FC Barcelona - AC Milan | Tue March 12th | Champions League 2nd Leg

Whattt a great day !!!!

Awesome, haven't been so happy for a long time . What a game !!!

I must admit I had no faith after last month's form.

what pisses me more is that with this line up it could have been over two weeks ago.

damn

As I predicted. Gratz, fellow Cules. Get drunk.

Donuts wrote:Iniesta did decent, poor to his standards but still decent if you compare him to everyone else.
He did poorly in the beginning with some bad passes

He played poorly for like the first five minutes and after that he was outstanding but even then you say it was poor by his standards. I don't know what some of you want from him. Its comments like this that were one of the reasons I visited this forum less for the last few months. Thank you for partially ruining my day.

billy_gr wrote:what pisses me more is that with this line up it could have been over two weeks ago.

damn

Going through difficult moments like that are sometimes necessary ..

The team spirit is back

Start Villa and Iniesta back in the middle

messixaviesta wrote:

Donuts wrote:Iniesta did decent, poor to his standards but still decent if you compare him to everyone else.
He did poorly in the beginning with some bad passes

He played poorly for like the first five minutes and after that he was outstanding but even then you say it was poor by his standards. I don't know what some of you want from him. Its comments like this that were one of the reasons I visited this forum less for the last few months. Thank you for partially ruining my day.

Lol I really do not mean to ruin your day, but I know Iniesta is capable of more, my post mostly says he was decent compared to the other stars I love him but Xavi, Buscuit and Alves + Messi were more influential, whereas usually Iniesta is the most or second. That is why I say he was below par or decent compared to his normal standard.
He sets the bar high if your a real Iniesta fan you'd understand.

Laugh it off MessiXaviesta.. Iniesta poor? You're having a laugh.

Let me tell you this clearly guys. If Iniesta didn't have a great game tonight then I don't understand football. You can quote me on this any time. I mean if a player takes up all the right positions, intercepts several balls, releases players just at the right time and with the right weight of passs to start a counter attack, gets fouled many times because with his ball control he is usually unplayable for the opposition, fights his heart out for the team, gets an assist and almost gets a goal from a wonderful shot and even then he has not had a great game then I must try to understand once again what the words great and game mean. That little guy's understanding of the game beggars belief. He is not a holding midfielder. Yet how does he know just where to be so that he can quickly intercept and win the ball so many times? One minute you see him on the left, one minute in the opposition box and one minute deep in his own half. Yet not once is he out of position. I was reminded of many months back when dani had said that Iniesta's awareness of players and reading of the game is even superior to his technical abilities. Now that we know very well just how good he is technically you can only imagine what this statement means.

Donuts wrote:
Lol I really do not mean to ruin your day, but I know Iniesta is capable of more, my post mostly says he was decent compared to the other stars I love him but Xavi, Buscuit and Alves + Messi were more influential, whereas usually Iniesta is the most or second. That is why I say he was below par or decent compared to his normal standard.
He sets the bar high if your a real Iniesta fan you'd understand.

Fine then let's not fight among fellow fans on such a great day. We will agree to disagree. I think between Xavi and Iniesta it's debatable who was the second best player. Busquets was probably the fourth best. Alves deserves praise but at times better crossing from him would have helped us get more scoring opportunities.

Wtf? Iniesta was not poor by any standards. He's intercepted Milan's attempts to build up attacks several times, especially in the 2nd half. He kept possession when mostly needed, pressed nicely, and showed great composure throughout the game. Brilliant performance.

Finding it hard to describe my feelings upon getting home from school, bringing up a link on the computer, and seeing the Barca 2-2 scoreline.

Pure bliss right now.

Iniesta was not poor by any means. Misplaced a few passes the first 5 minutes or after that he was one of our best players...

Haven't posted for ages but had to log on for today....Messi back to what he was last season, extremely happy for xavi and villa and last but not least Iniesta .... jd is spot on on this.....anyone who doesn't appreciate what iniesta offers is truly missing something exquisite....He is second only to messi in my eyes and the silkiest player i've ever seen.... Also it's now painfully clear that Fabregas should be used only for easy league matches where xavi needs to be rested....The thing was we tried fixing something that wasn't broke after 2011 messi xavi inesta busquets shouldn't be tinkered with....While it's heartening to see the attack play so well, it shouldn't distract us from the fact that our defence still needs a lot of work.....granted alba gave his life to keep us in the tie but everytime pique faces someone from the left wing i get a heart attack....I really hope they get a good CB in the summer

88844452999 wrote:granted alba gave his life to keep us in the tie but everytime pique faces someone from the left wing i get a heart attack

Thanks for a very nice post and mentioning me. Alba has got a lot of stick recently from us and to some extent rightly but tonight he deserves a big thank you just for the heart he showed.

Wasn't Mascherano even poorer than Pique?

Let me put it this way. Xavi was the brain. Iniesta was the heartbeat. Messi was the magic. With even one of them replaced by just about anyone else playing football anywhere in the world today we don't win this tie. You can add a few more names like Busquets, Alves, etc. Some of these players proved once again tonight that they are the BEST IN THE WORLD in their respective positions.

Iniesta poor? Guys he wasn't the usual magician but the work he did with pressing intercepting and overall defensive game was astonishing...take a bow to one of the finest mids we ve seen in years

Mascherano does manage to at least foul and break the play if he doesn't make a good tackle....but yeah he was dreadful as well but i've come to expect a mixed bag from masch however with pique it feels like talent getting wasted compared to what he was....hope he realises his job is to defend and works on his one on ones

billy_gr wrote:Iniesta poor? Guys he wasn't the usual magician but the work he did with pressing intercepting and overall defensive game was astonishing...take a bow to one of the finest mids we ve seen in years

Very well said billy. You make a key point that tonight we didn't see the mesmerizing side of Iniesta like we did in the Super Copa first leg for example but this player has many facets and you don't see all those facets every day. Tonight was not about setting the style but about fighting through fire and apart from the first five minutes I think he was near flawless right through. What was needed was not to show some magical dribbling but as dani especially put move the ball very very quickly and never let the tempo dim and that's what many of the players did very well including of course Iniesta. I singled him out because while the likes of Xavi and Busquets did their parts wonderfully Iniesta is our only dynamic midfielder and his movement both on and off the ball was key to most things tonight the way I saw it at least. Note how his winning the ball and releasing it quickly results in key moments. There is that assist for Messi's second goal of course but other than that Xavi's assist for Villa's goal is again off an Iniesta move and pass to Xavi and there are other moves where he releases the ball to Messi who wins a freekick on the edge of the box which on another day Messi can score from and another one where he puts in Alves through exactly but Alves' cross isn't the best or it was an almost sure goal. There were more such incidents but I can't remember all.

Only we could of done this, only we have this ceiling of performance. I really do believe that.

I did question if we had that still, especially without a coach, but it was fantastic to see they still had it in them to tough it out.

It was not a performance without flaw, but today is not the day to mention them, but a wonderful, big game performance and I am very happy we were able to turn around something, even at our best, we had not done.

20 minutes at the end almost sent me into an early grave, but none the less....wow.

88844452999 wrote:Mascherano does manage to at least foul and break the play if he doesn't make a good tackle....but yeah he was dreadful as well but i've come to expect a mixed bag from masch however with pique it feels like talent getting wasted compared to what he was....hope he realises his job is to defend and works on his one on ones

Agreed. The trouble with Mascherano is that he still thinks like a midfielder and instead of reading the game and holding his position he thinks the only solution is a tackle. Yes he is a good tackler and some of his challenges are praiseworthy but he has not been able to grasp some of the other aspects of a central defender's game and that can prove very costly.

The Franchise wrote:Only we could of done this, only we have this ceiling of performance. I really do believe that.

I did question if we had that still, especially without a coach, but it was fantastic to see they still had it in them to tough it out.

It was not a performance without flaw, but today is not the day to mention them, but a wonderful, big game performance and I am very happy we were able to turn around something, even at our best, we had not done.

20 minutes at the end almost sent me into an early grave, but none the less....wow.

Indeed dani. A couple of points.

1. For the last 20 minutes or so I was just shouting "One More Goal".

2. Won't go much into the flaws but above all they were in defense and to some extent in attack but Messi and the entire midfield I think were largely magisterial. - MessiXaviBusIesta's combined best performance perhaps since the UCL 2011 final.

Well the last 20 I did want a goal, but most of all I wanted the ball. I am sure the effort to get back in the game played a part and I am also sure that Milan pressing high up the field played a part...but really stopped playing for the win and started playing to hold on.

Its understadable, but very hard to watch because we are

A. So badly organised at the back
B. Have 2 pretty unreliable defensive players.

Yeah, the flows in the performance was mostly defence. But we did an amazing job pressing like we used to do, that was a joy to see....we really need that on a fulltime basis...it saved us alot of work.

I thought Alba had one of his best ever performances for Barcelona. His tackle to deny Robinho was class and then to run 70 yards to score that goal in the end, perfect.

So true dani. Pressing was so crucial. This was vintage Barca. The whole team had a 2010-11 feel to it with only Abidal unfortunately not being there. The formation and style of play were kind of carbon copy of Pep's great team. Even Alba was asked to curb his overly attacking instincts and play in the Abidal way as far as possible. We have rarely seen matches played in that similar a manner for the last one and a half years or so.

BTW I forgot to mention but it seems like Jordi Roura finally learnt football. Taking off Villa may not have been best but bringing Alexis with fresh legs and running was not bad. Bringing Puyol on for Mascherano because despite his age and lack of stamina would be important in reading the game correctly in the crucial last few minutes. Bringing Adriano on for Pedro was good because he is better defensively and athletically and that matters in the last few minutes. Not bringing Fabregas on was fabulous. When I saw Villa was being replaced I thought Cesc was coming on and was about to kill Roura but tonight he did his part.

He did okay, but lets be real, our pressing saved us a heck of alot of actual defending.

Furthermore, Milan attacked his side repeatedly. Luckily, they didnt have the players to really punish it.

Superb tackle and you gotta praise his effort to make that run in the dying minutes.