FC Barcelona Thread

That first Messi goal was poetry in motion. Another exhibition, a master class how football should be played.
I've been watching football for 45 years now and this is definitely the best team i've ever seen. Only the Crvena Zvezda Beograd (Red Star Belgrado) team of the 90's (Prosinecki, Savicevic, Mihaijlovic, Belodedici,...) comes close...
 
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Yes Gerd, they did another lesson of football. The way the team ends up with nearly 80% of possession tells everything. When the key pieces are fit and play together (Xavi, Iniesta, Messi) it's amazing.

I was mesmerized again watching the team play. It'snot the result or the number of goals or chances... it's the way the team builds around a very simple premise: have the ball. And they build poetry, as you say, above it. And this was done in a match in which up to 11 homegrown players were in the team. I include Cesc in this list, I know he spent 8 years at Arsenal, but he was formed at La Masia as well.

Anyway, how many years will we spend until another team with an average of more than 7 homegrown players can win all what Barcelona is winning?

I don't get the Pep haters. They must be sore loosers, because Guardiola it's in the list of coaches that have done a revolution in football, up there with Arrigo Sacchi and other geniuses.

I had never seen a team that played exactly as I thought they should from my sofa. You're there in front of the TV thinking "the perfect pass would be that one" and bam! they do exactly that pass! And this happens 90% of the time. They are playing like a videogame. I mean, the match against Santos, if it had a Fifa 12 logo, people wolud be moaning about how perfect the players are passing all the time and ditching the game completely!

Yes, I'm happy, but also sad in a way, because I probably won't see again in my life my team playing that well and because such beauty it's too much to digest. A bit like in Stendhal syndrome, in which too much beauty it's too much to endure and people feints.
 
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I know what you're going to feel like drekkard, because I felt it after Michael Jordan stopped playing Basketball. NBA (and basketball) was never the same for me since, I still enjoy it a lot but MJ was just poetry in motion (like Barça is now).

One day we'll tell our grandchildren about that football team that made all others seem vulgar.
 
You will see other teams like this Barcelona...i thought i woul never see a player like Pele again...since then we had Maradonna, Messi and Zidane...

Cruijff's Ajax seemed unique, afterwards there was Sacchi's Milan, Cruijff's Barcelona, this Barcelona...the only frustrating team was Red Star Belgrade, because the team was broken up because of a civil war and because they won their CL title due to very negative, defensive football...but IMO they are one of the best teams ever...and maybe i think that because the unfulfilled promises...maybe if the team had stayed together it could have turned out that they would never have won the CL again...

This Barcelona team is fantastic, but most of you will see better teams than that one (maybe not necessarily Barcelona of course).
 
gerd said:
...but most of you will see better teams than that one (maybe not necessarily Barcelona of course).
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Well, that's THE PROBLEM Gerd, it surely won't be my Barcelona!!! :RANT:

As long as the team continues to play like this, I don't care if they win more or less trophies. It's the style that makes them big. As long as we have Messi in the team, I think we can cope even with Xavi retiring (in 2 or 3 years, though).

By the way, all of the greatest teams in history (and I mean the really big ones), had a lot of homegrown players in it. Maybe it means something...
 
That guy from Oklahoma City looks pretty good, but probably not the next Jordan...could well be 20 years since there will be another player like Jordan...but there always will be better player albeit because people forgot the stars. Who speaks about Leonidas, Puskas and Di Stefano nowadays? Same for the Austrian forward:playmaker who was fantastic...

I read an interview with an Argentinian former football player who played against La Maquina, the fantastic River Plate team...that guy swore Maradonna wasn't the best Argentinian football player ever (this was when Leo Messi was very young, a big talent but not the player he is now). The guy talked about a player of that River team as the best player ever..i had never heard about that player.
 
Kobe is the closest thing to MJ but not exactly the same. Don't buy the "LeBron James next Jordan" stuff. Durant is good but there will be always a gap between him and the King. Sportsman like Jordan, Federer, Maradona and Merckx are unique.

I'm surprised no one in here mentioned that lovely Brazil team from 82. Man, best footie I've ever seen! :)
 
That Brazil team was a joy to watch but they lacked a half decent GK (the man was an absolute disaster), a good CF and...silverware. I love that team, but it is also responsible for the fact that since then Brazil are the most boring national team to watch. Every WC, i have only one wish: no matter who wins, but not Brazil. Do i hate that team? Absolutely not, i think they are boring....
 
You're absolutely right Gerd. Waldir Peres was a very weird goalkeeper, I mean, not saying he was awful at all but sometimes he conceded some really odd goals. Oh and Serginho the striker, he eventually played at Marítimo but the guy was below average in my point of view. Basically, Brazil 82' lacked a proper killer and a secure gk. However, their football is quite a joy to watch. Since my dad introduced me that team I've never stopped watching them, lots of hours seeing the likes of Zico, Sócrates, Cerezo, Falcão...

And yes, they become pragmatic ever since. That "samba" has pretty much lost since that WC. Brazil NT realized they needed to change their mentality in order to win again... and they won! But not in a stylish and entertaining way.
 
Caution, long post! I got more and more enthusiastic and finally came with a very long post. Read at your own risk. :BRMM:

Brazil 82
Well, I'll risk being impopular here... I watched Brazil in 82. I watched them live, at Sarria stadium. And from what I recall, they weren't THAT good.

Granted, I was a child then, about 9 years old, but they didn't specially awe me. Plus, they lost to Italy who would win the tournament, and frankly no way Brazil was much better than Italy that day.

I watched again the match one or two years ago, and I still think the same, they were a typical Brazilian team for the period, with lots of quality in the middle with Socrates and Zico but they couldn't defend to save their lives. If you don't have killer forwards (and they didn't) to me that's an unbalanced team. I would put a LOT of teams above them if I had to do a ranking of best teams I've watched.

The best way to defend
On the other hand, there's something I'm very proud of current Barcelona and not many really come to notice. There's a lot of people who says that the weak point of the team is the defense.

Well, Barcelona has been the team with less goals against in any important competition in the last 3 years. Not only that, it's also the team with less shots against. That's brutal. Obviously, it comes into play having an average of 70% possession. When you have the ball, the other team can't attack. But the ratio of opponent possessions/shots on target is scandalously low. That means that the whole team defends a lot and well. The high pression of the forward and midfield lines make them recover the ball quickly or force the opponents into hush passing that leads to error.

But the deffensive line is in the opponent pitch most of the match, so you have to be VERY good positionally to cover spaces well. Barcelona played with 3 defenders at Bernabeu. Madrid scored on a silly mistake, but in open play they only managed to shoot 4 times. Probably the second best team in the world, against a 3 men deffense at halfline. That shows that defending is not putting 11 men behind the ball. Effective defending starts WITH the ball and ends with the off ball pressure.

Why Guardiola is one of the greatest ever
Another thing people don't fully understand is the way Guardiola has done a total revolution tactically and strategically and he does things no one had done before. To start, there's no striker. You won't find any Barcelona player standing next to the opponent CBs. And the most nearby players will probably be two wingmen attached to the sidelines. For most fo the time you won't find any Barcelona player near the goal. That's a smart strategy, mind you.

The CBs have no one to mark. Then, suddenly, one of the 5 midfielders do a run inside. But Messi has the ball. The CBs must have one eye watching Messi or Xavi with the ball, while the other eye is trying to catch any cutting midfielder. And you have to compenetrate with the other CB, so each one follows a different man and not the same. And then, suddenly, Barcelona passes the ball back and you have no one to mark again. Except someone suddenly receives near you. Will one of the CBs come out to close spaces? Or rest back doing nothing? If you ever played as a CB, you know that's pretty difficult, and strange. It's hard to train how to stop it. At one point, some midfielder will break free, or one CB will follow the wrong lead, or they will create space for the Messi drive in, or...

Imagine Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, Pedro, Alexis... all of them coming from midfield or cutting in from the wings. Some of them cutting in and then out again. But not always the same players and not always in the same paths. There's no algorithm there, it depends on the play and the players themselves. Add Cesc there... a player that can't even describe his position in the field because Guardiola asked him to have no position at all (that's brilliant), to simply move following the team on the other side of the ball, and then come by surprise. He's scoring a lot.

The result is that sometimes Barcelona plays with 6-7 attacking midfielders and no forwards. That's exactly what they did against Santos and that's why it was a match to put in football schools. Midfield line was: Thiago, Cesc, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, Alves with Busquets doing DMF or CB, depending on the play. So Barcelona played a 3-1-6-0. 0 forwards against Santos. Result: 0-4, biggest win in the finals of this tournament.

That is for all the Guardiola haters out there, or those who still think Mourinho is a magician and Pep a lucky guy that found good players. Yes, he's got the luck to have Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi... the same players thant ended 18 points away from Madrid and won nothing for 2 years, that lost 4-1 at Bernabeu and were out of the CL at 1/8.

Xavi told the press the other day: "The way Pep plans a match is amazing. He says that something will happen and it happens. And he has it all in his mind." Someone asked Pep how he would mark Neymar. He said: "With the ball".

Why Cruyff has also been one of the greatest ever
There's a nice story about Cruyff that Guardiola likes to remember when he talks about what should be in football schools. Once, Barcelona was to play against a team in which there was a very good player at getting unmarked. He would break the marking man to reach dangerous positions all the time. They asked Cruyff what he had planned about it. He answered with a smile: "Oh, yes, he's one of the best getting unmarked... So we won't mark him". And they didn't. They let him receive the ball to dispossess him. He couldn't cut defenders because the defender stood always some meters away from him. Barcelona won the match and that forward din't have a single chance to score. That's genius and that's the kind of things that define the greatest of all times, be it Jordan, Messi, Maradona, Pelé, Cruyff or Picasso.
 
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About your assumption of Brazil `82 at 9 yrs old :LOL: . Barcelona has no guarantee they`ll be the same next season or the following. Your bless to enjoy the moment. Every club had it`s glory days some fans get to see more than the others. Having the players to execute to plan is the most important ingredient and Pep has the lot!

Good post, you express yourself well, enjoyed the read!
 
Very well said drekkard. Nice post.

I especially like the part about Barca's impressive way of 'defending' which IS something that goes unnoticed by most and the special tribute to the revolutionary Pep Guardiola who is still under-rated by many.

I agree with almost everything you said and have no opinion on the 82 Brazil as I wasn't even born to watch them.
 
I agree with drekkards post about Guardiola, and Barcelona's defending...not so sure about Cruijff. I would like to see Cruijff as a manager of teams like Atalanta, Real Sociedad, De Graafschap, Valenciennes... (as a matter of fact Guardiola too).

About the 1982 Brazil team...i was 20 years old then (PLF, do you realize i could be your father, that must be a scary thought!) and i do remember that tournament pretty well (Belgium won the opening match against Argentina with 1-0, this is the match with the famous Maradonna picture surrounded by Belgian players...everybody forgets that Maradonna was in the loosing camp then...).
This was a great WC in an era where realistic football was in fashion. In 1970 we had seen the best national team ever (Brazil) and from then on football become more cynical...people tend to forget that the fantastic Dutch team with Cruijff and Rensenbrink had also extremely cynical and brutal players like Suurbier, Rijsbergen, Neeskens and Van Hanegem. And Germany played football even more cynical from 1974 until 2006. Even Brazil became a cynical team. The 1978 WC was one of the most dire WC's i remember (together with the 1990 WC)...And suddenly there is a coach (Tele Santana) who wants his team to play samba football. Was this a strong team? Not really. They played very attractive football and had some fantastic individual players like Zico, Socrates, Cerezo, Falcao and Eder (this one was my favourite, he scored a stunning goal against Scotland). The attractive part about this team was that they could not defend and therefore had only one option: play gungho attacking football. They are remembered because they scored some spectacular goals...But when they had to play the cynical (but strong) Italian team, of course they lost.
IMO, that Italian team should never have won that WC. They barely mlade it out of the group stage in a group with Cameroun, Peru and Poland. Italy were a litle bit lucky to go through that round. Then they played extremely cynical (Gentile!) against Argentina and Maradonna. Against Brazil all they had to do was playing an intelligent counter-attacking football. IMO they were also lucky with the result of the infamous Germany-France match in Sevilla (the match with the Schumacher-Battiston incident). Germany won that match after penalties, the Germans were tired and they could play a relatively fresh Italian team (with a Giuseppe Rossi in top form who had barely played in Serie A because of the Tottonero scandal). I'm not saying that this Italian team did not deserve to win the WC, i'm not saying this was a bad team (Zoff, Cabrini, Tardelli, Conti and the best player of them all: the magnificent Gaetano Scirea) but this was a team that did not win the WC in style like the Italian team that won it 2006...

Conclusion: Brazil 1982 were not a strong team, but they were a fantastic, memorable and very spectacular team...the last Brazilian team i enjoyed. That team for me was somehow the benchmark for all other Brazilian teams that followed. Quite a few of these teams were much stronger, but they were pretty boring compared to that team. Having seen Brazil 1970 and 1982 i don't understand what all the fuss is about when people talk about Samba football...since 1982 Brazil has never again played samba football as a team (individual players did, but not the team). Personally i find Brazilian football the most boring and overrated football in the world although at times they had the best players in the world.
 
gerd said:
Personally i find Brazilian football the most boring and overrated football in the world although at times they had the best players in the world.
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You really need to be more tactful in your opinion :LOL: I fully understand where you getting at ,but this could be another RVP debacle. Brasil imo are so important to the game and WC like Apple is to the technology . Brasil *5 and Italy*4 and Germany*3 very strong country and they brought importance to the game in whole. I can`t knock a country that brought more trophies on the world stage :SMUG: especially when the setting has nothing to do with buying players :P
 
bebo said:
You really need to be more tactful in your opinion :LOL: I fully understand where you getting at ,but this could be another RVP debacle. Brasil imo are so important to the game and WC like Apple is to the technology . Brasil *5 and Italy*4 and Germany*3 very strong country and they brought importance to the game in whole. I can`t knock a country that brought more trophies on the world stage :SMUG: especially when the setting has nothing to do with buying players :P
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You're right about being tactfull...my posts are never meant to hurt someone.
About Brazil: i guess you are right too, but generally i don't like the way the national team of Brazil plays...i can't deny that they are strong, but i don't like their style of playing.
Man Utd is the strongest English team, but Spurs are my favourite team and i prefer Arsenal's playing style (although lately Spurs are more Arsenal than Arsenal at times).
 
Lovely, lovely posts by Alexis and Gerd. Amazing read. You both wrote about some quite interesting points, specially those regarding to vintage football. I'm one of those crazy guys who spend hours watching old football and basketball games. I think it's important to know the past in order to understand the present and plan the future (odd sentence, isn't it :LOL:)

Just two side notes:
@ Alexis, imo Pep Guardiola is a genius. The way he sets his philosophy and tactics in the game is extraordinary. From my point of view, Guardiola is a visionary and he'll be remembered as football revolutionary. Like Muricy Ramalho (Santos coach) said after the final, the way you play and the tactics you use are an absurd, in a good meaning of course. Play without strikers? That's f'n insane! However somehow you manage to handle a perfect and harmonious game even without a proper poacher.

Anyway, I'm still expecting Pep to take his talents to somewhere else to see what is capable of in another league. For instance, Luis Enrique who is trying to implement is own philosophy into AS Roma team, is falling apart. It would be nice to see how Guardiola would react in a different context.

Oh, and btw, being a Mourinho fan doesn't mean you are a Guardiola hater! As you can see I like them both. Different ways to be in football. :COOL:


@ Gerd and Bebo regarding Brazil, well, as told Gerd before, he is absolutely right when he says Brazil became much more pragmatic after that 82 WC. And yes, in my honest opinion, brazilian teams are less attractive now than, i.e., Argentina or this new German generation. However, I don't think they are boring or even overrated at all. Players like Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Bebeto and Ronaldinho are all about "samba". However, for some reason, those players, they can't play as a whole team, which is a shame because they would have been sick good if they played like an orchestra! :D


@ Sina, my dear friend, you are a bit older than me so obviously we haven't watch that lovely Brasil team live. So I would recommend you to watch some Brazil 82 action in ESPN Classic or YouTube. Man, such a joy to watch! You won't regret bro! :)


Two side notes have ended in a long post! I'm a f'n lair! :LOL:
 
I'll give it a go when I get a chance bro, thanks. And yeah I was born 87. :)

Gerd, I do realize that but no it's not a scary thought. :) You could be the father of pretty much 99% of this board though. :P I think drekkard, bebo and Edmundo probably are 3 of the few you can't be. Everyone else here could be your children. :D
 
@The_Special_One

I feel Luis Enrique is a TBD. Did you ever get to see the ZM article on him?
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/12/14/luis-enrique-roma-tactics-barcelona/

He's not doing great, he's young so many mistakes are to be expected, the main question being will he get the chance to go further? Expectations are high for a club like Roma, then again a "new" system like this is hard to bring about all of a sudden.
 
drekkard said:
Thnaks Bebo! Happy xmass for everyone, even for TSO and the rest of merengues out there!
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:LOL: "Even for TSO"

Merry Christmas Alexis and all of you guys in this thread (a bit late though) and a happy New Year. Hope that you enjoyed Knicks win last night my friend! :BOP:


@m7m_teddy

Sorry mate but what's a TDB? Happy holidays to you as well.
 
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The usual lesson of possession football at the Bernabeu, and the usual dirty tackles and shameful brutality of some madrid players. Madrid should have ended with maximum 8 players. I cant understand how Carvalho could end the match, I guess the clown mourinho will say some coward bullshit as usual.

Cristiano finally seemed to be important in a Classico, but at the end the barcelona midfield was too much for Madrid.

Madrid in my oppinion was poor. Only 2 shots at goal. They were lucky to be ahead in the first half, but putting 10 men behind the ball it's quite coward. I hoped a more brave Madrid with high pressure, not just resorting to long bombs all the time.

And what about Pepe... An imbecile who should be banned from its profession.
 
Happy Birthday Guardiola! You continue to embarass and outclass Mourinho! :LOL:

Well done Barca. Puyol, Sanchez, Cesc, everybody gave their all. And if it wasn't for less than perfect goalkeeping from Pinto on that first shot, Real and Ronaldo wouldn't have scored at all at home even.

Pepe needs to be banned for life!
 
Abidal + Puyol score on bernabeu, oh god.. what happend to you Real, now defenders score against you!

Pepe should be taken to Siberian death camp.

Guardiola WE LOVE YOU! Happy birthday!
 
Delighted.
What a shame that this coward Real team will win La Liga, but Barcelona have to blame themselves in that case. They will win the classico in Nou Camp in La Liga, but this win could well be totally irrelevant.
 
It's too early to tell still Gerd. A lot can happen but yeah probably that'll be the case.

@Enzo, yeah and the good thing is not only do Puyol and Abidal score but they were NICE goals! I love Puyol's goal! What a f'n player! He really is TARZAN! :LOL:
 
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