Re: Match Day Thread 19/20

[danyjr]

Blame the incompetent board you have for wasting millions upon millions on players who are either not suitable to play the style of football required or are just plain shit. Blame them for hiring incompetent beta coaches you've been hiring for as long as I remember.

Blame them, not the guy who literally won you title after title, sometimes on his own.

[alexjanosik]

Blame the incompetent board you have for wasting millions upon millions on players who are either not suitable to play the style of football required or are just plain shit. Blame them for hiring incompetent beta coaches you've been hiring for as long as I remember.

Blame them, not the guy who literally won you title after title, sometimes on his own.

You mean the same boardd which has bought Suarez, Rakitic, Neymar, Griezman, FDJ, Arthur, Lenglet, Mats etc. Could go on and on. All of them are 100% capable of playing the Cruyff way.
Beta coaches. You mean Valverde who was praised by no less than Johan himself for playing good football. That Valverde. Setien who played outstanding football with Betis to the point that Busquets handed over a signed shirt. That Setien.

If we still play boring one dimensional football with all the game played in our half, it's time for even the most hardcore Messi fan (not Barca fan cause that's what the majority of them are) to accept the fact that he is the reason for us getting dominated every single week by even scrubs.

This is not pre-historic football of the time of Pele, Maradona or even recently the likes of Zidane, Bergkamp etc. Where you had one player who the team was built around and who offered zero movement off the ball. Modern football does not work that way. Every player has to run and run hard all game; no matter who he is.
The only other exception is CR7 and there is one sharp difference. He doesnt defend or press although he still does a lot more than Messi. CR7 is a monster off the ball when his team has possession and that makes all the difference.
You just cant play good attacking football in the modern game with a player who has no off the ball game (in the offensive or defensive phase). Doesnt matter who the rest of the players are or who the coach is.

If you still think it is a player issue, name the players in our team who are unsuitable to play the Cruyff way.
MatS- Best in the game and probably all time to play our way.
Pique - one of the best and born and broiught up to play our way.
Lenglet- very capable with the ball.
Alba- same as Pique
Semedo/Roberto - No Alves but then who are. But extremely capable with the ball. Certainly more than Walker.
Busquets - No explanation needed
FDJ/Arthur - Again no explanation needed. Dont compare to Xavi/Iniesta. Compare to peers in other top teams.
Griezman - Excellent one touch and link up player
Suarez - No explanation needed.

[alexjanosik]

Sorry, forgot the trophies part.
You mean the same guy who has done squat in the CL since Xavi, Iniesta and Alves. Same guy who needed MSN to win CL. Same guy who flops repeatedly for Argentina barring the 2016 Copa when admittedly he did have a great tournament.

Lets no pretend that we have won what we have just because of Messi. We have had all time greats during this historic run in a ton of positions. We would have won maybe a couple of less leagues and Copa's without Messi.
But with a more balanced team, we might have put up better displays in recent CL's.

[Harmonica]

Wow, was Barto troll financing your only source of income? Hope not. You're going even more hyper since he supposedly pulled the plug.

[Myesyats]

Wow, was Barto troll financing your only source of income? Hope not. You're going even more hyper since he supposedly pulled the plug.

Actually the opposite since Bartomeu does everything to please Messi and Alex tries to take him down at all costs.

Both are equally deluded though. The reason we're getting dominated is a midfield of the 2 slowest players in the leauge. I've never seen players as slow as Busquets and Rakitic

[eelir]

There is some truth in what Alex is saying, but do you honestly believe all that is just because Messi, or coaches? Messi has been injured for some periods during various coaches, why didn't our team play soooo much better without him? Also, do you want to judge this team and discredit Messi when you have so many injuries up front and a underperforming Griezman (who I always said has no place in Barca, true GOAT otherwise)?

Yes Alex is right, Messi needs to run more of ball in order for our pressing and passing game to work. The problem is, he is getting old and he is not CR7 physically. SO what do you suggest, sell Messi and bring who? Also, it is not as if he does not run when the stakes are high enough. IMHO, he is actually running maybe more than some younger players. It is not his fault that they just expect him to do all the stuff. He is not egoistical maniac who expects a pass all the time. He has proven that many, many times, and if you think differently, then you are blind.

So, yes you are right to the point, but I think the team as whole is at fault, but more importantly the management for making a lot of crappy deals. You mention our current squad of wonderful player that this management brought. But, for every name I can give you two others that were crap!

[neuro11]

No, actually Cruyff had been financing him since his retirement.

How long would it take for Basq and Rakitic to leave this team? Zero contribution, looses the ball in dangerous places yet complains when not playing. I can smell Cruyff stuff here too

[alexjanosik]

There is some truth in what Alex is saying, but do you honestly believe all that is just because Messi, or coaches? Messi has been injured for some periods during various coaches, why didn't our team play soooo much better without him? Also, do you want to judge this team and discredit Messi when you have so many injuries up front and a underperforming Griezman (who I always said has no place in Barca, true GOAT otherwise)?

Yes Alex is right, Messi needs to run more of ball in order for our pressing and passing game to work. The problem is, he is getting old and he is not CR7 physically. SO what do you suggest, sell Messi and bring who? Also, it is not as if he does not run when the stakes are high enough. IMHO, he is actually running maybe more than some younger players. It is not his fault that they just expect him to do all the stuff. He is not egoistical maniac who expects a pass all the time. He has proven that many, many times, and if you think differently, then you are blind.

So, yes you are right to the point, but I think the team as whole is at fault, but more importantly the management for making a lot of crappy deals. You mention our current squad of wonderful player that this management brought. But, for every name I can give you two others that were crap!

Again, I am not talking about results. Results wise, no question we have been great during the Messi era. I am strictly talking from a quality of football perspective, which is the reason a lot of us started following Barcelona.
I think purely from a quality of football perspective (not results), Messi is the biggest impediment imo.
Does that mean our squad cant do with upgrades in other areas? Ofcourse not. We need to add one more mobile midfielder to compliment Arthur and FDJ and get a quality Suarez replacement.
On 2 other names for every signing which failed, I think thats the case for every top club. Most signings fail. Look at Madrid, City, United etc. Very clubs have a record where they have signed more hits than misses.

[Myesyats]

Messi is not the "biggest impediment" you delinquent

Give him Neymar and Suarez and you're winning the treble even with an average midfield.

Its not his fault that in his final years they failed to build around him when Neymar left. These days he has no one to pass to up front. Griezmann is hiding in the bushes 85% of the time

[Kebab]

Yesterday messi was running and pressing and it made no difference. shut up and stop repeating same stuff

Griezmann is not barca material, he is like Arda Turan 2. What barca lack atm is speed. Replace Griezmann with a scrub who is fast and see what happens. With messi you need someone fast to run for his through balls, when neymar was here messi had records on through balls.

Midfield also is very slow. Barca are the slowest top team in the world. this is what problem is. Other than that everything is good. This season i cant remember any counter attack from them, how can you play football without counter attacks? passing around and wasting time is not the answer

[BarcaLearning]

Actually we all need to stop being so GL-ish as in making everything black or white lol. Stop saying Griezmann is some scrub ok, hes WC and we all know that, and knew his positioning in our team wouldnt be best fit but we got him anyway, and imho hes too good a player not to have, unless of course u can get a better player/fit instead, which I dont think there really was on the market? There are some wide players out there we would like instead of their clubs wouldnt sell, etc. At least Griezmann has done much better than Coutinho since its very hard to play when ur often over lapping the pitch with Messi and have to give way basically, and he also offers a lot defensively too.

All the problems we have atm we know, but on the other hand I actually see inprovements in some areas which us fans really should appreciate a bit more instead of just criticising, when they are due, right? Our pressing yesterday was impressive, and our positioning in general, discipline, etc., have been better than Valverde this season that Im sure we can agree. One of our main problem is when we so often are able to keep possession and box the opposition in, still we lack ppl making runs enough and pulling the opposition defense since they mostly ptb vs us. Everyone is just too static. Luckily was able to do that for the goal yesterday, but it was more a mistake by the defender and we obviously cant rely on Vidal for that long term. So I dont know if Seiten will figure something our for this apart from relying on Fati from wide. He tried to play De Jong in AM sort of role making runs too. I just hope Roberto would be back since knowing the past, somehow they would wanna play him and watch him make back passes from down the right byline lol. One major enjoyable atm is not seeing him and having Semedo instead. The less said of Firpo the better.

Btw, any word of when will Alba be back?

[Myesyats]

Midfield also is very slow. Barca are the slowest top team in the world. this is what problem is. Other than that everything is good. This season i cant remember any counter attack from them, how can you play football without counter attacks? passing around and wasting time is not the answer

Yes. But you need wingers to counter-attack and we don't have em. Thats what distinguishes this team from 2015 squad and why Lucho was so successful. That team was much more versatile in both possession and counter.

We should look back and draw inspiration from that 2015 team, it wasnt perfect but it was headed in the right direction

[neuro11]

Napoli was ultra defensive but we too were super slow, at times I felt like i had been watching it in slow motion.What else do you expect from this midfield, fully aged. Even de jong was gassed out few times and failed to capitalize the opportunity to counter.

Good that Busi will be out of 2nd leg....

[Myesyats]

Nice. This season's home kit is the ugliest in history

[Kebab]

Midfield also is very slow. Barca are the slowest top team in the world. this is what problem is. Other than that everything is good. This season i cant remember any counter attack from them, how can you play football without counter attacks? passing around and wasting time is not the answer

Yes. But you need wingers to counter-attack and we don't have em. Thats what distinguishes this team from 2015 squad and why Lucho was so successful. That team was much more versatile in both possession and counter.

We should look back and draw inspiration from that 2015 team, it wasnt perfect but it was headed in the right direction

Yeah 2015 team for me was the best one, this passing games is dead and this is why Lucho switched to the new style
Grizemann is a good finisher but this is it. there are hundred of finishers like him. Braithwaite suits Messi better, i hope he gets 90 minutes playing time

[danyjr]

Huge match for Real Madrid after their CL loss at home to City. They're also second in La Liga so the only way for Los Blancos to redeem themselves is to win in front of their fans and climb back to top spot in La Liga.

Equally this is a big match for Setién, his first big match as a small team coach. I don't think he has what it takes to win at Bernabéu, not only that, but I think the way his team plays is exactly the type of team Zidane's Madrid like to play against. A slow team with lots of possession which are prey to quick counters.

I expect a Madrid win or draw. Barça having the majority of the possession but no penetration and Madrid creating dangerous chances on the counter every time Barcelona lose the ball.

Of course, never say never. If Messi is on form he is going to tear Madrid a new one. It is almost as if Bernabéu is his home.

[danyjr]

Blame the incompetent board you have for wasting millions upon millions on players who are either not suitable to play the style of football required or are just plain shit. Blame them for hiring incompetent beta coaches you've been hiring for as long as I remember.

Blame them, not the guy who literally won you title after title, sometimes on his own.

You mean the same boardd which has bought Suarez, Rakitic, Neymar, Griezman, FDJ, Arthur, Lenglet, Mats etc. Could go on and on. All of them are 100% capable of playing the Cruyff way.
Beta coaches. You mean Valverde who was praised by no less than Johan himself for playing good football. That Valverde. Setien who played outstanding football with Betis to the point that Busquets handed over a signed shirt. That Setien.

If we still play boring one dimensional football with all the game played in our half, it's time for even the most hardcore Messi fan (not Barca fan cause that's what the majority of them are) to accept the fact that he is the reason for us getting dominated every single week by even scrubs.

This is not pre-historic football of the time of Pele, Maradona or even recently the likes of Zidane, Bergkamp etc. Where you had one player who the team was built around and who offered zero movement off the ball. Modern football does not work that way. Every player has to run and run hard all game; no matter who he is.
The only other exception is CR7 and there is one sharp difference. He doesnt defend or press although he still does a lot more than Messi. CR7 is a monster off the ball when his team has possession and that makes all the difference.
You just cant play good attacking football in the modern game with a player who has no off the ball game (in the offensive or defensive phase). Doesnt matter who the rest of the players are or who the coach is.

If you still think it is a player issue, name the players in our team who are unsuitable to play the Cruyff way.
MatS- Best in the game and probably all time to play our way.
Pique - one of the best and born and broiught up to play our way.
Lenglet- very capable with the ball.
Alba- same as Pique
Semedo/Roberto - No Alves but then who are. But extremely capable with the ball. Certainly more than Walker.
Busquets - No explanation needed
FDJ/Arthur - Again no explanation needed. Dont compare to Xavi/Iniesta. Compare to peers in other top teams.
Griezman - Excellent one touch and link up player
Suarez - No explanation needed.

Stopped reading there.

[BarrileteCosmico]

1-0 feels a bit undeserved, think Barca have been better thoughout the 90 minutes, hopefully we can still turn this around

[BarrileteCosmico]

Oh well

Still only 1 point from the top, we got this

[eelir]

Either RM are bad too, or we actually got a bit better. I felt like the team was not playing that bad considering we miss Suarez and never really replaced even 50% of Nyemar.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Yeah likewise, I'd say we were more in control for the first 55-60 minutes of the game and missed some chances that we shouldn't have. RM were better in the final stretch, no doubt. A draw would've been more reflective of the way the match played out.

[Myesyats]

2nd half was atrocious

first 45 minutes must have been really good if you think a draw was deserved lol

[futbol]

1st was okay, but nothing to write home about. Had like 2 half chances.

[Doc]

Half chances, futbol, stop it. You had 2 1v1 chances which Arthur and Messi both squandered. And Griezmann who shot over bar from close range. About half chances lol.

[alexjanosik]

Useless off the ball and now trash on the ball as well. Can't dribble. Ineffective passer since the one trick pony pass to Alba has now been found off and completely cut off. And cant hit the side of a barn door now with sitters.

[danyjr]

What about Griezmann? Is he good on the ball or off the ball? What about his finishing?

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