FC Barcelona Thread

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What a thug. No one want's to see you play has been Ujafalusi. It was nasty, cynical and deliberate with no intention to play the ball.

He should get a lengthy ban to discourage others who might think this is the only way to stop Messi.

Maradona had to suffer this treatment in every game and it affected him physically. Same for the Brazilian Ronaldo. It's a disgrace,

We want to see the artists of the game not the artisans.

I have to agree with Wenger at times that some teams decide that because they do not know how to defend legitimately they'll try illegitimate methods.

Lucky it is not a break. An outrage. :RANT:
 
WOW! After looking at that picture he is very lucky to be 15 days out. Defenders go for that after he makes a fool out of them.
 
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I wonder, actually, if players like Totti, Kaka, Torres - basically most technical players - are extremely fragile these days due to the accumulation of dangerous/hard tackles. It's quite sad that even players like Pato and Messi, who are extremely young, are going to become more fragile as they get older from all the challenges and kicks they receive.
 
Kostaz said:
That's rather terrible,but it'll be blown out of proportion because it's Messi.
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Well of course it's going to garner attention as he is numero uno in the playing world at present.

But the point has to be reinforced that skilful players need protection.

It has become better over recent years when you consider some of the treatment that used to be dished out to the likes of Puskas, Pele, Garrincha and Diego.

Players of the ilk of Gentile would not have careers today.

It is lucky it is not a break but accumulation of such injuries does affect players in the long term and curtail's their careers ie Kaka.

Players in the past were not so lucky.It wasn't a golden era as such. The treatment these players received medically ie regular cortisone injections has meant that many players of this era are crippled now.

As I said Ujfalusi should be punished heavily as a deterrent.

People like Goikoextea who still revels in almost ending the career of Diego Maradona should be made pariahs.

There is an art to defending ie reading and positioning oneself and cleanly executing a tackle. I could quote players like Beckenbauer, Sammer, Scirea, Baresi, Moore, Passarella who made defending something to be appreciated not players like Chopper Harris for instance.

Sadly the art of defending today seems to rely more on sheer athleticism or cynical trips, shirt pulls and hacks.
 
I can see it now Wenger n Messi campaigning "Refs must protect the players" imo that is a yellow card offensive n a red was shown is a statement within itself. I approve this message
 
Wow has that pic been photoshopped? if not he must be blessed....

Yeah I love Messi.....yes in a gay man love way. But I do not feel more can be done to protect players it is an element of the sport. But they should introduce a citing committee as they have in rugby. But it won't stop a prick from being a prick.
 
The problem is that rules are not strict enough. If you voluntarily injure a player, you should have a loooong ban ahead.

It's a very basic principle: if the punishment is very severe, people won't do it that much.

I think the following it's doable: Creating a special committee with strict rules that put bans to players around all Europe. It can be done in the UEFA frame of work, though local federations will always try to boicot this.

But if there was a strict commitee that banned dirty players properly and using video as evidence, pricks would know what they are exposed to. Ujfalusi, for example, in my oppinion should be banned at least for 5 or 6 matches, as he pretended to harm the player. He would surely think about doing it again. The same for every player out there.

You all know I'm fair, so I will put an example with one of my favorite players: Two years ago Toure destroyed the footballing career of Matuzalem (playing at Zaragoza back then). Even though I love Yaya, he did a very dirty and dangerous tackle that he knew would injure the opponent in some way. That can't be accpeted in a pitch and should have been banned with severity: 10-20 matches.

And in my oppinion, people like Pepe, after the savage thing he did 2 seasons ago against Getafe, they should have banned him for 6 months or a whole season. We can't accept violent agressions in this sport. Simply as that.

Another thing necessary is the fans of a team to "booo" any player of their own team that commits a violent act. I've done it in the Nou Camp and there's always people who treats me like a crazy one. But I think I'm fair and right. We have to protect the artists of the sport, no matter the team.
 
Good post drekkard.
Problem is that most fans refuse to see the bad challenges of their own players.

I think the idea of a comittee of specialists is a very good one. But what makes me hesitate is that it always seems that big clubs are advantaged because they influence referees and comittees like that.

Take for example Wenger. I think he's a genius manager and i (obviously) like him a lot. He's right when he complains about the very physical and intimidating way teams like Stoke, Wolves and Blackburn play. But i haven't heard him complain when Vieara played for Arsenal...Viera was also a very physical and intimidating player...

Other problem is that referees have a certain flexiblity towards rules. Normally every contact in the penalty area is a penalty. If you do that as a ref, you have 10 penalties in every match (I.e. minimally every time there is a corner). I'm afraid something similar will happen with basd challenges.

And lastly: will the comitte only judge tackles where players were injured? Sometimes you see attrocious tackles, but the victims have no injuries...what about these?

But i agree, players like Messi (who rarely dives) should be protected.
 
Thats one player gerd and how long since he last kicked a ball for arsenal? Just because wenger once had a few dirty players doesnt mean its ok for everyone else to kick arsenal off the park.

two wrongs dont make a right and im sick and tired of people looking at the arsenal side 5-10 years ago!!

get over it.
 
That will never work.
First of all you'll either have to be over-protective to all the players or none.It shouldn't matter if the guy that got injured was Messi or Kalou.

Besides some teams just won't accept a harsh punishment that looks unfair to them.I can already see Manchester United fans rioting if anyone touches a tackler like Scholes.
 
It does kinda look like a photoshoped picture. His foot is upside down and kinda small. How he avoided a broken ankle is very lucky.
 
It was only an example jonney, other managers would do the same.
Look how Everton are "protecting" Fellaini after his elbow against Newcastle. As much as i like Fellaini, he should have got a red card for that one.
 
But how can you tell if a player is deliberatly violent (e.g. Andy Taylor for Birmingham vs Eduardo), or totally incompetent at tackling (e.g. Paul Scholes), or just an absolute brute of a player (e.g. Gerry Taggart for Stoke against Damiano Tommasi or Paolo Montero).

Even these examples are all interpretations. If the injury is accidental should the player get a red card ? Should a ban equate to the length of time for an injury ? Where do you draw the line ?

Also it must be so much more difficult for modern refs and especially Spanish refs, since over-dramitic (faking) of injuries is a lot more prevalent in the modern game and seemingly especially in Spain (e.g. Capdevilla in Cape Town). Short of the massive compound fractures (e.g. Eduardo, Larsson for Celtic) it must be difficult for a ref to judge on the spot as to how serious an injury is.
 
It will obviously based on perceptions as it is right now, but I think that there should be a "level of danger" considered by commitees and even if the ref didn't show a card, the commitees should be able to ban players. The length of an injury should be taken into account only in clearly deliberate violent actions. But violent actions should be banned also even if there's no injury. It's the only possible way to do it.

For example, De Jong did a karate tackle to Alonso inm the WC final that the ref considered a yellow card. Independant of the ref mistake, De Jong shouldbe banned for some matches because that was a very violent action that could have led to a serious injury. Or the hundreds of elbows that we see every day and make me sick. What's the point on playing violent like that?

I tell you, I get sick when my team players also do it. Puyol, for example, should be banned for a violent block he did to Simao this wekend.

And then there are the brutal tackles, that you can clearly see represent a big danger to anyone. Those tackles should be firmly punished. Of the examples you put, you can clearly say which ones are the outcome of a dangerous tackle, simply a violent action or simply bad luck. We've all played football and we can "know" when someone was trying a legit tackle or went crazy to crush anything in the way.
 
I just don't know if it's that simple to say a tackle by player "x" on player "y" is deliberate or not.

Sure there are some obvious ones (e.g. anything high - around the knee / upper shin, or when it's a late one from behind or two footed), but also the speed at which players dribble makes it hard for defenders. For instance Ujfalusi's tackle was bad as it looked like a prolonged treading on his ankle joint, but if it had been a similar situation where he had instead just tripped him, given the speed of it, it could have been without intent.
 
Yes, but in a TV replay when you can see that the intention is to hurt the other player there's no doubt. In the Ujfalusi tackle you can see he's not going for the ball at all, he goes straight to Messi anckle and his intention is not to simply tackle him, but to do it in a harmful way. You don't tackle like that to someone when you just want to touch the ball.

But I understand what you say and it's the obvious debate where two people would never agree on a determined play. It's difficult, but if nothing is done, then.... nothing is done! Wouldn't it be better to have a little amount of "unfair" decisions but succeeding in making tackles less violent in football? I would like to try it, at least. We would see a lot more football.

It's like tactical fouls. There are players that get away with an insane of "small" fouls to destroy the opponent transition. I would gladly give a yellow card in the 4th foul in a half, no matter how have been the fouls. That would make creative football more important than dirty tactics.
 
Another example of the way football should not be played is "the clever way" Blackburn played against Fulham. Big Sam Allardyce gave Diouf the orders to systematically charge Fulhams goalkeeper. This was never dangerous, but to me it's cheating and should be punished post factum...
 
I agree on Diouf, but Fat Sam has been doing that sort of football for years.

I still don't know how any of this can be policed, for instance what if the player just shifts the ball (through a clever turn) before being tackled ? How can you tell on intent even with a replay / post match review. Some of them will be obvious when viewed in a replay, but others will still be ambiguous...
 
If there's no evidence of violence, then it's down to the possible danger of the tackle, and if there's no danger, then there's nothing to punish in from of ban.

But, now they have said Ujfalusi had a 2 match ban. So, he will come back to the pitch before Messi. That, to me, it's sad news. That tackle was clearly violent without any will to play football. To me it should have been, minimum, 4 matches. The spanish rules say that it's a minimum of 4 matches if there's injury in a violent tackle.

But committees in Spain are very centrical (i.e. formed by people from Madrid exclusively) and we have that kind of justice. That's why I would prefer an "European" committee for football, that would be much much fair.

Last year they put a ban on Guardiola for saying something to the referee that TVs showed he never said. The committee never retracted. That's the kind of justice you get nowadays...

I just don't get it, they have the evidence of things but never act consequently...
 
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Gotta love Marca... (Dani Alves x Ujfalusi)

On the other hand, Sport says the ref helped Madrid yesterday with that Red on Galán, which they say was a Yellow at best...

Your newspapers are lovely. :LOL:
 
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Newspapers are totally crap! Yesterday Marca was saying that Ujfalusi deserved 4 matches, now today they put a tackle of LAST YEAR of Alves (which deserved the same in my oppinion) and do this comparison.... it makes no sense at all!

About the Madrid match yesterday, see what I posted on the Madrid thread, the referee was quite ashaming in fact. I watched the match and Madrid deserved to win by a very narrow margin, possibly 2-1, but the referee totally destroyed the match with.

Tonight it's our first match without Messi, let's see if we can cope with it. Now is the time for Xavi and Iniesta to show they can decide matches besides being great players! I would love to have Thiago in the middle, but it won't happen and probably Bojan will play, though I think that boy it's not up to the challenge, and never will...
 
The referees start to annoy me. We have been awarded only 3 penalties in 2 seasons now, which is absolutely ridiculous considering we spend 30% of the time in our opponent area. And yet there are still those idiots from Madrid press and the idiot Mourinho talking about "Villarato" and stupid things like this.

How sad has becomen our league with only 2 contenders and all the spanish media doing all they can to put pressure on the referees... They won't stop until Madrid wins something.


...

I say they can wait for another season hehe...
 
I hope so drekkard because i really like Barcelona and really don't like Real Madrid. But i fear that Madrid is getting very close this season. On top of that their squad is "deeper". This season showed that Barcelona are vulnerable when they have injuries. It seems that the fringe player are not ready to step in for the regular first team players. Maybe Barça should buy a couple of back-up players in the mid-season transfer window because players like Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Picque and Messi have played an awfull lot of matches the last 3 years. This is starting to cause problems now (injuries).
 
Yes, that's the main concerns of most of the fans. We know we have the best starting eleven, and with all players fit and eligible, we're the best and practice the best football in la liga. Now, if we miss one or two of the main pieces of the squad, everything trembles.

We need at least a player for each line!

Defense: Out of Puyol and Pique, we don't have any decent CB. Milito is going down quickly and Abidal can't be trusted there. Young players are really promising, but you can't put them there in important matches.

Midfield: Failing to sign Cesc changed our plans too much. Guardiola should have signed OZil,but he didn't want to and he went to Real. And Ozil is a great player that would fit seamlessly here. We need someone in the midfield as Keita is not doing anything and simply don't fit here. Thiago and Dos Santos are great but need minutes.

Forwards: Here is dramatic. Bojan has always been (and always be) a prospect and never delivers. He lacks a lot of technique and vision. Jeffren gets injured all the time. We need a second striker. I would have loved Suarez...
 
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