CL | 1/8 Final: FC Barcelona - SSC Napoli 4-2 (agg.)

[Andresito]

They say you learn from your mistakes. Tonight Napoli will teach Setien that Rakitic should be nowhere near the starting lineup.

 

[CatalinR10]

Rakitic starting ?


Setien OUT.

 

[El Gato]

There has to be some main reason for this inability to deliver in the CL in last 10 years though. Is it really just a coincidence of having Pep as manager and a horrendously bad sporting project of Rosell & Bartomeu?

LMAO @ Rakitić. Bet this cunt scores and then puts on a clinic in the Clasico like he always chooses to.

 

[Hamzah]

Still loving setien fellas? I’m not convinced he’s the answer, just valverde with a more naive style

 

[soul24rage]

Wtf Setien, putting Rakitic there.

 

[KingLeo10]

Ernesto Setien. Let's hope Rakitic doesn't shit the bed when pressed like he did before every time he faced a pressing team almost.

Let's look at the bright side. Arthur will start the Clasico, which is arguably the more important game of the two (considering we don't fuck up here and lose here like 0-2 or smth).

There's no rationalizing this.

Setien is a coward. Like EV was.

 

[serghei]

Still loving setien fellas? I’m not convinced he’s the answer, just valverde with a more naive style

You guys should love him more after this. Setien doing his best to attract that EV cult love. BBZ is putting posters in his bedroom with Setien's face as we speak.

There's no rationalizing this.

Setien is a coward. Like EV was.

I'll give him a fair shot. If Rakitic is crap and gives away the ball when pressed I expect him to go out at half time. If Setien doesn't realize he made a mistake and subs him fast, then we will have a problem.

 

[Hamzah]

You guys should love him more after this. Setien doing his best to attract that EV cult love.

I like pragmatism and liked valverde to the extent that he practiced that philosophy, when he deviated from it I criticised him (not playing paulinho vs Roma, not playing semedo vs Liverpool etc)

The ide of the “EV cult” is an exaggeration in the same way you are categorised as a pepista (some people are genuine pepista’s, you’re not one of them).

 

[Flavius]

How is Raki still in the first 11 in 2020 in an away UCL KO?

 

[xXKonan]

The only thing saving that Midfield is De Jong and Vidal's work rate and that's it.

Basically self-sabotaging line up by Seiten.

 

[FC433]

Still loving setien fellas? I’m not convinced he’s the answer, just valverde with a more naive style

Let us see how we play today. There are no excuses because we are only missing two players Alba and Suarez.

 

[serghei]

I like pragmatism and lie valverde to the extent that he practiced that philosophy, when he deviated from it I criticised him (not playing paulinho vs Roma, not playing semedo vs Liverpool etc)

Let's not go over this again. EV wasn't pragmatic. Some key aspects of pragmatic managers, their bread and butter, were completely missing under EV.

 

[BBZ8800]

[MENTION=19457]KingLeo10[/MENTION]
Well, considering both Juve and Bayern had YEARS of being irrelevant on their home turf in the past 20 years I'd wager you're better, yes.

Now that I think about it, you might even be marginally better than us too since we had the 7 year mental block. In 2010's you're obviously inferior since we had several campaigns where we were almost 100% every time, but also campaigns like 12/13 where we only won 1 of 3.

[MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION]
Yeah, my bad. Still it's not all that dogshit, but don't think anybody would describe you as clutch CL team.

If I have time I'll do some subjective summaries for big teams and where results aren't horrendous. Often losing 2-1 used to be a great result if you're known to be a terrific home side.

I posted numbers a few Months ago.
Real is the best.
Juve and Bayern are good away.

Barca is the best team in Europe at home since 2000' and the worst away (out of these big teams).

Barca have like 85% wins at home.
And 20-25% away.

While other teams have like 70% wins at home and 40-50% away.

Barca has the biggest differences in these two extremes.
Pep had around 20% away KO wins.
And even Cruijff had around 16-18% in away KO wins.

Rijkaard had the highest percentage of away KO wins, 50% iirc, because he played a mix of Barca&Italian tactics/defense.

Historically, stats say that it is very hard to play in the classic Barca's way on away KO European matches.

Edit: I see it now that KingLeo has mentioned later in a discussion.

 

[KingLeo10]

I like pragmatism and lie valverde to the extent that he practiced that philosophy, when he deviated from it I criticised him (not playing paulinho vs Roma, not playing semedo vs Liverpool etc)

EV was never pragmatic because he didn't win the biggest games in the CL. In the Roma, we had twice the roster but EV led the choke.

In the league, RM are allergic to success and we have Messi. It doesn't take a pragmatist to win that.

 

[putogusiluz8]

Rakitic. This guy is like herpes, just won't go away.