FC Barcelona - Atletico Madrid | Spanish Supercup Leg 2 | Wed Aug 28th, 2013

free_cat wrote:The fact Tata is Argentine has nothing to do with you liking him more, off course.

On a note for people who are genuinely interested to know why I like what I see from Martino so far is because I can see he is working towards changing a few things, he's trying to give your play more variety to make you less predictable. He doesn't play names. Someone like Pedro for example would not be able to automatically get into starting line-up if he plays poor matches consistently. With Vilanova, he didn't have the balls to make changes. He didn't rotate the squad at all and, even within a match, he'd have the starting line-up stuck in the pitch until the final whistle with no substitutions going even though sometimes the situation was crying for a sub.

Silver! Martino’s first. Neymar’s as well.

Atleti played the match(es) they had to in order to give themselves the best chance to win. The Liga saw what happened when you tried to play your game, and give us space. Levante showed everyone that. Atleti will be closer to the norm than Levante for the rest of this season. The problem is when you play that way it is ultimately a Pyrrhic victory, because you sacrifice your chances at really getting a win. Yes, they had a couple of counter chances. That will happen.

– The ref lost control of the match, then tried to fix it with cards. That’s never going to work. He was letting them play, and it was working to the advantage of the opponent (as it always will). Then when things got out of hand, it was too late. A couple of early cards would have fixed that, but then media critters would have said he was being Barça centric in his officiating approach.

– Valdes was colossal, so was Mascherano.

– Anyone suggesting that the team is playing the same way, should look a little closer. From the positioning of Messi, to the way Sanchez is being used to the presence of Neymar, things are different. The mids ghosting forward is different, defense is different, Busquets is being more direct. There is a lot that is different as tika taka morphs into possession football. Martino recognizes that with such dynamic players, tika taka is selling the crew short.

– Neymar worked his ass off, tracked back, took fouls without whining and was generally very good. People who were lambasting him, calling him a YouTube player, vanity purchase who wouldn’t track back, etc, are pretty quiet right now.

– If Xavi is past it, I’m a burlesque dancer.

– Martino needs time. A month ago, he was hanging out in Argentina. Too soon for anything. Despite all that, the team is undefeated and has picked up its first piece of silver. This is in the aftermath of a craptastic preseason spent flitting about to hoover up dollars, lingering injuries and internationals. One goal conceded in four matches? I thought we didn’t have a defense?

This club is going to be a lot of fun to watch, but it will require patience on the part of culers. Let things develop, and then let’s see what transpires.

danyjr wrote:

free_cat wrote:The fact Tata is Argentine has nothing to do with you liking him more, off course.

On a note for people who are genuinely interested to know why I like what I see from Martino so far is because I can see he is working towards changing a few things, he's trying to give your play more variety to make you less predictable. He doesn't play names. Someone like Pedro for example would not be able to automatically get into starting line-up if he plays poor matches consistently. With Vilanova, he didn't have the balls to make changes. He didn't rotate the squad at all and, even within a match, he'd have the starting line-up stuck in the pitch until the final whistle with no substitutions going even though sometimes the situation was crying for a sub.

We'll see. So far he is indeed playing names (Xavi, Machete, Pique and giving no chances to others...) and tactically the only change is a slighlty better pressing and long balls from one side to the other that make our attack worse.

Its the beginning of the season and for now the most important thing is Results!
- 2/2 wins with 2 clean sheets and 8 goals in LIGA.
And a trophy (SSC).

So far its perfect for me, Tata and the team needs time to adapt to new changes... I think by the time we play Real Madrid in October we should be ready!

I'm pretty impressed for our defensive performance so far, 4 games, 1 goal conceded. Can't remember when was last time that happened. Attack presses more, if that fails, midfield holds, if that fails defense holds, Mascherano has been in fine form in last chance defense, and Valdes has been also excellent. Not letting goals like no tomorrow is a right step in challenging CL again.

But so far Neymar hasn't impressed me, he's been pretty much like our other wingers. He tries to dribble more, but it has had little effect, he's been hardly beating players and they just disposses him or foul him in non dangerous position. His positional sense is also way off still. But I'm sure he will improve as he gets to know quality European defense first. It must have been pretty shocking transition from Brazilian league.

Barca start the season slowly anyway every season. Remember last season the struggles to beat Granada 1-0 (Xavi long range last minute winner), Sevilla last minute comeback, Osasuna comeback, Adriano wonder striker rescuing a narrow 1-0 victory over Valencia etc. The fluidity isn't there yet upfront (Iniesta and Messi not in form, Neymar still adapting). Overall the team looks much more organized though.

Harmonica wrote:But so far Neymar hasn't impressed me, he's been pretty much like our other wingers. He tries to dribble more, but it has had little effect, he's been hardly beating players and they just disposses him or foul him in non dangerous position. His positional sense is also way off still. But I'm sure he will improve as he gets to know quality European defense first. It must have been pretty shocking transition from Brazilian league.

Yeah, thats just not true.

He lost the ball twice and every other time he either beat his man, or beat his man and then got fouled.

And I just counted, 6 times that happening.

When have Pedro or Alexis ever beat players or been fouled from behind that amount of times?

I have a feeling you count "dispossessed" on occasions he actually won corners.

The Franchise wrote:

Harmonica wrote:But so far Neymar hasn't impressed me, he's been pretty much like our other wingers. He tries to dribble more, but it has had little effect, he's been hardly beating players and they just disposses him or foul him in non dangerous position. His positional sense is also way off still. But I'm sure he will improve as he gets to know quality European defense first. It must have been pretty shocking transition from Brazilian league.

Yeah, thats just not true.

He lost the ball twice and every other time he either beat his man, or beat his man and then got fouled.

And I just counted, 6 times that happening.

When have Pedro or Alexis ever beat players or been fouled from behind that amount of times?

I have a feeling you count  "dispossessed" on occasions he actually won corners.

Successful dribbles (or man beaten) this season

1. Half fit Messi 13
2. Iniesta 8
3. Sanchez 6
4. Neymar 5
5. Fabregas 4
6. Pedro 0

I expected more from Neymar, but maybe he still isn't on physical level required yet.

This was close....and not too good that we only managed the hang on for the draw to win on away goals. But its a very good Atletico side at the end, so good thing we won the trophy a few of their build up play was pleasure to watch. We played well too though, happy with the defending for once. But needed Valdes to save us for that brilliant save! Everyone looking hungry is important and we getting some rotation which is great.

ok I agree with Free, the team looks toothless. However I can't just ignore the clean sheets.
Even with some amount of luck it's a major imporvement to trying to outscore 3 or 4 goals a la last season

Harmonica wrote:
Successful dribbles (or man beaten) this season

1. Half fit Messi 13
2. Iniesta 8
3. Sanchez 6
4. Neymar 5
5. Fabregas 4
6. Pedro 0

I expected more from Neymar, but maybe he still isn't on physical level required yet.

why dont you include the minutes played by each of them.....

neuro11 wrote:

Harmonica wrote:
Successful dribbles (or man beaten) this season

1. Half fit Messi 13
2. Iniesta 8
3. Sanchez 6
4. Neymar 5
5. Fabregas 4
6. Pedro 0

I expected more from Neymar, but maybe he still isn't on physical level required yet.

why dont you include the minutes played by each of them.....

It doesn't really change anything, because more you play, less overall energy you have per game, it's easier to challenge tired players with fresh legs and so on. But here you go:

Dribbled - Fouled - Dispossessed/Turnover - Minutes

1. Messi 13 - 7 - 6 - 205
2. Iniesta 8 - 6 - 8 - 210
3. Sanchez 6 - 14 - 8 - 307
4. Neymar 5 - 8 - 5 - 177
5. Fabregas 4 - 5 - 11 - 297
6. Pedro 0 - 3 - 10 - 221

Pedro looking atrocious atm.

Put your lame stats away.

According to who scored, Neymar did 4 dribbles vs Atletico...which was obviously wrong, I counted 6.

The Franchise wrote:Put your lame stats away.

According to who scored, Neymar did 4 dribbles vs Atletico...which was obviously wrong, I counted 6.

I think I'll keep them to showcase my observations, it's good to have some concrete evidence and logic behind ones arguments, even if they ridicule sometimes others.

I think I'm keep trusting more OPTA-statistics, and my own eyes, rather than your observations, given the track record.

Evidence my ass.

You dont need to trust my observations at all, I just wish you would use whatever observations you could make because I would imagine it would be a little more relevant than shitty stats which either are collected wrong or people dont understand what a dribble is.

Actually I think the latter...just like how we discussed long passes. 25m a long pass

Can't even understand what you're saying there. It's 25 yards or more, and how that discussion went?

Stats don't lie, without human errors they are math, an exact science. It's people who don't understand them, that they have bad reputation, but that's mostly among those who don't understand them.

The discussion went you claiming Mascherano is great at long passes based on the stats...when in fact the stats say 25m is a long pass....which anyone with a brain can tell, 25m is hardly a long pass..thats only slightly bigger than the gap between the two centerbacks when they pass to each other for christ sake.

Stats dont lie no. But when people who have no understanding of the stats relevance and then present them as something they are not, they become totally pointless. Then we have people like you, who rely on them for 99% of their football knowledge and it leads to posts with no real relevance on what we are talking about.

Not really buying into the toothless aspect. We played against Atleti who parked the bus admirably and Malaga were no defensive slouches either. Some users are saying that our cleansheets are deceptive but so is our lack of goals.

Let's wait a month or two more before making definitive conclusions. We've only played 4 official matches so far.

its absurd to claim that we were lucky to not concede goals.....don know since when luck comes into the measure of defensive quality....So we are lucky this year and unlucky with Tito! huh....
i am more happy to not concede with such a defense and i hope it continues. even though i think the real test of the defense will be in CL group matches where we have got good opponents.....

guys let's not go to extremes. By toothless I only mean less dangerous than before. at least seamingly. we should also take into acccount that messi barely played in these games and neymar isn't fully integrated so i expect our situation to improve.
in regards to defence there is a bit of luck involved (not saying it's all luck) but overall I feel we are hndling it better than last year.

The Franchise wrote:The discussion went you claiming Mascherano is great at long passes based on the stats...when in fact the stats say 25m is a long pass....which anyone with a brain can tell, 25m is hardly a long pass..thats only slightly bigger than the gap between the two centerbacks when they pass to each other for christ sake.

It's 25 yards or more, how hard is that to understand? Masch is a great long passer, which should be clear to everyone with 2 brain cells or more, notice it's not 2 brain cells, it's 2 or more. Against Malaga he was pinging them passes to wings like no tomorrow. Obviously you forgot to register any of them.

Stats dont lie no. But when people who have no understanding of the stats relevance and then present them as something they are not, they become totally pointless. Then we have people like you, who rely on them for 99% of their football knowledge and it leads to posts with no real relevance on what we are talking about.

I always present stats as they are, and I understand them much better than you. That's why I always giggle when you try to debate against them with your logic. Which isn't logic, at all.

This is now third time that your argument fails against them, objective observations and logic.

Funny, but again flawed. Your basing Mascherano's long pass ability on stats...stats he gains by making 25m passes (among actual long passes) and people like you thinking they are long passes. Stats here at largly flawed because any 25m pass counted as a "long pass" should not be.

How is this hard to understand?

You understand stats better than I? You probably dont, you just use them more.

If you truely understood them, you would acknowledge their limitations, instead of believing in them like they are bible verses.

Not that its entirely your fault, you have no real football knowledge so it has to be stats or you have very little left to say.

I'm not basing my opinion on stats.  How many times I've to express it that you finally understand? I've watched every Barca game from last 5-6 seasons, I've over 400 full Barca matches in my hard drive, most in HD. You haven't watched every match, and you don't have records of those in your possession. And matches you watch, you simply miss probably half of what is happening in them. So how about them Masch long passes against Malaga?

You are such a deluded poster that I can't even beginning to tell you.

You can watch as many games as you like, but all you ever really talk about is stats...you may watch alot, how much you understand I put into question however.

Masch long passes vs Malaga? Its one game..lets talk about his 3 seasons?

Oh yeah, you cant...you dont know what a real long pass is.

The fact you talk about long passes and a distance of 25m comes into the conversation clearly says it all?

Im deluded? Perhaps. But I think more people would say that about you.

The Franchise wrote:Masch long passes vs Malaga? Its one game..lets talk about his 3 seasons?

So he was suddenly good at them? One time only, he wouldn't ever even done them if he was bad at them.

Oh yeah, you cant...you dont know what a real long pass is.

The fact you talk about long passes and a distance of 25m comes into the conversation clearly says it all?

Real long pass? How about giving for me definitive distance for it? Oh yeah, you can't, because it isn't generally defined. And stop with the 25m, it's 25 yards or more, how many of those stats you think is exactly 25m?

Im deluded? Perhaps. But I think more people would say that about you.

Who cares what other people think about?