“I am happy that Germany won the World Cup. They are playing the kind of football that Barcelona are distancing themselves from,” Cruyff wrote in his column for De Telegraaf.

“That feeling has only gotten stronger with the signing of Luis Suarez. He is a great player, but has a complicated character.

“I don’t know how they plan to play free-flowing attacking football with Messi, Neymar and Suarez in one team. They are all players who rely on their individual actions.

“Barcelona choose for individualism rather than a team playing good football. The style of play they developed under Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola is being abandoned.”

Have to admire Cruyff.There is only one way to play the game for him and thats his way.And he will criticize teams who deviate from that style even if they are his own teams like Holland and Barcelona.
He will praise teams who play good football even if they are traditional rivals like Germany.

Germany were the only semifinalist playing good football though, it was an easy thing to pick them.

Cruyff ended up being right about Nerman and Messi, I can't name a single game in which they both started and they both had a great game.

Which is a coincidence. When Neymar was fit in the 1st half of the season Messi was injured and when Messi came back Neymar got injured or played out of position in many games on the right. At full fitness they maybe played 5 games together the entire season. Regardless that the entire collective dropped in the 2nd half of the season when Tata decided in February that he would leave and gave up on the team, except Iniesta who started slow but ended strong-ish.

I see no problem with Neymar-Messi-Suarez. I'm quite certain Henry and Eto'o had much bigger egos than Neymar and Suarez. Just because they can pull off individual actions unlike Pedro they can't play "free-flowing attacking football"? Cruyff is criticizing for the sake of it.

Suarez could easily play the right wing role, the only thing Sanchez has over him is perhaps speed but i'd sacrifice that just for a more skillful player..
nontheless it's far too early to say what will happen.

I have a gut feeling Suarez will play infront of Messi but we're going to have to wait until the 3 month ban is over to tell forsure.

I remain skeptical and I will be outraged if we don't end up getting some defensive players, but I'll wait until the season starts and we see how it all pans out to make judgements. On one hand I am ecstatic to see a player of Suarez's quality come to Barca and I can't wait to watch him play, on the other hand, he remains a sportsman I can hardly respect, I can only really respect his ability.

Still, it is exciting and I welcome Suarez to Barca.

Im so split abuot this signing... for obvious reasons....

The main positive argument of the huge fee for me is that if the club realize Messi's level is dropping they need another WC player up front to share the load and Suarez definitely can do that.

CBarca wrote:I remain skeptical and I will be outraged if we don't end up getting some defensive players, but I'll wait until the season starts and we see how it all pans out to make judgements. On one hand I am ecstatic to see a player of Suarez's quality come to Barca and I can't wait to watch him play, on the other hand, he remains a sportsman I can hardly respect, I can only really respect his ability.

You need a CB. Must have. Who? Don't know. Definitely not Hummels.

In an ideal world you'll also need a LB and a CM (regardless of whether Xavi stays or leaves imo).

I was very impressed by Swiss LB Ricardo Rodriguez, and he is only 21. Then you can look into Filipe Luís or Jéremy Mathieu.

Is Zubi listening?  

You've signed a guy who while on the floor makes tackles with his head when you are 2-0 up around the 90 min mark.

Enjoy watching him, You'll have a lot of Liverpool fans following Barcelona matches more.

danyjr wrote:

CBarca wrote:I remain skeptical and I will be outraged if we don't end up getting some defensive players, but I'll wait until the season starts and we see how it all pans out to make judgements. On one hand I am ecstatic to see a player of Suarez's quality come to Barca and I can't wait to watch him play, on the other hand, he remains a sportsman I can hardly respect, I can only really respect his ability.

You need a CB. Must have. Who? Don't know. Definitely not Hummels.

In an ideal world you'll also need a LB and a CM (regardless of whether Xavi stays or leaves imo).

I was very impressed by Swiss LB Ricardo Rodriguez, and he is only 21. Then you can look into Filipe Luís or Jéremy Mathieu.

Is Zubi listening?  

When you say not Hummels, you mean Dortmund wont sell or there is something wrong with his game?

Rodriguez didnt seem good defensively, is he really better than Alba? I would genuinely rather have Rojo.

I think some posters on here have talked about why a partnership of Piqué and Hummels won't work and I seem to agree with them: none of them have enough leadership or intelligence to organise a defence, both are very slow and weak and lose their concentration from time to time. They need someone to shout at them basically.

I have only watched 3 matches of Ricardo Rodriguez (during World Cup). I saw a composed defender who isn't scared to take a risk unlike Alba and shouldn't the fact that he is physically stronger, bigger and taller than Alba be enough to make him better than Alba in defence? I mean what exactly does Alba do in defence? Take away Alba's pace, he's as good as dead defensively.

Rojo...I'm from Argentina and I'm not sold on Rojo. I don't know why you didn't sign Filipe Luís. He was exactly what you needed in my opinion.

danyjr wrote:I think some posters on here have talked about why a partnership of Piqué and Hummels won't work and I seem to agree with them: none of them have enough leadership or intelligence to organise a defence, both are very slow and weak and lose their concentration from time to time. They need someone to shout at them basically.

I have only watched 3 matches of Ricardo Rodriguez (during World Cup). I saw a composed defender who isn't scared to take a risk unlike Alba and shouldn't the fact that he is physically stronger, bigger and taller than Alba be enough to make him better than Alba in defence? I mean what exactly does Alba do in defence? Take away Alba's pace, he's as good as dead defensively.

Rojo...I'm from Argentina and I'm not sold on Rojo. I don't know why you didn't sign Filipe Luís. He was exactly what you needed in my opinion.

Hummels + Pique in a high line

As for Rojo, while he does defensive duties fine and can get forward to some degree, his technical ability on the ball leaves a lot to be desired which is why I agree with you: he won't be good enough for Barcelona.

Your guess is as good as mine why we didn't sign Felipe Luis. We had a great opportunity to acquire him while he was still at Deportivo and was reasonably cheap. But we were stupid (only excuse really) and we ended up not getting him. Though I think the real reason was that back then we had Abidal at his peak and we didn't know about what was eventually going to happen to him. Felipe REALLY wanted to come to Barca if I remember correctly. He then signed for Atleti and then we signed Alba ().

As for why we didn't try to sign him this summer, your guess is as good as mine.

All I have to say is that you have an absolute gem.

He may not be as talented as Messi/Neymar, but he will work his arse off for the team even if you're beating Getafe 7-0 with 2 minutes to go. He'll still press like crazy as if it's a CL final.

The greatest athlete I've seen in a flesh at a stadium, and with amazing will to win. His head won't drop like Messi's did last season, and just like Masch he'll lead everyone around him.

If Messi wanted rid of him after a couple of seasons though, call us back...we'll take him again

Brave.

Whats going on in that pic thats brave? Looks like some fans followed him around, nothing serious

Is this a joke about that he will bite a fan and the lady is brave?

windkick wrote:Is this a joke about that he will bite a fan and the lady is brave?

Yes. But now you sucked the life out of the joke.   

what has in hand ?

This:

http://k36.kn3.net/47D6CA24A.jpg

A thermo for hot water and a bombilla for mate

ah
it is diffused only in South America the bombilla I suppose, for this reason I didn't know. on the other hand Wikipedia confirms me this

Fußball wrote:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Brave.

in those pictures he was locked out of his mothers in laws house and while waiting took pictures with barca fans and resorted to asking his neighbor to let him crash for a while.
he was very nice to the fans though :p

He's going to be returning a day before the clasico.

I hope we are sending some physical trainer on a daily to be with him and keep him in shape until he returns.

"Random" Liga schedule eh.

Suarez has gotten a personal trainer due to not being able to use any of the Barca staff to train him.

The Franchise wrote:I have no idea how he is going fit in this team, in a functional way. Defensively anyway.

Cruyff has said three individualists like Messi, Neymar and Suarez can't fit together into a team like Barcelona.

I am really disappointed with this transfer because it doesn't seem to come from what we need. It seems to be part of a galacticos model which the current club management is chasing. We probably just need to wait for the current board to be dismantled so that the ethos of Barcelona can be restored.

If Zubizaretta hadn't been a great player I would have been using the choicest expletives on him. For now let it suffice that he is about as incompetent as anyone can possibly be in his position and is the only individual I am aware of in a prestigious position in this world who doesn't need to be accountable. He can perform as badly as he wants but his contract will keep getting extended.

Well while I nearly always agree with Cruyff, maybe you could say the same thing about his own dream team which had Stoichkov, Romario and Laudrup?

Laudrup isnt the individualist either of those 3 are today but that really isnt the point. I think the point is, I am not sure they cant fit together but it depends on other things irrespective of their talent or type of game.

That being said, I obviously have said my thoughts on this transfer which dont need repeating.

Shame we want to use that money on Suarez with glaring holes in every area except the forward line.