FC Barcelona Thread

TikTikTikTikTik said:
@ Ben,

Agree. But I think what makes people irritated by it, and I'm repeating myself so appologies, is that the whole Barca image (which is created by them and the media) has them as some sort of fairplay gods of total football. They aren't, they play nice passing football, and when it doesn't work they are as cynical as everyone else.

The problem, imo, is that the overal image of them remains intact, leading to overzealousness by ref's to card opposition players when they do start acting up. Which means they often end up with 11 v 10 for the most pointless indiscretions.

Let's not forget that Arsenal were oncourse to beat them when V Persie got sent off for hitting a ball a second after the whistle in a stadium that you could hardly hear it anyway....when the ball boy actually throws the ball on the pitch a second later aswell meaning kicking the ball out isn't actually time wasting.

Or last season when the Inter player got sent off for.....well Biscuits deciding he wants to roll around on the floor holding his face.
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so your point is they are not those angels people make them to be. they don't reflect that immaculate image. ok. but who created that image? it was the media.
barca, as a club, never claimed to have some sort of moral superiority. i'm quite sure no barca manager or director or president has ever said "we are nicer persons than everyone else. we never dive".
sure if u would ask guardiola "do u think your players are a bunch of divers?" he would certainly reply "no"..... but every other coach on the planet would say the same.

the media and the fans are the ones who elevated barcelona to a status of supernatural gods, who are not just supposed to be better players, but also better persons.... and then, once barca players recur to the very same dirty expedients every other player in the world recurs to, those very same media and fans blame barcelona for not living up to that ridiculous image that they gave barca..... it all sounds kinda silly to me.

barcelona is a wonderful team, wich plays some amazing football. but that's it. it's not like they're supposed to have better sportsmanship than everyone else. barca never expressed such claims.
infact they dive and ask for yellow cards, just like most of the other players in the world. but when a barca player does it, for some reasons i really can't understand, people tend to perceive it as something worse, more despicable than usual. why?

diving is a bad thing. period. it is a bad thing when alves does it.... just as much as it is a bad thing when ronaldo or totti or drogba, or cole or any other player does it.

and the whole thing about barca getting advantage of ref's calls is just bullshit mate. the thing is people seem to remember only those ref calls wich actually go to barca's favour.
u mentioned the double matchup against inter last season.... yeah busquets dove and that red card inter received was unfair..... but in the first leg barca was victim of several bad calls from the ref. barca were denied a perfectly valid goal from the ref and a penalty.... so if anything it was inter who got lucky.
and the same goes for the barca arsenal matchup earlier this season.... let's be honest, if we consider the bad ref calls in both legs arsenal were the ones who got more wrong calls in their favour.

and yet, again for some reasons i don't really understand, people tend to remember very well certain episodes that went to barca's favour and to completely forget about the episodes wich penalized barca.

i'm no barca fan, but from a neutral point of view, i find this quite disturbing. :))
 
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Thanks for that post, zio, that's why I tried to describe earlier in the thread but you put it clearly and much better than I ever could.

I find the link posted by beachryan completely disgusting, faulty to truth in a lot of ways and a kind of attack that resembles those of some Madrid media. To say Barcelona cheats as a pre-planned tactic in ALL the big matches may be one of the most bitter things I've read.

So we have won more than 9 titles in the last 3 seasons by cheating all the time? Is that what he means? We won Man Utd in the CL by cheating? We destroyed Real Madrid 5-0, 2-6 (at bernabeu) cheating? Did we beat Arsenal last year because of cheats? Bayern? Shakhtar? Lyon? Did we cheat at San siro when Inter defeated us you know how?

If you want, I can supply you the usual ammo myself:

a) We are indeed boring to watch (yet we are the team with more shots on goal and goals in La Liga and are high in this ranks in the CL as well). That's why our matches are amongst the most watched in the world. People just loves boredom.

b) Any mistake or bad procedure by any player instantly makes the entire team, club, supporters and their families guilty of whatever. We should even apology when the referees are right in our favor and absolutely forget any bad decision against us. Those decisions never existed. What I was talking aobut? Oh, I forgot, it shouldn't be important, then.

c) If Pep is being humble, it's because he's only pretending to be humble and he's an hypocrite.

d) Doing 10 yards passes all the time is bloody simple and primitive, and boring. That's the only reason why we win. In fact, all teams should stop doing what they do and do only 10 yards passes and they would instantly win all matches like Barcelona. But no team does it because having all teams winning all the time would be dead boring. That's why.

e) All of our players are doped. That's why they run less than the opponent on average and have less top speed. And we all know that doping makes your skill and football vision much better. It may be the new "10 yard passing" drug they're taking? It must be that, for sure! That's why we can play simple (and doping boring) football.

f) Villar is the solely reason why we win. Oh, and according to Mourinho, Unicef too. I can clearly remember Villar scoring a header last week that gave us the victory. And that great slalom by Unicef between 4 opponents and then scoring with a well placed shot. I don't know what we would do without them, really, they are so incredibly skilled additions to the squad!

g) Barcelona players are the only ones diving out there. In fact, they invented diving in modern football. All of them dive all the time. Even when they are not diving, actually they ARE diving. They are scumbags that cheat for the 90 minutes to victory, all of them. Their opponents never do it, but if they do, it's not the same, because they're not Barcelona players.

h) All of the above won't be said by certain media when the same players play for the national team. That's different. Then they are not doped, their 10 yard passing is marvellous and sofisticated and they don't dive but simply the opponent is ruthless.

i) Messi is just too good. So good that it overshadows how shitty we are as a team. In fact, you could put 10 girls from school there and Messi would win single-handedly anyway. That's pretty much why Argentina won the world cup.

PS: As you know, I totally despise acting like Busquets and Alves have done in some matches, but one thing is critizing them and another completely different story is attacking the whole team/club/supporters in an unfair manner.
 
Drekkard - The article I linked was from a UK-based journalist, who certainly isn't a Madridista or whatever they're called. He's just saying what he thinks.

I loved the Barca team from 3/4 years ago. They certainly weren't this bad at the whole 'darker arts' of the game. With Ronaldinho in his pomp etc. That was great to watch. Fine they didn't pass the ball as many times, but it was just as dynamic and fun.

That list is a mish mash of points from some very irreputable sources. By lumping in perfectly valid arguments alongside cr*p spouted by Mourinho, I'm guessing you're trying to dimiss all of them. But the fact remains that Barcelona should be able to win without behaving like children.

And I'm sorry, I watch a lot of football, across all the leagues in Europe. And the last 3 classico matches have been the worst examples of gamesmanship I've ever seen. It reminds me more of the random South American derbies I occasionally catch, where simulation is just considered part of the fun.

I'm a United fan. You kicked our asses more than thoroughly 2 years ago, and I'm 99% sure you'll be doing it again at Wembley. Because you're a better team then us, with better players. I've no problem with that. I hate when Nani rolls around like a little b*tch when he's barely been touched. It embarrasses me.

But the way Barcelona have played these 3 matches has been to do that at every single available opportunity. It hasn't just been one of them. It's been systematic. Watch Pedro grab his face when his chest was touched. Watch Busquets do it twice. Watch Villa in the league match feigning injury, just to leap up and score. Even earlier this season, watch Messi go down like he'd been shot after walking into Carvalho.

It simply has to be something Pep is encouraging. I don't see any other reason why you can find incidents, recently, in just 4 matches of almost every player doing it.

All the crap about biased referees, however, is horsesh*t. You got mighty lucky at Chelsea 2 years ago, but that's it for me.

Anyway, it is what it is. My personal theory is that Barca need all the 'injury' breaks because of the way the play, and it's actually a tactical decision to give them time to rest before they have to press again.
 
All this cheating/diving can be true for some players in the 3 recent Classicos. But sistematically? Really? And Madrid over the top aggression and diving/cheating didn't contribute at all? And Pep is surely giving orders for it? I think you're going too far.

Anyway, that's 3 matches out of... 70? You have definitely watched less Barcelona matches than you should then this season. I really advise you to watch any match from October to March. An average of 3 goals and 14 shots on goal per match and only 0.3 goals against. If you find this boring, then I don't know how you would describe Man Utd style of play (of whom I've watched at least 15 matches this season, I also watch a lot of football).

The list of points I put is the usual crap stuff that Barcelona haters love to post, it's not targeted at you, but to the author of that article, which I find really infuriating.

I don't know yet if we're going to play the final and if you're going to meet us there. And I doubt that we would easily win in such a final.
 
Mou's Inter often got red cards every other game, it's not just with Real. He said there were forces in Italy trying to stop him, and got banned from the touchline at least 3 times. He also controversially made a handcuff gesture to the cameras.
 
@ Ben,

I usually want Barca to win....as it means Chelsea, Utd or Madrid don't win, so I'm not against them all the time. My post might seem to indicate that. However, from the big matches (CL) I've seen, which are the only ones, I'm usually left with the impression that they either beat the opposition through good football, or they were having a tough time and got a break from the ref. I only saw the Nou Camp match vs Inter so can't respond about that one (but no Mourinho team deserves any favours anyway), but I really can't remember any huge decisions in the Arse match-ups besides the ridiculous sending off. Actually Barca should/could have had a penalty. Maybe it's that they never get a player sent off, whereas all the other teams do...

Either way, for some reason they leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
 
Messi is just too good. So good that it overshadows how shitty we are as a team. In fact, you could put 10 girls from school there and Messi would win single-handedly anyway. That's pretty much why Argentina won the world cup.

When you do take him out of the side the statistics do show that Barca score and create less.

And as for the jibe regarding Argentina. When you have coaches who have no clue on tactics, choose inferior players and because it is a team game one player cannot affect the outcome as they used to.

Even in 1986 Diego could not have done what he had without the defence of Ruggieri and Brown, the creative force of a Burruchaga and striker like Valdano.

People seem to forget the players from River Plate at the time who held the domestic title, cup and Liberatadores and teams like Independiente who beat the best Europe had to offer at the time like Liverpool with relative ease.
 
IMO the sending off of Van Persie wasn't ridiculous. In fact he should have been sent off before that, because IMO he lost it. Just search my mails in this and the Arsenal and CL threads about that match.

In fact, Barcelona got one lucky referee decision: that was against Chelsea a couple of years ago.

I completely agree with Ben's post. Barcelona is judged harsh now, because people have unreasonable expectations about that team.

You can't judge Barcelona's behavious by the classicos. Liverpool and Man Utd play different when they play each other, same goes for Celtic and Rangers, Inter and Milan...every big derby. Of course you can't judge Madrid neither, i'm well aware of that.

I don't condemn Madrid for all their fouls, this happens in such matches. What i condemn is the fact that one of the most expensive teams in the history of football play with 10 or eleven players inside their own half in a home match...it becomes a huge problem for the coach, if on top of that he also looses the match. Like i already said before: i'm pretty sure Mourinho is in big trouble, because Madrid also have a tradition of attractive, offensive (boring???) football. I remember Capello being sacked when he won la Liga..

And that blog: this guy talks out of his arse...
 
Right on the spot there gerd.

I am kinda on the fence with the Mourniho tactics. He only deploys this formation and takes these measures against Barcelona because that is how great Barcelona are. He played very attacking football against Milan,Lyon,and Tottenham. When he played an attacking formation against Barcelona, he got humiliated. Afterall, Wenger also parked the bus at the Camp Nou and he is by no means a defensive coach.

Another thing, calling Messi a diver is just ridiculous.
 
Messi dove ? When? Where? at what age was this? Short players like Messi, Arshavin and Tevez are too close to the ground to dive, more like a stumble and someone`s foot usually lifts them back up .Looks pretty cool Messi will dribble inside the box and the defender`s leg wont let him fall the poor bloke.
 
I think people are misreading alot of things in here.

Barcelona are a great footballing team, but they are just as snide and ungentlemanly as the next team.

There is an arrogance about the team in general if things don't go their way then they throw their toys out of the pram. Like many other teams. Against us (Arsenal) even though they were out playing us ridiculously, because it was a draw they were getting frustrated and they were acting badly in my opinion, which sparked our players off and started the stuff with Van Persie etc. Barcelona are not perfect and people have to except that, like everyother team.

I don't like the Barcelona team and it is hard to respect some of the things they do and their players do, but you can't help respect the way they play football.

I don't think they are worse than anyother team out there for diving etc, but the only reason they should be put on a pedestal is because of the way they play football, everyother thing they do is just like everyother normal football team. They simulate, cheat etc etc
 
As lo zio so eloquently pronounced Barcelona have not put themselves on a pedestal it is the media and some fans with their expectations.

It is up to the delinquents who run UEFA and FIFA to act and clean up the game because unless they do , clubs and players with the stakes now inflated so ridiculously will try and eke out any advantage they can and that inc.simulation to win penalties and get opposition players sent off.
 
gerd said:
I don't agree with the guy in that link beachryan.

Rune, it was never my intention to hurt your feelings. If i did: sorry. I don't mind to apologize.
Fact is that i still think you are using double standards. You think i'm biased towards Man Utd (i'm far less than you think, but i am yes) but believe i've never ever watched a match hoping a team would loose...

But i'm still convinced that some of the things you did not like about Barca can easlily be said about Man Utd (diving: Ronaldo and Nani).

I also think you misunterpreted what i wrote about a shit victory: hard won victories are almost never "bad" victories. But i understand that it's better to stop this discussion since you avoid it. It's as if both of us are living in completly different worlds.

No hard feelings.
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That doesnt excuse the fact that I've never come into a thread and tried to make a personal post about you and your bias against United (unless you brought it up first). But you take every opportunity to make comments like the "you'd rather die than admit it" type of thing. Which bothers me cuz its so far from the truth. If there was any truth in it then fair enough, but you're always saying the kind of things that try to portray me as extremely and blindly unbiased towards the team I support.

Like I said, this was a discussion about Barca and Madrid. Theres no need to inject United hatred into this. If you want to talk about it, do it after we've won a controversial victory and then lets discuss it in the United thread. Just cuz I dont comment on it, that doesnt mean I'm not admitting it happens. Yes it happens but when it does, what am I supposed to say? The bottom line is whether United cheat or dont cheat, whether they're fair or not fair, has no effect on Barca and their matches.
And right now I was talking about the way Barca defeated Madrid. If you have a way of justifying their victory where Pepe got sent off, both him and Ramos (and Jose) miss the 2nd leg, the way the likes of Pedro, Alvez, etc simulate injuries (especially Alvez who called for a stretcher, ridiculous), and the fact that all their players looked for decision all game to look for the advantage, then I wanna hear it (I mean justifying it as something other than a shit victory like I said earlier). And yes, its all their players even when they dont dive. For exmaple, if I accidently fouled Messi and accepted it was my fault, and I extended my hand to apologise, someone like Messi would fall over from the tackle, quickly grab the ball and look towards the ref for a card or any advantage taking decision, all whilst rudely ignoring the handshake. Thats not good sportsmanship, whether it was a dive or not. And it happens every time, every time Barca are threatened on the pitch, they resort to "using" the ref to win.

And you say other teams like United do it? Well we already have the reputation for occasionally doing it. Barca on the other hand are looked at like they're saints and cant do wrong, which is so far from the truth.
 
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You take this far too personal. Besides that i already apologised...but it seems that is not enough. So be it.
I don't deny anything that you said about Barcelona, but the things that bother you about Barcelona does not seem to bother you from your own team and their manager (who is constantly playing mind games). Am i exagerating? I know that not all United players beahve like that (Giggs would never do that, Scholes would never and i know damn well that Scholes is a fair player who just can tackle, hence his red cards, other United players would not do that). But what about Barcelona yesterday? Did Messi, Keita, Masscherano, Villa behave unfair? No they didn't.

Why do i bring this up in this thread and not in the United thread. Because i never visit that thread since i've been ostracized ("hatred", against a football club, come on...look in the CL thread: i said only positive things about United, i'm even a big fan of Ryan Giggs and Van Der Sar, in the English football thread i said Vidic should have been PFA player of the year..."hatred"...).

Do you remember when this all started years ago now? I do. I visited the United thread after the Glazier takeover and said almost literally: "as a former United fan i sympathize with the club".

I was ostracized for admitting that i was a former United fan (after that i made the big mistake of explaining why i stopped being a fan...).

Concerning Real-Barca: why are you only focussing on the negative points about Barcelona? I think there is no doubt whatsoever that Barcelona deserved to win that match.

But like i already said: no hard feelings.
 
:LOL:
That video pretty much shows what I mean. Look at the 0:44 point where Barca players are surrounding the ref (and what is Valdes doing there anyway?) with one Ozil talking to the ref.
And the theatrics is embarrassing in that video too. This is why I said it would have been a shit 1-0 victory with Barca had left with a narrow win. They were lucky to have Messi who scored a great individual goal that took some of the attention away.

That's it from me on this matter.
 
RuneEdge said:
:LOL:
That video pretty much shows what I mean. Look at the 0:44 point where Barca players are surrounding the ref (and what is Valdes doing there anyway?) with one Ozil talking to the ref.
And the theatrics is embarrassing in that video too. This is why I said it would have been a shit 1-0 victory with Barca had left with a narrow win. They were lucky to have Messi who scored a great individual goal that took some of the attention away.

That's it from me on this matter.
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same that copa del rey, but with real madrid.

cry it

mou want war?? ok, this the war, 0-2 go home...
 
Lol man this is all getting too funny. :D :LOL:

It's simple really. Just look at what Ben (lo zio) said.

"Oh my GOD!!?!? Barca cheats!?!?? Barca players aren't saints or prophets sent from up above!?!? Alves and Valdes are not GOD manifested in form of men?! NOooooooooo wayyy!!! "

lol No shit Sherlock! :D :LOL:

They're cheaters. They're scumbags and they have divers just like every other team including Mourinho's. If anything, maybe not as many.

Simple really. End of story.
 
Tbh, the comment that the media have hyped up Barca is correct. However the past few years they have started acting and believing the hype and have generated a huge collective arrogance that is showing both on and off the pitch.

What other team has the whole first 11 speak to the press moaning that another club should sell them their player because Barca wants them?! They do it every year with Arsenal, did it last year with Masch. Pre/post match press conferences have had them moaning about the opposition not "playing football". On the pitch they have a very narky streak when it isn't going their way, with the whole team ganging up on the ref to pressure him.

So I don't agree that it's only media and fans that have projected their lofty status, they are responsible aswell.
 
Tik you are generalising.
There are big assholes in Barcelona's squad, but every squad has assholes.
Football is more and more dog eat dog, the big clubs do everything to get bigger and to close the door for the litle clubs.
What football needs is just governing bodies. As long as people like that corrupt Swiss are a the helm of football, it's useless to expect ethic behaviour from clubs or players.

All the fuss around this match is exagerated...let's stay positive: yesterday evening i saw a wonderfull entertaining match between Villareal and Porto.
 
TikTikTikTikTik said:
What other team has the whole first 11 speak to the press moaning that another club should sell them their player because Barca wants them?!
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real madrid has done it for years (i still remember zidane's press conferences when the merengues were trying to get ronaldo from inter).... inter did it a few times with roma players. it's quite a common strategy infact.

u see tik, this is another of those cases of crap nationalistic media giving people a wrong perception. even though many clubs use theese sort of expedients, u get the idea that is a "barça thing" because english media keep coming out with vitriolic and caustic comments about that every season....
of course they don't write articles about the italian clubs wich do the same thing..... but that's only because italian clubs hardly sign players from premier league (epl players are way too expensive).... but that doesn't mean some italian clubs don't do the same. it's just that, since british clubs are not the target of italian clubs transfer campaigns, british media couldn't care less about it...

i remember i had a conversation on this topic with bobby last season. there's no room for "fair play" in negotiations. wheter it's a guy trying to buy a car or a club trying to buy a player, we always take advantage of whatever leverage we can get... it's absolutely normal... it might not be nice, but there's nothing "nice" about negotiations.

every summer italian clubs academies are "infested" with british scouts trying to snag under 18 italian talents without paying a penny.... sure it's not nice, but afterall that's business. the conflict between italian law and british law creates an opening for british club that allows them to "steal" italian youngsters from our acadamies. can we blame english clubs for doing that? honestly no. they just do their own interest and try to take advantage of this situation (just like any other club would do)...
..... but obviously u won't ever hear british media complaining about that ;)

if i can give u guys a sincere suggestion, stop reading or hearing or watching british sports media. trust me, u'll be better off :))
PLF said:
"Oh my GOD!!?!? Barca cheats!?!?? Barca players aren't saints or prophets sent from up above!?!? Alves and Valdes are not GOD manifested in form of men?! NOooooooooo wayyy!!! "

lol No shit Sherlock! :D :LOL:
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LOL! :LOL:
 
If Manchester United fans are trying to portray themselves as innocents in all of this considering how much pressure they put on referees and insinuate that there is a conspiracy against them they are no angels either.

You'd have to go back to the seventies to find a 'clean' side or players of the ilk of Sir Bobby and managers like Busby who did not resort to such underhand play.

The problem is football fans are fickle and hypocrites when it comes to their own clubs. They see all the failings in the opposition but rarely acknowledge it in their own heroes.
 
Yes, Spong, that's a great piece of narrow-minded investigation! I miss 50% of the reality there, mainly the 50% that would contain all the bad decisions of refs against us, or the times other players cheat against us or simply punch/kick our players without any punishment.

To make it easy for you I will give you some hints (only some of them, you have to work it out yourself) where you can start your work:

- Carvalho sacking Valdes at a corner at Stamford Bridge allowing Terry to score (4-2, we went out of the CL)

- The sending off of Abidal at Stamford Bridge 2 years ago, when Anelka dived like he was shot. Abidal never touched him.

- Eboue diving like being shot at the Paris final, without ever being touched by Puyol. It lead to a yellow card and a goal against us (would be nice to hear about this from Arsenal fans too).

- What happened at San Siro last year

- What happened at the Emirates this season

- You seem to forget the aggressions by Madrid players in the last Classicos that went unnoticed by the refs, as well as the divings from Di Maria or Ronaldo that costed us yellow cards.

I could go on and on, and only talking of "important" matches. But so could any supporter of any team. And for hours, days and months. In fact, you can waste all your life doing it. At the end, believing in this kind of conspiracies makes you as stupid as the people who are behind them want you to be.
 
Well no need ...even the Arsenal fans booed eboue. Yes, We at Arsenal have cheaters ,but we never win :LOL: You do realize it`s Jealously just like Mutd are hated for their success.Barca plays sweet refreshing and Arsenal tries to do the same. We are known to pass get more penalty then any other team. We`re called same old Arsenal always cheating, but since we don`t win. You wont see any vids on the Arsenal until we win is what I`m saying. Even Wenger said Barca Does Not get better treatment n Mou is wrong to say that. Sometime trying to justifies makes one seem guilty.
 
It is a bit of jealousy, along with the Barcelona are "meant" to be the good guys, they play the beautiful game and have Messi the poster boy of clean cut footballer and the fact that they do cheat (just like others) makes some sections angry because their meant to portray this good guy image like in a fairytale unfortunately that's not how things really are and Barcelona are just like everyone else they'll do whatever it takes to win and sometimes using underhand tactics works.

Basically the Media are wierdo's.
 
Indeed.

Back to football as it should be played.....

Wonderful video with wonderful music of Messi from VivaFutbol:

YouTube - Lionel Messi - Tango [HD]

The influence of the tango on Argentine football cannot be denied. There is a similarity to the steps and sweeps of the feet and there used to be a wonderful video of old Argentine players playing in the 1930's such greats as Peucelle and comparing them to the likes of Carlos Gardel.
 
today play front real sociedad.
is very important win today

without iniesta,puyol, barça can win half liga...

only 7 point to be champions.
 
well...
sociedad 2-1 barcelona
second lose in liga

r.madrid losed too, thanks to god

only 4 point to win.

next weekend, if madrid lose in sevilla, anda barça win to espanyol, finished.

fuck pinto....today you are kill the match...
 
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