The way i look at is, we spend 12m on a STARTER and 14m or however much on MaTs a youth future buy

Pedro Artola wrote:I thought my record was already broken. Bravo will beat it comfortably.

He is in great condition and he knows Spanish football. He's made sure no-one remembers [Victor] Valdes - and that is important and difficult.

Barcelona's Claudio Bravo sets an all-time Liga record by keeping a clean sheet in the first 561 minutes of the season.

The record for longest clean sheet in La Liga history is still held by former Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Abel Resino, who went 1,275 minutes without conceding in the 1990-91 season.

Tono 4th with only six saves that Rayo defense

Official: Barcelona goalkeeper Bravo has been released by CHL, he won't play the friendly against BOL on Tuesday and returns to Barcelona.

note: bravo was last month also released, at his own request, after the first game of the international break #chl

RIP MAtS' career. Dude is taking things very serious.

the guy has done nothing bad for us yet no reason to be so down on him, MATS will have his chance soon enough.

MaTs is still the future.

If Bravo keeps a clean sheet vs madrid, MAtS can go back to his goalkeeping school for rest of the season...

Mats, why u no come barca next 4 seasons?

Not as bad as I expected. Credit to Unzue.

Hasn't been tested too much but he has done well. I still wish MaTS had more time but I don't have much to complain about on the gk front.

what kind of test do you mean. liga is half finished. he started all games. yet he is not tested?? then he will never be tested ofcourse. i mean we should be able to evaluate him since we played vs every single team in la liga , weak or strong. there is no excuse - either he is good or bad.

for me, we din expect too much from him. he performed better than the expectation. ofcourse it does no way mean that i would like to loose the young keeper.

He had one game he saved us, forget which..in all the others, you could have put me on the goal and it wouldnt be much different.

Surprised noone said it. Totally at fault for both goals.

Got to do better in the first, palming it right into the danger zone. The shot didnt have much power and he wasnt at all blindsided. Got to do better than that. It wasnt the only mistake in the goal but, as a goalie you gotta do more.

The 2nd goal, well thats clear. You cant get beat at the near post from that position.

Bravo is a good keeper and has done a very good job in general. But he's hardly had the chance to stuff up, which is why he's there for me.

Ter-Stegen is better. Even if it is simply because of his distribution. I see them pretty equal in other areas, though Bravo might be more experienced and therefore reliable. But TS is far and away the better distributor, which is huge for our game.

Now Bravo has made a few mistakes it is probably time we realised that fact.

Agree. Bravo is merely capable with the ball, MATS is really a different level. The passes he has made are ones outfield players make.

But that game yesterday from Ter Stegen... One great save, two very bad mistakes.

Both GK are good enough for us, but none of them comes near Valdes TBH.

Barcelona star Claudio Bravo has made history by becoming the first goalkeeper to keep 22 La Liga clean sheets with the Catalans since the Spanish top-flight changed its format.

We had a lot of discussion about valdes during his time at Barca. Some fans felt he was overrated , some felt he never got the praise he deserved and many termed him as unsung hero. We have got two new keepers this season and none of them played for big teams before. Bravo specially, the inferior of the two covered our post for entire season with great security in la liga and has almost secured our liga title. i was wondering whether it is justified to compare his performance vs. valdes's since the team has greatly imporved in set pices and overall defending this season. Its no wonder Bravo had to make less no. of great saves than Valdes in a single season. Moreover, valdes played in Pep's system where Gks need to be busy every game.would be good to learn other's impression.

I always thought Valdes was very good, but there are better GKs around, Valdes's main weakness is too rash and makes mistakes. I had no idea about our 2 new GKs, and very glad that they prvoed to be good so far, very happy But I think next season as well we will need to see in order to be sure

neuro11 wrote:We had a lot of discussion about valdes during his time at Barca. Some fans felt he was overrated , some felt he never got the praise he deserved and many termed him as unsung hero. We have got two new keepers this season and none of them played for big teams before. Bravo specially, the inferior of the two covered our post for entire season with great security in la liga and has almost secured our liga title. i was wondering whether it is justified to compare his performance vs. valdes's since the team has greatly imporved in set pices and overall defending this season. Its no wonder Bravo had to make less no. of great saves than Valdes in a single season. Moreover, valdes played in Pep's system where Gks need to be busy every game.would be good to learn other's impression.

I think like you already mentioned, their jobs were quite different. Bravo is much less involved in the game. Doesnt get called into action to sweep his line and make passes.

I barely remember him facing 1 v 1's this season, whereas it felt like thats all Valdes ever did.

Has had a solid season, with three or four good performances. Most of his season has been ball watching though, and had a couple of bad mistakes. In the end, you can't compare him with Valdes who used to save a 1v1 every two games.

Valdes was our extra "half player" and a goalkeeper making our team a 11.5 players . He did not rash, it is only normal to do mistakes if goalkeeper plays so much with the foot as Valdes. For every mistake there are 100 of saves and plays that he so that Pep's tiki-taka could work.

EDIT: BTW this takes nothign from Bravos performance. He was surprisingly good, regardless of couple of mistakes which every normal goallkeeper is bound to have in a season long competition.

Besides the Sevilla game he was flawless the entire season. Wonderful keeper and he's a boss in the air despite being relatively short.

Ter Stegen is awsome as well, keeper for the next decade.

neuro11 wrote:We had a lot of discussion about valdes during his time at Barca. Some fans felt he was overrated , some felt he never got the praise he deserved and many termed him as unsung hero. We have got two new keepers this season and none of them played for big teams before. Bravo specially, the inferior of the two covered our post for entire season with great security in la liga and has almost secured our liga title. i was wondering whether it is justified to compare his performance vs. valdes's since the team has greatly imporved in set pices and overall defending this season. Its no wonder Bravo had to make less no. of great saves than Valdes in a single season. Moreover, valdes played in Pep's system where Gks need to be busy every game.would be good to learn other's impression.

Valdes was an average Spanish goalkeeper in a great team. Good shot stopper, below par in the air and in commanding his box, error prone, okay with his feet (nothing special though, MAtS is already on a different level with long balls). I think having Pepe Reina instead of Valdes for example wouldn't have changed much for Barca during Pep's time. He was better at sweeping than Bravo but that's little nuances because his sweeping wasn't really standout stuff anyway like Neuer. More often than not Valdes got dinked or rounded when coming out of his line (Ramires goal, Ronaldo Clasico winner in 11/12) or almost killed the striker and should have seen red when trying to sweep out of the box (Copenhagen). I don't remember standout sweeping stuff from Valdes like Neuer against Neymar for example (that over the top pass from Messi to Neymar usually leads to a certain 1 on 1 goal, I was already celebrating but then Neuer appears out of nowhere). More or less same level Bravo and Valdes.

You seem to have a very short memory, or a selective one at least.

Valdes wasn't just a good shot stopper he was elite, saving Barca time and again with 1 on 1 save again and again.

Everybody remembers the Messi runs which lead to goals but nobody remembers the countless one on one saves against Drogba during the Ovrebo game and pretty much every other big game that mattered.

He saved Barca over and over in Clasico's, CL semis and finals to keep the games at 0-0 long enough to allow Messi and Co to score the goals.

It's quite sad that he'll never get the credit he deserves, average goalkeepers don't exist on great teams because great teams win and to win you can't have an average goalkeeper.