Arturo Vidal

[Givenchy]

Vidal: If Pirlo calls me I will be happy. I have a lot of love for Juventus

Vidal: The first team cannot be made up of 13 professional players and the rest are minors!

Vidal: "Bar?a has to change its way of thinking, Barca DNA is lagging behind. Football is now more strength and speed."

Vidal: "Clearly this is not just about the players, but it is something much bigger than that things are not being done well. Barcelona has to improve and do it in the best way."

BBZ is sitting somewhere smilling and nodding while reading that

 

[ebc_99]

Barca has already changed its way of thinking, that's the problem, the club should go back to what it was before and stop throwing money around on players they don't need and instead build a team. The physical aspect is important, Barca were the best pressing team under Pep but it was the skill and technique that set them apart. All the other clubs in Europe are samey and you can barely tell them apart, if they all wore plain strips you wouldn't know who was who. But with Barca at its best was the most beautiful form of football and the club should aim for that again, it is moving away from that that got us in this mess. Our great eras all came with skillful technical players and our next should as well.

 

[DonAK]

All this talk about "Barca DNA" as if Barca have been anything like it since 2012

Barca have tried to go more physical the last couple of years and gotten absolutely shat on. It's not physicality that we need more of, it's athleticism.

Vidal can keep his physicality when he can barely run and press anymore himself.

 

[Richard.H]

Barca has lost its identity since 2014. The few teenagers in this thread are arguing like we are the stubborn Barca of old only relying on La Masia. We have never fully relied on them since Tata Martino days who played Bartra somewhat regularly (ONLY due to puyols injury). The two good players in Fati and Puig that la masia had in the last couple of years were still getting regularly benched by dinosaurs Raki and Suarez. Both Puig and Fati are more fit to the modern game than the dinosaurs in our squad.

 

[KingLeo10]

All this talk about "Barca DNA" as if Barca have been anything like it since 2012

2016 IMO but your point is well taken. We still pressed a lot and had a lot of vintage Barca attacking patterns in 2015.

 

[DonAK]

2016 IMO but your point is well taken. We still pressed a lot and had a lot of vintage Barca attacking patterns in 2015.

We need athleticism, not physicality.

Yes a player with physicality + athleticism that's good enough to be a mid to long-term starter with good technique would be fucking awesome and the best, but how many such players are out there? I guess someone like Pogba when he turns it up, but people hated him too when we were linked to him back in 2015 and 2016.

 

[Barcilliant]

God help us if Font gets elected and Xavi comes in. Xavi with his puritanical view of football would set us back even more and we'd waste another 2-3 seasons. If Xavi was elected it would be better if we didn't qualify for CL because we'd just be humiliated AGAIN.
The

 

[fergus90]

He spoke the truth and some here are offended by it. The fact is we got lucky with two small players Xavi and Iniesta who had unreal skill and ability. However there were times when even they got knocked off the park by stronger opposition.
It is time to marry physical strength with skill and intensity. If we do that we will move forward or we will end up like Argentina.

The reality is this 'Barca DNA' has not actually been in existence at Barca for a long time, at this point it's just empty words without meaning which is still attached to the club.

The 6 second pressing rule Pep introduced has disappeared a long time ago, more like 60 seconds at Barca now. Clubs still do this very effectively though, Liverpool, Bayern etc give you no time at all on the ball. Similarly we used to move the ball much faster with players passing and moving creating triangles, passing lanes etc, now we are absolutely static it's laughable. Some of the best midfielders in the world are small e.g. Thaigo, Verratti, Kimmich etc and they get on just fine.

We had a varying degree of profiles during Pep's years anyway to go with the players of smaller stature, Toure, Henry, Eto'o, Ibra, Mascherano, Keita etc all capable of playing possession football too but also had size, speed, dynamism etc. What varying degrees of profiles does this current Barca have? About 6/7 of the first 11 are comfortably past their peak, that fact alone makes it easy to see why they've been getting battered by half decent opposition.

Somewhere along the line we muddied possession football with intent and swapped it for possession football for the sake of having possession. Passing got slower, movement gradually decreased. Barca never neglected strength or speed before when they were successful but what we see know is a very poor imitation of what people like to label 'Barca DNA'.

 

[Ahmedd]

Ajax last year were the perfect example of Barca DNA. If it weren't for Zyech missing open goals they would have been at least Top 2 in Europe. What bother me here is that the same person told the press 3 weeks ago that Barca is the best team in the world bla bla bla.. Now that he wants to go he sh*ts on the club openly. Barca is a joke nowdays but respect it's history don't make fun of more than a century of football philosophy.

 

[Barcilliant]

Ajax last year were the perfect example of Barca DNA. If it weren't for Zyech missing open goals they would have been at least Top 2 in Europe. What bother me here is that the same person told the press 3 weeks ago that Barca is the best team in the world bla bla bla.. Now that he wants to go he sh*ts on the club openly. Barca is a joke nowdays but respect it's history don't make fun of more than a century of football philosophy.

Century of football philosophy?
It is only when Cruyff came in did we get a philosophy.

 

[vuji_31]

What about speed?

I think this is sliwest team in the world concidering top20 clubs.

No speed,movements and counters. Playing without both wings.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

He is right. The club has lost its way .

 

[abiabi]

For the geniuses that say we 'already stopped' using La Masia DNA since 2012, what huge talent did we miss out on? Tello.. Montoya?

 

[olivis]

La Masia has turned to shit. PSG and Schalke are the best youth systems now, both lose all their good talents for free though.

 

[Richard.H]

For the geniuses that say we 'already stopped' using La Masia DNA since 2012, what huge talent did we miss out on? Tello.. Montoya?

Are you serious?? Thiago?? The true heir to Xavi? With him still in the squad who knows where would we be now...

Also, Fati and Puig could very well leave after this upcoming season if Koeman gives them the same treatment that Valverde and Setien did. They are talented.

Not only this, but not relying on La Masia sends the wrong message to the kids in our academy. A prospective talent could very well go to the PSG academy or another academy if he feels like La Masia doesn't lead to any chances in the first team. Pep was a master of integrating all available La Masia youth to the first team. Remember Cuenca? Remember Tello? Cuenca played in the CL semis in 2012 and Tello went on to become an integral part of the 12/13 la liga winning side.

Yes, not all of them will turn into Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, or even S.Roberto, but some minutes in first team matches needs to be given to them or at least incorporate them more into matches where we are winning 3-0 or 4-0 with only 10-15 mins left in the match. No one really knows how good these youth players are until they are given minutes.