FC Barcelona Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

aaronh007 wrote: »

Lol... would you maybe like some sugar with that lemon you're sucking on? Might make it a bit sweeter, although maybe you like the bitterness?

Warper wrote: »

Argentina are hardly rubbish plus they have Messi who is capable of taking them the whole way. The Argie squad is full of world-class players.

CongoPowers wrote: »

I think they've looked better under Sabella. I guess we'll see.

CongoPowers wrote: »

Haha tbh, you're still not wrong. Argentina are weak in the same places. Tonight was just another friendly after all, but I do think they're coming on bit by bit under Sabella. After the game he was talking about how they should try and give Messi more options rather than asking him to carry from deep and do everything. That's a step forward I guess

I'm not hopeful about the Spain game. Maybe Soldado could even solve their '9' problem. Commentators were saying that the Czechs were good preparation for the Spain game since they supposedly keep the ball well etc, but I don't know, there isn't another international team like them. Could be a long 90 mins..

What’s wrong with Barcelona these days? Jake Meador has a few ideas:

In his tribute to Dutch soccer, Brilliant Orange, journalist David Winter writes of how the Dutch brand of attractive, free-flowing beautiful soccer always seemed to be overcome by a more utilitarian, pragmatic (German) approach. In the history of the game, this isn’t unusual. One of the classic problems facing anyone involved with the game is whether it’s better to play beautifully or to produce wins. Traditionally, the Dutch opted for the former and the Germans and Italians for the latter. (Meanwhile, the Brazilians managed both while the English, generally speaking, struggled to do one.)

For proponents of joga bonito, the last several years have been enormously gratifying as a club team has managed to win every trophy possible while playing a possession-based style dependent upon an almost unfathomable combination of technical skill, team movement, and tactical understanding.

Some might say this style isn’t “beautiful” but it’s undeniable that the style requires a remarkable and hitherto unseen amount of technique and team skill. Pep Guardiola’s men have challenged the old idea that beautiful football and trophies couldn’t go hand-in-hand. For idealists, there has probably never been a more glorious 90 minutes of football than Barcelona’s 5-0 win over Real Madrid last season.

Yet this year some chinks have appeared in the Catalan armor. While the side has been as overwhelming as ever in this season’s clasicos, their domestic form has suffered. Despite their impressive 3-1 win at the Bernabeu in this season’s first league clasico, the Catalans currently find themselves 10 points behind Real Madrid with only 14 games to play. Though both sides have two losses, the Blaugrana have had six draws while the Merengues have had only one. And those ten points have made all the difference.

So what has caused the drop?

Those prone to stating the obvious will cite injuries – David Villa, Alexis Sanchez, Gerard Pique, Cesc Fabregas and Andres Iniesta have all missed time this year, as has increasingly-fragile skipper Carles Puyol. While ignoring their lack of fitness would be unfair, it would be equally wrong-headed to ignore other potential causes, the most notable of which is that they simply aren’t scoring enough goals or, put better, they aren’t scoring consistently.

While Barça has scored 70 goals on the campaign, many have come in bunches. 55 have come in only 12 matches, which leaves them at a comparatively-pedestrian 1.25 goals per game in the remaining 12 matches in which they’ve gone 4-6-2. This suggests that there’s a deeper tactical or stylistic problem that may be manifesting itself.

I believe the problem goes back to their tendency this season to play without a striker on the field (which is different, it should be noted, from a strikerless formation). Even before his injury at the Club World Cup, Villa often found himself on the bench this season. He didn’t get his first start until the third league match (perhaps not coincidentally, Barça’s most prolific day of the season in which they beat Osasuna 8-0 at the Camp Nou). Yet in the following week when Barça returned to his old stomping grounds in Valencia, Villa was back on the bench.

And it’s worth noting: Barça never replaces him with another established out-and-out striker. Instead, they tended to use new arrivals Sanchez or Fabregas in his spot, playing something that could alternative be described as 4-6-0 or 3-1-4-2 (depending on whether you’re concerned more with the player’s role in the squad or their positioning on the field).

It’s also worth noting that in almost all of Barça’s most prolific games, Villa started. Since Villa’s injury, they’ve only had three big goal-scoring games: 4-2 over Betis with a Messi brace, 4-1 over Malaga with a Messi hattrick, and 5-1 over Valencia with Messi scoring four.

But when Villa hasn’t started and Messi has lacked that special Michael-Jordan-at-Boston-Garden quality, Barça have struggled for goals. In the eight games since Villa went down, they’ve gone 5-2-1, dropping seven points during a stretch in which Madrid have ripped off nine consecutive wins. Those seven dropped points account for the difference between the clubs since Barça pulled within three after the clasico.

‘Team Orgasm’ and Tactical Idealism

Another way of saying it: it’s no secret that this is Guardiola’s most idealistic squad ever assembled. When he took over in 2008, he had two strikers in Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry plus Messi up top. That was the six trophy team; the most successful in terms of silverware but, for those who judge by less objective measures, not Guardiola’s best team. The next season he dropped Henry and swapped Eto’o for Zlatan Ibrahimovic, leading to the weakest of Pep’s sides and the side that went out in the Champions League semifinals to Mourinho’s Inter, forever cementing Mourinho’s increasingly-dubious reputation as a Barça-beater.

Last season saw Ibra’s departure and Villa’s arrival and it made for what Marca dubbed “Team Orgasm.” The club went from September to January without losing a match. (And the January loss came in the second leg of a Copa del Rey tie in which they’d won the first leg 5-0.)

In all competitions Barcelona lost only five matches the entire season – a fluke week two loss to Hercules in La Liga and an end-of-season loss to Real Sociedad in an inconsequential game where Barça were more concerned about resting starters for the Champions League than picking up three points. The remaining three losses came in the aforementioned Copa del Rey tie, the Copa final against Real Madrid, and Arsenal’s 2-1 win at the Emirates.

Looking back, the 2010-11 edition of Barcelona struck the perfect balance between idealistic joga bonito and the cutting edge ruthlessness in front of goal necessary to win silverware. Interestingly, they played a formation not dissimilar from this year’s: three in traditional defensive positions, Sergio Busquets on top of them as a destroyer/regista all-in-one, Dani Alves marauding down the right, Xavi and Iniesta pinging passes through the midfield and a front three consisting of two wingers and Messi in the false nine role.

Both last year and this they played a strikerless formation. And it’s worked: Barça are capable of passing the ball into the net by playing 20+ perfectly placed, perfectly-weighted short passes. But even for a team of Barcelona’s calibre, doing that multiple times in every game, finishing the chances, and keeping the other team out of the net is phenomenally difficult, as this year has amply demonstrated. And so a striker like Villa, who can hit goals like the 3rd in last year’s Champions League final against Manchester United, is indispensable.

The point is that playing a strikerless formation and playing without a striker are not the same thing. For all their quality in other areas, Fabregas and Sanchez lack the two qualities most essential to Villa’s game: sublime finishing combined with an uncanny ability to pop up in the right spot at the right time. Last year when the passing wasn’t flowing as well, Barca knew either Villa or Messi could create something on their own to rescue them.

But this year, there’s no Villa and, due to his role in their formation, Messi usually receives the ball so far from goal that it can be difficult – even for Messi – to create a goal on his own. Fabregas and Sanchez have, at times, made the passing even more fluent and the movement even more marvellous, but they haven’t been able to provide Villa’s goals.

It seems, then, that we may be approaching the ends of tactical idealism. When Madrid has attacked them, Barcelona have proven capable of scoring goals without a striker. But when teams park the bus, those passing lanes close down and even Barça’s collection of midfield maestros struggle to unlock the defence.

But when there isn’t an Eto’o, Henry, Ibra or Villa up front to create something on their own, where do the goals come from? Based on this season’s returns, the answer is: they don’t. The goals dry up, points get dropped and now, just past the midpoint of the season, Team Orgasm finds themselves looking up at a Madrid team they’ve already beaten multiple times this season.

In years past, Guardiola has found that magical balance between the idealism of joga bonito and the right sort of pragmatism in front of goal, even while publicly disavowing a pragmatic approach to the game. This year that blend has eluded the Catalans – and if they don’t find a way to recapture it, so too will the league title.

Source.

Mars Bar wrote: »

Nicely worked goal leaves an easy finish for iniesta.

Messi isn't in the squad. Is he injured?

Mars Bar wrote: »

What's that mendy fella's first name?

Jernal wrote: »

Mars Bar wrote: »

What's that mendy fella's first name?

Formose?