First time in 19 years not to be able to advance from Champions League group stage behind Sporting Lisbon.

7th in La Liga behind the likes of Betis, Sociedad and Rayo Vallecano.

Press F to pay respect to GL's biggest clown.

The piece of trash stinking it up at PSG has more than double the amount of CL goals that Barcelona do this season.

F.

You guys know you can't win this one, right? He'll just claim it would've been even worse with Messi.

Barca is going to suffer from his absence for years.

farfan wrote:You guys know you can't win this one, right? He'll just claim it would've been even worse with Messi.

They would've got embarrassed but still would've qualified to the knockout then lost to the first big team they saw.

But he kept saying Messi was the reason for the humiliations for years and without Messi they look even worse which Alex said wasn't possible. The people want answers now!

Please delete this thread

Barca are in the mess they are in not because they let Messi go, but because they let Messi go at least a season too late.

Sell Messi to City in summer 2020 and the worst of the collapse can be averted

So @alexjanosik was more than right, but that's the fate of a prophet, to be ridiculed and scorned by the people he had warned.

Cassandra suffered the same fate

Dont know what to say really, except that GL is awesome

Hapless_Hans wrote:Barca are in the mess they are in not because they let Messi go, but because they let Messi go at least a season too late.

Sell Messi to City in summer 2020 and the worst of the collapse can be averted

So @alexjanosik was more than right, but that's the fate of a prophet, to be ridiculed and scorned by the people he had warned.

Cassandra suffered the same fate

You know I wasn't even against Barca selling Messi. I think in the long run they'll be better off without him too.

It was after the Bayern beating where I said they should sell Messi if they are able to adequately reinforce the squad. However, with Bartomeu's track record I didn't think you could trust him with doing so. I also don't believe that selling your star player and then buying a couple of good players to replace them is a good strategy. I don't know what the exact phrase is, but it sounded something like "you don't replace a dollar with 4 quarters". Maybe it was something different, but you get my point.

Spurs tried doing that with Bale and it flopped, Liverpool with Suarez, Milan with Zlatan, and Barca with Neymar.

So I suggested that Barca keeps Messi for the transition period. Let Messi stay for 2-3 seasons while Barca phases out the rest of the old guard. During that time period, Messi can guarantee you CL qualification and that's where a lot of money comes from. Then when Messi is gone you replace him with an elite big-money signing.

Barca couldn't keep Messi so now their transition period is going to be rough because they don't have money either. They are left with La Masia kids, injury-prone talents, and an aging old guard who have no business playing 3 times a week.

*Benfica

Anyway welcome to the banter era

Barca were unlucky to draw against Bayern this early in the tournament. Other, high profile clubs are facing the likes of Young Boys and Club Brugge I don't know what Barca's head to head stats are against Bayern, but I'm pretty sure they're quite depressing. With or without Messi.

Tbf it's just one user that argued for this. The rest thought Barca would be a 7th place team without them, which is kinda what happened.

Robespierre wrote:*Benfica

Anyway welcome to the banter era

Let's hope it's a short one (although if Madrid get mbappe who knows how many years it will take us to win a league title again)

I don't know how recently Futbol made that claim, but I do recall him mentioning that the team would improve without Messi, back when they had a much stronger team than they have right now. I don't even recognize half of the players they're fielding these days.

Müller: "Barça cannot cope with the intensity. Technically and tactically, they have it all. But at the highest level, they cannot match the intensity of the game."

Thimmy wrote:I don't know how recently Futbol made that claim, but I do recall him mentioning that the team would improve without Messi, back when they had a much stronger team than they have right now. I don't even recognize half of the players they're fielding these days.

Perhaps this will summon fusball from his liar

Myesyats wrote:Müller: "Barça cannot cope with the intensity. Technically and tactically, they have it all. But they cannot match the intensity currently at the highest level of the game ."

Fixed the quote to make it more accurate. He said "momentan" which means currently, at the moment

Danke @hans

Barça ran 3.7 kilometers less than Bayern, who also completed 69 more passes and had more of the ball

Instantly better worst ever CL. Eliminated first time in 21 years in the group stage, and scoring only 2 goals, when the previous worst record was 7. Even in European Cup first leg Barcelona only once failed to score less than that in two games.

But players all ran like Pedro's, so it's a graceful exit. Modern game only running and pressing matters.

Its pretty clear its the clubs philosophy being outdated, all the bits of we hear about the inside shows that, not enough emphasis on the physical aspect of todays game, IIRC that was talked about already back a couple of yrs ago? But seems they still havent adapted or updated things enough to match the other top clubs today.

The question now is if Xavi knows that n can bring about the changes needed to update the way the team plays n be able to compete vs the top teams in the coming yrs... that together with when we can afford to buy proper top replacements for the old guards. In the meantime, we will be at this level - Europa League

BarcaLearning wrote:Its pretty clear its the clubs philosophy being outdated, all the bits of we hear about the inside shows that, not enough emphasis on the physical aspect of todays game, IIRC that was talked about already back a couple of yrs ago? But seems they still havent adapted or updated things enough to match the other top clubs today.

The question now is if Xavi knows that n can bring about the changes needed to update the way the team plays n be able to compete vs the top teams in the coming yrs... that together with when we can afford to buy proper top replacements for the old guards. In the meantime, we will be at this level - Europa League

I don’t know if you can say ‘club’, rather it was Bartomeu / Rosell that created the ‘mess’. I believe Laporte was and is a good president. But he and his choice of coach need time to fix the mess. I estimate it will take 2-3 years.

And to answer your question in other thread, You never know with Catalans! They seem to endorse tax evasion as well as sound medical advice! So perhaps, they still haven’t grasped the reality of what damage, Bartomeu / Rosell and Covid actually did.

8th place in the league and they’re closer to relegation than they’re to first.

alexjanosik wrote:
I have been right for 9 years. And I continue to be right. And I will make another successful prediction. That we will be much better in the CL once the mental midget leaves us. The very next season. And that the loser team which gets him will be much worse off. You can quote me on this. I just hope the mental midget gets thrown out next season.

The streets don’t forget.

Why he hates Messi so much? it does not make any sense.

He’s hated Messi for a decade and blamed him for every big Barca loss especially in the CL. His hate for him increased during Barca’s CL embarrassments from 2017-2021. He thought Messi was the root of all problems.

He believed Messi was the reason that Barca no longer play the Cruyff way. Free flowing, high pressing 4-3-3 tiki taka. Since Messi doesn’t run off the ball Barca can’t play that way according to him.

So he blamed the loss of style on him and he blamed the big losses on him because he thought it all happened due to Messi’s lack of pressing and off the ball movement. He also hated how Messi would drop deep to get the ball as it ruined the positional structure of the team.

Now since Barca’s become broke he’s blamed their financial situation mainly on him as well.

So he thought that Messi was the one who held back Barca in all aspects. Now that Messi is gone they still don’t play the way he wants the team to play despite having youngsters who can run. Their results are also much worse when he said there wouldn’t be a noticeable drop off either. He even said they would do better in the CL in the next season. He then changed his mind and said qualification from the CL groups and top 4 in the league is still guaranteed. Well…not anymore.

Now he’s hiding because he’s been proven to be an idiot which is what many of us have been saying all along. I don’t think you’ll find anyone who doesn’t think Messi’s workrate was a problem, but it’s clear he’s carried these bums for years. He would score 50 goals and give 20 assists a season despite his shortcomings and Barca just hasn’t been able to replace that attacking production. They have no money so the question is how will they even be able to? Fati, Depay, and Dembele is alright on paper but two of them are injury prone and the other is inconsistent. They have a midfield who doesn’t offer any penetration and are only good at holding the ball in tight spaces. Then they have an aging defense and spine who gets overrun and can’t handle the intensity of the big games. Let’s not even get into how he would ignore Bartomeu’s mismanagement or the other heavily overpaid players like Griezmann who were underperforming.

Now former players are coming out saying the team did practically no intense physical preparation since Lucho and that the likes of Valverde, Setien, and Koeman never once showed and analyzed tactical clips to the team before games. It was clear that the club was rotten from head to toe.

So now he’s getting clowned for ignoring all the other stuff and rightfully so.

I actually miss the clown atm... at least more entertaining than watching Barca games right now. Man seeing Luuk De Jong trying n overhead kick n completely missing was missing else, unbearable XD