FC Barcelona Thread

He certainly has qualities and like younggun said, you got to give him credit for making those stars work as hard as the do.
But i'm not entirely convinced. Barcelona has no plan B when; for some reason they can't score (for example the second match against Inter in last season's CL).
I'm bit convinced about the bench too...it seems that their is a considerable quality gap between the first eleven (and maybe Mascherano) and the rest of the bench.
And then (but this is very subjective) why the hell did Guardiola let Eto'o go for Ibrahimovic? I consider Eto'o as the best finisher in the world (and with Inter he proved that he is much more than a finisher) and although i think Villa is a fantastic player, i still think Barcelona have never found a good replacement for Eto'o...to let a player like Eto'o go to another club is a huge mistake IMO.
 
Well, to me the shortocmings of Guardiola are:

- Finds it hard to change the style of play if the team struggles to play with our very specific style. No plan B to put it simply, but I think it's not a case of Plans but Styles. I've seen the team change tactic formation during matches to good use, but using always the same approach to the game.
- He's quite crap signing new players. We all know it and it's quite obvious. Plus, he made a bad choice selling Eto'o, though that comes from a long story.

But I don't think loosing the overall to Inter last season is to blame on Pep. Referee in the first match at Milan was aboslute crap and we shouldn't have lost by 2 goals. Bad luck, but football is football! And Inter went through shooting 4 times in 180 minutes (but scoring 3!). If someone is to blame for last year CL, it was mainly Julio Cesar. Julio Cesar did 3 incredible saves at Camp Nou.

Guardiola could have tried different things? Not with the bench he had at that time, really. As you say, Gerd, the gap between the starting 11 and the rest is brutal. So the main problem again is the bad signings/sells.

As I said before, with a player like Larsson on the bench, we would have a Plan B and be able to change a bit our style.

But now consider what Pep has achieved:
- The best ratio of silverware/season in all Barcelona history
- Playing (and mostly winning) with with an average of 7-8 homegrown players.
- Do a brutal pressure to the opponent when we loose the ball, achieving a kind of modern Sacchi style.
- Winning 5 consecutive times to Real Madrid, including a 2-6 and a 0-2 at Bernabeu. No one had done something similar before!
- Messi has more than doubled his ratio of goals and assists with Pep
- Xavi and Iniesta are now considered world stars, when they had not been considered for years.
- He turned Pique from a hot prospect to one of the best CBs in a season.
- He turned Busquets and Pedro into the players there are now when they were playing in the third division.
- Be recognized as a straight man inside the world of football, being cheered and respected by most of football people and press.

Yes he has done some obvious mistakes, but who doesn't!
 
All those things you mentioned are true but you have to look at the time when he became Barca's coach as "being at the right place, at the right time".
Right now, Guardiola has all the right tools available to him to create this great team. Players like Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, etc were already there when he took over and these are the 3 strongest players in the squad. Pep deserves full credit for Pique, Busquets and Pedro but they arent enough without the 3 WPOTY candidates above.

I'm not saying Pep isnt good enough, I just think it's too early to make any conclusion on his abilities. The Pep Guardiola story has only begun. He's made a great start but there are still many more tests to come.
A true test of his ability would be if he can achieve it all over again with a new team. This is why Sir Alex is considered as one of the best managers of all time. He consistantly created new teams and continued to win trophies. And this is even after selling and losing so many big players over the years. Cantona, Beckham, Keane, Ruud, Ronaldo, etc.
Lets wait and see how Guardiola performs when Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are no longer there.
 
funnily i agree with both drekkard and runedge.
there's no doubt guardiola has done an amazing job.... and like drekkard said, the difference between rijkaard's barcelona and guardiola's barça is unbelievable. in six months pep completely changed the way the blaugranas used to play.... and that's the best compliment we can do to pep.
so yeah, just like drekkard and sina, i would label pep as a great coach, no doubt about it.

runedge, your point about guardiola's carreer being just at the beginning is undenyable, and u're right when u say that in order to express an even more reliable judgement on guardiola as a coach, we should see him facing different challenges in a new scenario..... but then again, we can only talk about what we saw so far....and based on what guardiola showed so far, we got to admit he's done an amazing job.

of course a proper reliable opinion on a coach could only be expressed once his carreer is close to an end (like capello or sir alex or lippi)... but so far guardiola has definitely impressed with his coaching.
runedge said:
All those things you mentioned are true but you have to look at the time when he became Barca's coach as "being at the right place, at the right time".
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that's absolutely true... but then again, like sacchi once said "u can be as good as u want, but the most important thing in this job is being at the right club in the right moment".
and when u think about it, this is something that all great coaches have in common: michels, sacchi, chapman, lobanovsky, kovacs, herrera.... they were all "at the right place in the right time"

mourinho himself has always been at the right club in the right time (i am mentioning him separately because he doesn't belong to the same class of those i mentioned above). :))
 
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Yes, this is also true about Mourinho. But Mourinho is now in his 4th league (first Portugal, England, Italy and now Spain). To me this shows that he can adapt to different styles of football. IMO he has faced more challenges than Guardiola.
That's why I think Pep has done well but Im still not so impressed. Pep has a good character and I like his coaching approach (I think he would be a great manager for the England national team). But if you say Sir Alex has impressed me 100%, then Mourinho has shown 75$ and Pep has shown me 40%.
This is just my opinion, Im sure many of you will disagree.
 
I would strongly disagree SAF has the privileged of being at the same club more than most managers. Years can be forgiven and short terms can mark your legacy. Players fear SAF as much as they respect him. Mourinho is more intimate with his players most players grieve into pieces when he leaves them :LOL: SAF players leave trying to escape for their lives. Mourinho could be the most loved manager in the football World. Mourinho could work w/ ex-players can SAF ? That`s just my view from a different perspective Trophies are important I try to bring more than adding trophies to what a top manager is to me.
 
beboq said:
I would strongly disagree SAF has the privileged of being at the same club more than most managers. Years can be forgiven and short terms can mark your legacy. Players fear SAF as much as they respect him. Mourinho is more intimate with his players most players grieve into pieces when he leaves them :LOL: SAF players leave trying to escape for their lives. Mourinho could be the most loved manager in the football World. Mourinho could work w/ ex-players can SAF ? That`s just my view from a different perspective Trophies are important I try to bring more than adding trophies to what a top manager is to me.
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I guess that's just your opinion, but if you ask me, thats so wrong.
 
RuneEdge said:
I guess that's just your opinion, but if you ask me, thats so wrong.
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mate ! I`m not saying Fergie is not top I just think no manager will top him. For obvious reason so they`re other views you can measure. I would put Sir Alex in his own category . I thought I was nothing but complimentary :LOL: strongly disagree for putting SAF n Mourinho in the category. Who cares if Fergie is a hardman he gets things DONE! :JAY:

Mourinho works w/ explayers because he rotates clubs ,like Ronaldo changes girlfriends.
 
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Well I was confident that Barça would reach the CL Final, but now I don't know, simply because Pep is letting Mourinho get to him a little bit, and he's getting out of character.

He should remain cool, because that filters down to the players...
 
airjoca said:
Well I was confident that Barça would reach the CL Final, but now I don't know, simply because Pep is letting Mourinho get to him a little bit, and he's getting out of character.

He should remain cool, because that filters down to the players...
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True, but there's a limit on what a human being can endure. Mourinho this year is behaving simply like an spoiled idiot. I would prefer a world of football without this kind of people. I respected Raul, Del Bosque, Beckham or Zidane. But seems that lately at Real it's a matter of winning at all costs. To me that's not the way to go, nor the way to show young kids how to behave.

The difference is that if we loose, we will be equally proud of our team and specially of our coach. You can't say that about Madrid fans.
 
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Mourinho is behaving like a child with no class as usual.

I hope his words get shoved down back his throat. However Pep if he was that good a coach would have made sure his players were fresher by resting some of them in prior games in particular Villa looks out of gas.

Masche at centreback is a real risk considering his height.

Granted he played well there in the last couple of games but at set pieces it is a big risk esp.if they chuck on Adebayor.

They should task him to take on Ozil. No one perhaps noticed considering the debacle of last summers quarterfinal against Germany but for virtually the whole game Masche kept Ozil anonymous.
 
I can't see Real winning over two legs, You have to remember Real won the last game in extra time and Barcelona looked VERY tired, I think they'll be fresher for these.

Villa will need to find form though.
 
beboq said:
mate ! I`m not saying Fergie is not top I just think no manager will top him. For obvious reason so they`re other views you can measure. I would put Sir Alex in his own category . I thought I was nothing but complimentary :LOL: strongly disagree for putting SAF n Mourinho in the category. Who cares if Fergie is a hardman he gets things DONE! :JAY:

Mourinho works w/ explayers because he rotates clubs ,like Ronaldo changes girlfriends.
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Maybe I misunderstood you but from what I read, you dont think winning trophies like Sir Alex is as important as other things. Which imo is wrong. It doesnt matter if you are the nicest person in the world or not, the best tactician, the best motivator, etc. All that matters in the end is how much success you have. Sir Alex has many trophies, but if Mourinho continues to succeed, then he should be appreciated by many too.
 
Mourinho has two things left to achieve to become an all time great for me, a dynasty with 1 club which means 5-10 years were he builds more than 1 team and how he deals with that and coaching his country.
 
Iniesta's injury is a big blow. Wasn't he missing for both legs of the semi-final last year?

Barca will do well to get a draw in this first leg IMO.
 
shit match so far. too many fucking girls playing on the pitch. shocking. when will the football start? If i wanted to watch an episode of eastenders done inside a football pitch, i would
 
Really? I'm enjoying, it's like a chess match. Interesting to see Real's tactics of having the 3 CM manmark Barca's.

But seems that lately at Real it's a matter of winning at all costs.
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Not to have a go at you Drekkard, but the hypocrisy of Barca is showing in the match. They always seem to go on about playing the right way, but both Pedro and Busquets went down holding their faces when they weren't even touched there! Everytime it happens, they are all fairplay till they don't get there way...then they go Mourinho and dive about trying to get players sent off.
 
Sometimes I think if Barca didn't have Messi they would be no better then Arsenal. :P

Great goals, deserved the win. Now let's see them give Utd a spanking.
 
Arsenal relied heavily on Thierry Henry back in the day in the same way barcelona rely on Messi.

you know what, maybe thats the missing piece of teh puzzle for arsenal. a world class striker that can perform miracles on his own
 
Having players like Kaka on the bench and yet playing with 11 players on their own half, shame on you Madrid.
Barcelona weren't particularly good but deserved the win....

Great action from Affelay and fantastic second goal from Messi...

I don't like Ronaldo, but now i feel for him...he doesn't deserve to play for a team that plays anti-football like this.

Mourinho can get away with this if he wins, but now he has lost...
 
gerd said:
Having players like Kaka on the bench and yet playing with 11 players on their own half, shame on you Madrid.
Barcelona weren't particularly good but deserved the win....

Great action from Affelay and fantastic second goal from Messi...

I don't like Ronaldo, but now i feel for him...he doesn't deserve to play for a team that plays anti-football like this.

Mourinho can get away with this if he wins, but now he has lost...
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C ronaldo should be playing for arsenal:APPLAUD:
 
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