A world/Barca without Messi?

[BBZ8800]

We don't have matches now, so maybe it is time for theoretical questions.

I would like to hear the opinion of other fans, what do you think, how many Champions league trophies we would have won if we never "found" Messi.
So, let's say that Messi was never born at all (so, he is not playing for Real, Man. Utd, Bayern or some other club. Let's imagine that he never existed...)

So, imagine a world from 2006 till today.
In 2006' we won a title with Ronnie-Etoo-Guily-Larsson-Xavi-Deco-Iniesta-Puyol etc.
And now, imagine that we hadn't started to build our future on young Messi, but that instead we continued with Ronnie-Etoo-Henry and who knows whom else we would buy eventually.

So, Messi was our leader in 2009, 2011 and 2015 trophies, and with some luck, we could have won even more trophies.
But now imagine all those teams and all those years WITHOUT Messi, and you can place some random new player in our team who would probably took his spot.
(Imagine even the current team with Neymar-Suarez-and some 3rd guy in the attack, maybe Reus, maybe Hazard, maybe Pedro, maybe Alexis).

The question is, do you think that Barca would be as famous as today?
Would we win 3 trophies in the last 7 years in Champions league?
Would we dominate teams like today, would other teams be afraid of us etc?

The other question could be, and I am even afraid to ask something like that:
= imagine if Real Madrid discovered Messi, and that Real had Messi on his prime in the last 10 years, plus all those Millions from uncle Flo invested in other players to play with Messi...
Imagine if we had to play AGAINST Messi in the last 10 years. Both in La Liga and in Champions league semifinals and finals every single year...

Thanks

 

[DonAK]

Really bad timing considering the outcome of the elections

Don't even want to think about how it would've been without Messi or how it'll be without him in the future. One thing's for sure though, Barca was there before Messi, will be there after him too.

 

[Icarium]

We would have signed Ronaldo and instead of becoming a goal poacher he is now he will flourish in the barca team with xavi and iniesta. Gain couple of skills and lead the team. But definitely not as good as messi and winning 3 in the last 7 is not possible too. But we could win at least 1 trophy and if our brand goes similarly we can even win 2 CL's but 2 trebles will never happen. This is the case if messi isn't born, i don't want to think about the situation of real discovering messi.

Messi is great and all but it is not just him that made barca what it is now, he is just the outcome of our brilliant system. If he remained in Argentina until a big club snatches him he would never have gained the intelligence he demonstrates on the pitch. I hope people understand the importance of la masia in shaping players like messi, xavi, iniesta, busi.....

 

[hamidyk]

"4 or more. We would win even more CL titles without Messi than with him"

Are you kidding????

 

[Cule4life]

Messi is not pretty enough for perez. He would never sign him

 

[bismp]

We can't actually know.
If Messi never existed,there would probably be many changes in our transfer deals.So,depending on how the board would have handled the situation,i assume that we would get either no cl trophies,or 1 trophy,or maybe even 2 trophies.More specifically:

-If the board would decide to stick with Ronnie,Deco,Eto'o,Henry and all the other guys for many years(let's say until 2010),then we would definitely get no CL trophies,because the old players would perform badly and the Xavi/Iniesta would have lost their best years.After 2010,it would be difficult to create a new team,as guys like Pedro,Busquets,Pique etc wouldn't be in Barca in this scenario.So,0 CLs in this scenario.In fact,in this scenario,we would probably end up like Milan.

-If the transfer policy would have been more or less the same with the real one(until let's say 2012),which means that we would have taken/promoted Busquets,Pedro,Pique,Zlatan,Villa,Cesc etc,plus we would have experienced Xavi and Iniesta,i can see us getting at least one CL.Especially if Pep was around.

-Finally,if we would have taken Ronaldo(because,let's face it:CR has been by far the second best player in the last 10 years),let's say back in 2007,and built the team around him,with a good coach etc,i can see us getting at least one,probably 2 CLs

In conclusion,because i don't think that the board would have stuck with the old guard for too long,and assuming that the transfers would be more or less the same with real life,or even better(see CR),i'll vote for:"1 or 2 trophies".However,the question is too theoretical,we can't know for sure.Even with a tiki taka team/or with a team built around CR,we might have failed.The whole point of this post is that we wouldn't have been as successful without Messi

 

[serghei]

I think 2, 2009 and 2015, when he played in the right wing mostly. But you can never know. I don't agree with the fact that without Messi we couldn't have won the Champions League after 2006. Weaker teams than a non-Messi Barca have won it.

 

[bismp]

I don't agree with the fact that without Messi we couldn't have won the Champions League after 2006. Weaker teams than a non-Messi Barca have won it.

True.
But it definitely not a coincidence that in the last decade,no other team except Barca won the CL 2 or more times.This indicates that,having a tiki taka team(without messi),or having a team built around a superstar(for example CR) would most likely get us one CL or even 2 if we were lucky,but without Messi 3 CLs would be a miracle

 

[BBZ8800]

I think 2, 2009 and 2015, when he played in the right wing mostly. But you can never know. I don't agree with the fact that without Messi we couldn't have won the Champions League after 2006. Weaker teams than a non-Messi Barca have won it.

We were very, very strong in the 90s, and we were always the most attacking team, who played the most beautiful football.
Especially in group stages.

But when important matches came, we were always missing something and losing naively.
Rijkaard's team in 2005 and 2006 was the first Barca whom I watched, which was a more matured Barca, who wasn't only all-out-attacking team, but who was also a well balanced team in the midfield and defense.

So, since 2006', we have surely improved tactically, imo.
And Messi brought everything to godlike levels.

My estimation, one day when Messi will retire, we will finally have the knowledge and experience HOW to actually win titles and how to bring balance into our game (we didn't have that knowledge in 1993-2005, imo). But, we will miss Messi, and that extra advantage over any team in the world.
But yes, from time to time we will surely win some titles.

But it will be much, much harder.
Before Messi, we were just mortals. A very, very good team, but "only" mortals.
With Messi, we were out of this world for 10+ years.

One day without Messi, we will return to mortals again.
There are probably a lot of our fans here who weren't old enough to follow Barca before Messi.

In short: it was a totally different world.

I sometimes wonder what will be our philosophy in the future?
1. try to find a new Messi?
2. or we will try to create a team with 3 world class mortals, like Neymar-Suarez-xx (a random mortal player).
I am not talking about today, but about the future in 4-5-6 years when Messi will retire...

I hope that we will try to build a team with 3 world class players like Neymar, because there won't be new Messi's, and 3 world class mortals is the best chance to bring trophies back to Nou Camp.

 

[AnfieldEd]

In terms of finals and not how you reach the finals you'd have won in 09 and 11 without Messi. Plus you'd have beaten Juve without Messi too as you had Suarez and Neymar.

So my answer would be exactly the same amount as you achieved with him. Messi just elevated the team to a whole different level. Without him you'd have been the team similar in quality to the 06 CL team.

The real question should be would Barca have had as many CL titles if there was a world without Xavi and Iniesta.

 

[BigBarcaBoy]

A world without messi is like a world without love

 

[dakt]

I will vote 4, since we are talking about football. If you have luck, there's no limit to where you can go.
What is the point of the poll? To prove Lio's worth? Or to show how much we are depended on Lio's brilliance?

 

[evilhita666]

I think there are way too many variables involved to make any prediction remotely close to reality...

 

[BerkeleyBernie]

Impossible to really speculate. But Spain was basically Barça without Messi, and would roll over most teams. It was the peak of possession football. Barça would still have built the team around Xavi/Iniesta/Busquets, but would have found other means to score besides the Messi false nine.

 

[footyfan]

Impossible to really speculate. But Spain was basically Barça without Messi, and would roll over most teams. It was the peak of possession football. Barça would still have built the team around Xavi/Iniesta/Busquets, but would have found other means to score besides the Messi false nine.

Pretty sure Messi has more goals than the rest of the Barca squad combined every year for the past few years. So no, they wouldn't be anywhere close enough to finding a satisfactory amount of goals without Messi.

Only 2009 might have been won without Messi (and with whoever his replacement was going to be). That was the season where I felt the team were strongest and least Messi dependent. In 2011, Real Madrid would have won the treble if Messi didn't play for Barca. And let's not even go to 2015.

To think they would have 3 CL titles anyway is beyond absurd. Spain would finish no higher than third in La Liga in all the years bar 2008-09 if they were an actual team in the league.