an awful display at the 1990 WC with, for the first time ever, a pretty much non-Brazilian way of playing. Many thought we were over, yet in the next 3 WCs we reach all 3 finals and won two of them. We'll be back.

3 - Nope, South American teams have not always done so. That is very misinformed of you. Obviously, there always have been South American players going over to Europe, Argentines, Uruguayans, and even a few Brazilian, but they were not the best we had to offer (with Di Stéfano's isolated exception), so much that some of them ended up playing for other NTs. Our 1970 WC squad was entirely made up by Brazilian club players. Our incredible '82 squad only had Falcão who played for Roma (as far as I can remember), and he wasnt' even as good as Zico from Flamengo and Sócrates from Corinthians. Zico's Flamengo in 1981 was the best team in the world, Zico the best player, when they beat then UCL winner Liverpool 3-0 with as much ease as Barcelona beat Santos. The real exodus only start in the 80's, and Maradona is a great example of that exodus starting. It was only in the 90's that our NTs started to become more and more formed by European club players, and thus play more and more European-like football.

4 -

5 - I know what you mean, Ronaldinho has a terrible attitude, and I don't even care about him anymore, ever since he made that move to Flamengo instead of moving back to his boyhood club Grêmio, where he actually had to prove himself to the country. But what he did with and for Barcelona still was amazing.

omarish wrote:It's not 4 nil it's the fact if Barca were even abit efficient they would end that game 10 nil

That's how football always is. They could've, but didn't. They did beat Real Madrid 5-0 though.

Estudiantes, on the other hand, dealt pretty well with Barca.

So is SA football over or not?

Funkentelechy wrote:Estudiantes, on the other hand, dealt pretty well with Barca.

So is SA football over or not?

It's not as strong as it could be in a different time line, but it's not at all over. Just a lot of knee-jerks going around here.

Santos simply cant defend, but i dont think the same is true for other SA teams, and it makes a difference somtimes.

Still remember the Libertadores final, a miracle they won it. Penarol was getting in their box like black friday at Macys

Santos simply cant defend, but i dont think the same is true for other SA teams, and it makes a difference somtimes.

Still remember the Libertadores final, a miracle they won it. Penarol was getting in their box like black friday at Macys

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Santos simply cant defend, but i dont think the same is true for other SA teams, and it makes a difference somtimes.

Still remember the Libertadores final, a miracle they won it. Penarol was getting in their box like black friday at Macys

What? really? I don't remember it like that. Perhaps after we were up 2-0 they started to pressure. But their second goal was an own goal by Durval, who wanted to put the ball out. So no, I don't think they were close.

On the first leg perhaps? I dont remember it so well, but it was 0-0

Our defense was actually very solid on the Libertadores

in Uruguay yes,but Penarol got destroyed in Sao Paulo


And Santos defense only started sucking after the Libertadores...

the main reason that Barca completely rolled over them imo is that Muricy chose to play with a back 5(Santos never played like that) and no dms(injured)

I wouldnt be too hard on Santos.

At the end of the day, they are an offensive team who are used to being the biggest offensive threat on the pitch. How often are they forced to have just 30% of the ball?

Of course they were going to have trouble with the match up, they never have to play in those conditions.

European teams have faced Barca before, they accept that fact and many of them set up just to defend.

When they dont and try and play us on even terms, it doesnt go well for them.

That is not to say Santos are as good as the best Euro teams, I dont think they are, but I wouldnt be too hard on them.

I dont understand the criticism of their league. I mean, so many want to bash it, but when you steal one of their players your quick to say how great they are. How can the league be full of trash yet produce players who are starring all over Europe. SMH at people talking about it like its the Icelandic football league or something.

Finally, I love Munian..what a talent. But better than Neymar...lol

free_cat wrote:

rsinatra wrote:

free_cat wrote:"did you even watch santos at the libertadores? we played with another system. for some reason, muricy tried to make a new system to face barcelona, one the players weren't used to .. elano himself was always a starter at the libertadores, yesterday he was benched. not to mention that his form was superb then, and now is very poor.

we also had our best marking DM injured right before the CWC. "

Funnily enough, as I almost never watch South American football because it bores the hell out of me and reminds me of Riquelme too much, I watched some games from Santos at Libertadores. It was enough to see that Santos was the winner amongst the mediocrity.

Blah, blah, blah, blah change of system, blah, blah, blah our DM was injured...
Excuses.

We had 3 injured players and our coach also changed our system. It's not our problem if your coach changes the system to stop us better, but you play piss poor.

Brasilian and South American football is over the edge.

lol are all catalans like you? so arrogant. you should learn from the barcelona players and be more humble.

you should be happy that the biggest legends of your club come from brazil and argentina. romario, ronaldinho, ronaldo, rivaldo, messi, even maradona.. without us you wouldve been half as big.

i admire barcelona, but dont give me this arrogant bs, u just confirm my idea of the arrogant euroboy

I think you are confusing. I am not being arrogant. Arrogance would be saying that we won vs. Santos because we are so good, we are the best, etc. On the contrary, I think Santos was not very good, that's all. Oh, I read your post about South American football and I mostly agree. You are saying the same thing as I am, except for the way you are saying it. We disagree about the causes though: you mention brasilian football is in trouble because you sell your players to Europe; IMO the problem is that Brasilian football doesn't produce the talent it used to produce before.

Off course I'm happy and thankfull to the great south american players that have played for us. They are in my heart, each of them (except Ronaldinho and Riquelme). However, this doesn't mean that as a fan I can give my opinion on south american football CURRENT level.

Arrogance aside, that isn't relevant to what I'm saying. Obviously Santos weren't good, but you made it sound as though you, and quite a number of people on this forum, were expecting Neymar to tear you apart, when, in fact, people haven't seen enough of him and are clinging on to what the media and Pele have said. The matter of the fact is, so many teams have been made to look mediocre and average, by their standards against Barcelona. Arsenal, Real Madrid and Manchester United have been played off the park, and you know - the funny thing is that none of the so called household names were prominent against Barcelona, where was Ronaldo, Rooney, Fabregas etc.? There's so little you can do when you're being pressured high, it's easier saying Cristiano Ronaldo should've scored, or done this etc., it's harder than one thinks.

rsinatra wrote:

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Santos simply cant defend, but i dont think the same is true for other SA teams, and it makes a difference somtimes.

Still remember the Libertadores final, a miracle they won it. Penarol was getting in their box like black friday at Macys

What? really? I don't remember it like that. Perhaps after we were up 2-0 they started to pressure. But their second goal was an own goal by Durval, who wanted to put the ball out. So no, I don't think they were close.

On the first leg perhaps? I dont remember it so well, but it was 0-0

Our defense was actually very solid on the Libertadores

Your defense was meh in final, both legs, and your keeper saved you so many times.

Gladiator wrote:
Arrogance aside, that isn't relevant to what I'm saying. Obviously Santos weren't good, but you made it sound as though you, and quite a number of people on this forum, were expecting Neymar to tear you apart, when, in fact, people haven't seen enough of him and are clinging on to what the media and Pele have said. The matter of the fact is, so many teams have been made to look mediocre and average, by their standards against Barcelona. Arsenal, Real Madrid and Manchester United have been played off the park, and you know - the funny thing is that none of the so called household names were prominent against Barcelona, where was Ronaldo, Rooney, Fabregas etc.? There's so little you can do when you're being pressured high, it's easier saying Cristiano Ronaldo should've scored, or done this etc., it's harder than one thinks.

You are wrong. I was expecting Neymar to do almost nothing. Which is what he did.

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Santos simply cant defend, but i dont think the same is true for other SA teams, and it makes a difference somtimes.

Still remember the Libertadores final, a miracle they won it. Penarol was getting in their box like black friday at Macys

Well, as I wrote on the Reysol v Santos topic they were one of the worst defenses in the league, leaking more goals than some relegated sides.That said, any other brazilian team would struggle against Barcelona, even though some would naturally do better. But this doesn't mean brazilian or SA teams are worst than Osasuna or whatever ppl here are suggesting.

The point is: there's an obvious tactical gap between European and SA leagues. Pace and intensity are much higher in European leagues, refereeing, tactical discipline, marking etc are all different. In Brazil, every team defends deep, matches are slow, most teams don't deploy wingers and the idea of "attackers must attack, defenders must defend" is dominant, so only defenders plus the DM do the defending, while the others just sit back and watch the action when not in possession. If Santos' players were brought up playing in a top european league they'd be already used to it thus they'd probably defend better and all.

Argentine and other SA teams would also do better because their tactical cultures is superior - even tho their defenders are worse talent wise - to the brazilian one. That's why you don't see Pellegrinis or Bielsas coming out of the brazilian market.

Nice dribble but c*nt dive

Se7en wrote:

Nice dribble but c*nt dive

nah the defender caught him, there was contact. him rolling on the ground like that was c*ntish though.

he got it from r9

Great move, boy is magic.

Lovely theatrics afterwards too lol

yeah,there was some contact but he went 'di maria' down