10 - Lionel Messi - v5

[DonAndres]

Terrible game, but the bigger problem is that I'm getting major flashbacks to 2012-2014 problems with Messi false 9. When he is lazy and doesn't drop back deeper, he gets completely isolated and doesn't see any of the ball. It's like he's having a Ronaldo poacher game except our team is nowhere near good enough to get the ball to him in transition, and he's way too static off the ball to get the ball in space and attack.

If Messi doesn't have a good game, the team doesn't have a good game. We won by a shitty OG today, and this "win streak" is hiding major problems. A game like this against a top team will punish us BIG time. Unless Messi has 9/10-10/10 performances in every single KO game in the CL, we'll get fucked when he has a bad game or they overwhelm him with marking. I don't expect he'll be that flawless in every game, far from it. That's why I expect a quarterfinal exit, maybe even R16 if we draw a tricky opponent (or semis/finals if we keep getting shit draws like RM in 2016). This is not what a CL winning team looks like, and without season-defining RM level luck they will not win the CL with the team structured as is.

 

[Ousmane Dembélé]

I agree with the general sentiment here, he got the ball a ton of times on the edge of the area, but instead of going for goal he kept trying to feed the donkey Suarez. I believe the following lineup will get the best out of Leo:

Ter Stegen

Semedo-Pique-Umtiti-Alba

Roberto-Busquets-Paulinho

Deulofeu-Messi-Denis

 

[gatsu]

Completely neutralized by sporting tactic. Sadly it will be like that against every good side. If the other players doesnt step up the season could get ugly.

 

[kilian]

It`s ridiculous to blame Suarez for Messi`s bad performance. He was bad, made shit decisions and that`s it. Not his first bad game, probably not the last. He will bounce back. But he alone won`t be good enough to win CL this year. First big team will kick us out.

 

[ronniecro]

he doesn't have anyone to play with,iniesta is getting old,suarez is played out of his position and is in terrible form and everyone else is plain rubbish,he can kiss goodbye any individual awards for this and the next year

 

[DonAndres]

Ronaldo's real legacy was made after he turned 30, his wasn't all that impressive prior to then. With Barca's position now and Argentina barely qualifying if they even manage to, Messi's post 30 legacy is already probably dead with minimal silverware on the horizon.

Terrible way to close out the career of a once in a lifetime talent like Leo. As fans we've suffered RM/Ronaldo's success badly enough and will continue to, but Messi having to go through the same and take the hit for his own career makes it all 10x worse.

 

[KingLeo10]

Ronaldo's real legacy was made after he turned 30, his wasn't all that impressive prior to then. With Barca's position now and Argentina barely qualifying if they even manage to, Messi's post 30 legacy is already probably dead with minimal silverware on the horizon.

Terrible way to close out the career of a once in a lifetime talent like Leo. As fans we've suffered RM/Ronaldo's success badly enough and will continue to, but Messi having to go through the same and take the hit for his own career makes it all 10x worse.

calm down, the good news is that messi himself doesn't seem to be on a decline. he's a little off his absolute best but still comfortably best individual player in the world. as for real's success, things change very fast in football. we went from being unstoppable in 2015 to being putrid in less than 2 seasons, bayern used to have a bench of WC players in 2014 and can't beat a big team these days to save their lives. there's plenty of time for luck and other factors to swing things back in messi's favor. i'm sure many of us thought his legacy was over after the tata season and 2014 WC disappointment but then 2015 happened...

 

[Mitchell1978]

Ronaldo's real legacy was made after he turned 30, his wasn't all that impressive prior to then. With Barca's position now and Argentina barely qualifying if they even manage to, Messi's post 30 legacy is already probably dead with minimal silverware on the horizon.

Terrible way to close out the career of a once in a lifetime talent like Leo. As fans we've suffered RM/Ronaldo's success badly enough and will continue to, but Messi having to go through the same and take the hit for his own career makes it all 10x worse.

What a terrible negative outlook after one or 2 bad games. Plus unwise to draw conclusions after a bad performance.
Winning the CL is always hard for barça and probably unrealistic with this squad and the talent that we have right now but winning the league is possible. Just need to avoid unneccessary mistakes.

 

[TS88]

Completely neutralized by sporting tactic. Sadly it will be like that against every good side. If the other players doesnt step up the season could get ugly.

Yes I agree but everybody else seems to think Messi was really bad and that Sporting didn't contribute to that. Yes he wasn't great but Sporting did not allow him to be great, he had to really fight to create any kind of danger. A younger Messi would have done much better in this kind game but of course he is 30 years old now and cannot do everything on his own all the time. He really needs real quality players around him at this stage of his career or he is going to be neutralised by good teams, let alone WC teams like he was today.

 

[DonAndres]

calm down, the good news is that messi himself doesn't seem to be on a decline. he's a little off his absolute best but still comfortably best individual player in the world. as for real's success, things change very fast in football. we went from being unstoppable in 2015 to being putrid in less than 2 seasons, bayern used to have a bench of WC players in 2014 and can't beat a big team these days to save their lives. there's plenty of time for luck and other factors to swing things back in messi's favor. i'm sure many of us thought his legacy was over after the tata season and 2014 WC disappointment but then 2015 happened...

I don't think Messi has declined as an individual (tho these past 2 games he has been poor individually). It's the system he's being placed in that's totally figured out tactically, as well as the complete lack of a capable supporting cast that will put us down.

Yes things can change but do you think Fartomeu can do it? Things are far worse now on an administrative level than they were in 2014. Robert and Segura are beyond shocking sporting directors and are responsible for the absolute worst transfer window of Barca in recent history by far. I personally feel like this season in the CL is already a foregone conclusion barring miraculous luck. Seasons after will depend greatly on transfers and idk if Coutinho alone is enough to fix our litany of squad issues (assuming we even get Coutinho). Rakitic continuing as a starter is one key thing that IMO singlehandedly keeps us from being a real CL contender. Let alone Suarez declining at an extraordinary rate and Iniesta being at the very end of his career. Bayern have been declining steadily ever since their treble, tho they managed to be 'perceived' as a CL winning team until now despite never proving to be on that level.

What a terrible negative outlook after one or 2 bad games. Plus unwise to draw conclusions after a bad performance.
Winning the CL is always hard for barça and probably unrealistic with this squad and the talent that we have right now but winning the league is possible. Just need to avoid unneccessary mistakes.

Not just a bad performance, but a growing pattern. It looks almost impossible for this team to have a great game unless Messi does, let alone against top sides. If Messi doesn't produce amazing performances despite poor support in EVERY SINGLE CL knockout leg then we'll get punished for it. And this false 9 system has been figured out time and time again, and EV is executing it in a way that lets tough defending teams to isolate Messi.

The league may be in our hands, but what will that mean if we once again can't do well in the CL? Every year taking bad, early exits in the CL is much more significant than winning a league title after capitalizing on RM's poor form. Not saying that we absolutely have to win it, but we do have to do a lot better than we did in the past 2 years and I frankly can't see that happening with this team.

 

[denn]

He just wasn't up for it, similar to Girona away. Yes, Sporting did good job on him, but when he's in his mode, there isn't any problem for him.

 

[clemente]

He gets marked by like 5 people every time he gets the ball, problem today was there was neither Deulofeu or Vidal to expose that, I dont even expect Suarez to make shit happen now... He needs to get back that false 9 role back and just rely on team to get him chances.

 

[JamDav1982]

He was poor and is one of the players that contributes to the lacklustre feel about the team as he moves so little and played with no urgency unless ball lands at his feet.

Dont expect Messi to win games like these but he could do a lot more to try and increase the pace and urgency of the game. Look to get on ball more and influence things.

Was flicking between games tonight and the urgency and pace to the other top teams was frightening compared to Barca and Messi gets a pass on that as he is a genius on the ball but in some games he could show more off the ball to try and change things.

Cant have a Messi who is basically a liability defensively surrounded by players like Suarez, Iniesta and Rakitic. Need to have players that compliment him better than that and are able to put in that hard graft.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

He looked tired and slow today. Something was wrong certainly.

 

[Truthist]

It's like my last post, Valverde needs to manage him better or the freshness in his game isnt there. Once we are 3 or 4 up, get him out of there and rest him.

I also think we need to make a big call away from home and bench Suarez and let Messi roam further forward or we are just going to get over run tactically.