Jenks
Senior Member
Or Liverpool or Dortmund...
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Or Liverpool or Dortmund...
Superstar85
New member
I'm guessing you missed the word "essentially" in my post. For example, Bayern last season was a very good mix of possession and direct football
To be fair I like their football. Sorry for generalising.
Superstar85
New member
Exactly, the only alternatives are not the extremely defensive options.
With that been said, i also like watching very good defensive performances sometimes like Chelsea (who imo is very different from Stoke in many ways).
Paganinisrvnge
New member
Did Ronaldo even score against Dortmund? He scored like 12 goals against the canon fodder of the group stage and then gets praised like a God for a pretty good but not amazing performance. People say Ronaldo is the goat every time he scores a few goals while Messi is on his couch. Then Messi comes back and reminds the world he's miles better. We could say down the line that Ronaldo ends his career a better goal scorer than Messi but Messi is so much more than that. Real were great today but Ronaldo gets over hyped constantly.
Cule For Life
Member
He did score against Dortmund in the first leg I believe.
Ghost
New member
Just get over it, man. He had a great season. No one is saying he is overall better aside from his fanboys, but he is this season. Go blame Leo for slacking. It's not the diva's fault. You have to take advantage.
FiReFTW
Member
I think alot of people here are still confusing terms around "posession football". Its not about having the most posession you can by passing the ball around and not attacking directly and penetrating...like Bayern did today... or like Barca has been doing for a while now.. its about attacking and about pressuring the opposing team like crazy after losing the ball... and the side product of this is more posession. Thats how Barca played at its peak few years ago, not like we play today and certainly not like Bayern plays.
dakt
Active member
Agree
Kohe321
New member
I'm not so sure. It's not hard to win the BL with the squad Bayern possess - just look at the injuries Dortmund has had this season, going 20 points above them isn't that impressive really. Dortmund can match Bayern, and even beat them, when at full strength - but they need to be really lucky to be at full strength, as their bench represent a huge dropoff in quality from their starting 11, and they are almost always plagued by injuries.
I think this possession based football, where attacking is actually prioritized below keeping the ball, is dead. The problem is that people still think it works because it can still lead to impressive victories over LESSER SIDES, but when it gets matched against a team of equal strength that plays with high intensity in the defence, it falls apart. Yet because of these huge victories over lesser sides the coaches still think the system is sound.
Look, I'm not against possession, and certainly not against tiki-taka as a style. I am just trying to say that Pep (and Barca) has gotten this idea that possession is more valuable than anything else, regardless. Just look at how we played in 2009 compared to now, or how this Bayern side has played these two matches, where they look eerily similar to us. In 2009 we played an awesome attacking tiki-taka. The tiki-taka style was always used a means to attack, and yes a lot of possession followed as a result of our awesome control and passing. Right now the passing is just a means to keep possession, and the attack is a sideeffect that occurs when certain offensive players get the ball (for instance Robben in Bayern, Messi or Iniesta in Barca). We need to go back to the football we played some years ago, where we were a lot more direct and sacrificed possession in order to leap on an opportunity to attack, and where we weren't so predictable.
The current system is just herding the opposition into their own box through conservative sideways passing before finally starting an attack when the "bus is parked". It's so predictable and toothless it's not even funny.
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Are you really THAT butthurt to post something like this? Yes, Messi in form > CR in form. Still, Messi wasnt in form for quite some time.
spark
New member
True, that hattrick at the Bernaleo was some time ago :tata1:
Kohe321
New member
+1.
Also, yes Messi isn't really in great form, but neither is Barca as a whole, and if we look at how the team is playing and the tactics Tata Martino is making them play, it's hard to blame him really. We're just passing the ball sideways slowly up the pitch, and after a while it finds it way to one of the wings (usually to Alves from a backpass from Alexis, or a longball from Xavi/Masch), where it's blindly crossed somewhere into the box, where Messi without much luck tries to win a duel against two-three defenders marking him in the air - that is, if the ball even lands in the box and doesn't go out of play. Rince and repeat! Talk about utilizing Messis repertoire...
+1000!
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Babylonian
New member
Cristiano has only been a better scorer this season nothing less nothing more.. Amazing player though..
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