CL: Ajax - FC Barcelona 0-2

[Howlgrana]

He had those players at their prime.
But he also kicked the old players like Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto'o and lots of others.

Rijkaard did the same.

I just don't see how can Lucho do anything if he plays with players who are past their prime, who lost the motivation and similar.
You are hoping that he will succeed, and yet he is coaching a team who is weaker and weaker each new Month, due to age and a lack of motivation of key players.
And yet, he is a weaker coach than our former famous coaches.

If this is a Season of a transition, then Lucho and the board are doing everything wrong.
They are only postponing a real transition and renovation for the future, and yet they won't win anything with the current team.

But wait a few Months and you and other fans will realize that.

I don't know what you would propose then? Get rid of all the players that appear not as good as they were a couple years ago? So that means Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Alves, Pique, MESSI....basically half the team.

I don't think that is the answer. You can't jettison half the team and put all the expectation on the likes of Munir, Rafinha and Sandro etc yet. The best answer is to re-motivate the likes of Iniesta, Pique and the rest and at the same time slowly integrate the youngsters into the first team more.

Also, the midfield problems need solving. Call me mad but I would prefer to see Xavi keeping his position in midfield as he is the only player that can control possession and dictate play. I notice a lot of people are calling for Mascherano to come into midfield, possibly behind Rakitic, but with those two players I don't know what type of control we could ever achieve there. If some of you are frustrated now by the lack of control, I can only imagine how bad our play would look with no Xavi or Iniesta and just Mascherano and Rakitic in midfield.

 

[Howlgrana]

I took some time and watched this so much discussed and maligned the first half (was not able to watch yesterday) and in retroprospect, we really suffered actually from minute 20 to minute 30 (until that Alba chance created by Messi after some barca vintage move). I can understand the emotions right after and during the game, but really, the first half did not seem to be that bad as some of us in here are complaining. Even the midfield functioned despite Ajax great pressure, but what really did not work was actually decision making after the Ajax first defensive kline was breached: some really atrocious decision making, some sloppy and mistimed passes and sometimes some blind alleys. And just to remember, Barca, even at their peak, suffered at the beginning of the matches due to some relentless pressing or all out approach by opponents (CL Final e.g in 2013, where Manu was much better side during the first 15 minutes).
Besides that, I agree that there are certainly some issues mostly with tactical structure, especially in the midfield. Like in the classico, from minute 20 the midfield backed down and started to wait until opponent approaches, but could not absorb pressure nor launching a proper counter when ball was even won. So it came to some last ditch tackles and Ter Stegen save, and it really seemed to be much more eagerness by the dutch than our players. Again, still it was not more than 20 minutes at top. At the beginning of the half, there were some lovely interplay, only to be ended by some sloppinnes in the final third.
So there is still hope I guess. I cannot confirm that Lucho does not know what he is doing after that match. But can't deny it also, because there are still issues that were revelead in this match also by young and brave dutch team.

Yep, good post I agree with you.

We need to wait and see if Lucho can resolve the midfield.

 

[Schumi]

UHHHH HEllllloooooo. We dominated Arsenal-destroyed them. If Villa didn't miss so many sitters we would have won 5-1 at least. Arsenal didn't have a SINGLE shot on target.

The point is despite the performances not being great away from home during the Pep era we still looked like a cohesive unit. LUCK is always a major factor in football too. Witness our ties against Chelsea (2009,2012) and Inter (2010).

This is NOT a question of luck. It is a question of a coach who is out of his depth-both tactically and mentally.

Yes we completely dominated them. Utterly dominated them, and not only did they not have a single shot on target, they did not have a single shot period, on or off target. But I am bringing that match up to demonstrate that even when you are super duper awesome (as we were back then) you can still run into some very serious trouble against merely good but not great teams. Despite our domination of that game, we did not create too many chances before the RVP sending off. And even after that, we suffered a colossal scare with freakin Bendtner.

Please re-watch our game against Celta de Vigo and witness how many chances we created and how many they did not. And we still lost. If only a handful of our (at least 10 clear-cut, plus lots of potential chances) went in, we would be still at the top of the table. Yet, so many people in here like to claim that we were shit in that game, which was manifestly not true. We were massively unlucky.

Plus, I mention several games from our glory days in which we were truly atrocious and needed some luck to come through. People tend to forget about those nowadays or quite possibly were not really following back then.

Ultimately, the point that I am trying to make is that knee-jerk reactions to isolated results here or there are quite stupid indeed. Our team has made significant changes and that means that some considerable time period will be required for the necessary adjustments and calibrations to be fine-tuned. We also had our star signing sidelined for a massive period of time something which is obviously still holding him up. I am absolutely convinced that he will soon start shredding teams to little pieces.

Another thing. People expect us to play Xavi-Iniesta-type control football even when they are not playing or in serious physical decline. We have long known that those two geniuses could never be fully replaced and that whatever we did afterwards would look like a a very cheap imitation. Very simple really.

Moreover. Some people in here are hell-bent on putting a negative spin on absolutely everything regarding FCB. When Neymar scores and we win, then Messi is well past his best. When Messi scores and we win, then Neymar was not worth all that much and we should have kept Villa, Alexis, Ibra, Tello, Deulofeu, Bojan, Cuenca etc... And we are of course still too dependent on Messi and so on. When Rakitic and Rafinha do not play like prime Xavi and Iniesta people act shocked, like there was ever the faintest possibility of something like that happening. The criticism of Alves goes overboard sometimes and as for the criticism of Lucho, well I will just leave it there.

Finally, the praise that rival clubs get from many members of this forum is bewildering. Especially Bayern and Dortmund, and now Chelsea. Sure Bayern is an awesome team at the moment (and better than us currently) but this unhealthy obsession is becoming a bit ludicrous. If one actually follows them game after game they will readily see that they have bad and mediocre games much more often than people think and that they are indeed vulnerable at times. I watched their entire game against CSKA Moscow in Russia (a rather mediocre, if not weak team by CL standards) and they were lucky not to lose it. Some of their games in the Bundesliga were also a bit crap, plus their CL group is far weaker than it looks in paper. People also seem to forget that Real Madrid blew them out of the water only a few months back.

As for the recent love-in with Chelsea. Yes they can beat the EPL minnows (not that big a deal as it is made out to be) but if one goes into the actual trouble of watching their actual games, then they will know why I am not so impressed by them. Plus, their CL group is laughable at best.

 

[Heisenberg is cooking]

So much NONSENSE here.

You guys just have to face the facts:

1. Our current team is most likely the worst since 2008. Its really bad.

2. We have the worst manager in la liga, and definitely among the top clubs in europa. He is really moyes class:

- Why did a shit poor brasilian(douglas) make his debut in an important away game in la liga(the only tournament we have a chance winning)? Instead of some minutes in a game we already had won? Extremely bad handled.

- Why is alves playing? Every 12-year old can see that he is terrible. Everybody can see that adriano/montoya is a much better alternative. Worse: Why did enrique aloud alves to cross 15 times every match in the beginning of the season - when that was the exact thing we hated under tata. Because it was an extremely waste of talent. High crosses to the best ball players in europa - neymar, messi, iniesta? Give me a break. Stupidity. I am not feeling like a sofa manager anymore.

- Why is rakitic playing something like a wingback? Because alves is more central in the field - due to his horrible crosses? I dont know. But its a catastrophy with our already poor midfield. Xavi is 35 soon, and busquets has seen better days.

- Why isnt the best players, the in-form players starting? That was credo number one before this season. Enrique failed.

- Where is the pressure at? That was if not the first, then the second most important thing this summer. Enrique failed.

- Where is the sync, the cohesion? There is nothing there, no plan, no philosophy. The mistakes just go on and on.


Give him time? Really? Why give stupidity time? Point being: The decision making is so poor that its fair to generalize, and I am dead serious when I say that the most knowledgeable people in this forum could do a better job.

 

[Schumi]

So much NONSENSE here.

You guys just have to face the facts:

1. Our current team is most likely the worst since 2008. Its really bad.

2. We have the worst manager in la liga, and definitely among the top clubs in europa. He is really moyes class:

- Why did a shit poor brasilian(douglas) make his debut in an important away game in la liga(the only tournament we have a chance winning)? Instead of some minutes in a game we already had won? Extremely bad handled.

- Why is alves playing? Every 12-year old can see that he is terrible. Everybody can see that adriano/montoya is a much better alternative. Worse: Why did enrique aloud alves to cross 15 times every match in the beginning of the season - when that was the exact thing we hated under tata. Because it was an extremely waste of talent. High crosses to the best ball players in europa - neymar, messi, iniesta? Give me a break. Stupidity. I am not feeling like a sofa manager anymore.

- Why is rakitic playing something like a wingback? Because alves is more central in the field - due to his horrible crosses? I dont know. But its a catastrophy with our already poor midfield. Xavi is 35 soon, and busquets has seen better days.

- Why isnt the best players, the in-form players starting? That was credo number one before this season. Enrique failed.

- Where is the pressure at? That was if not the first, then the second most important thing this summer. Enrique failed.

- Where is the sync, the cohesion? There is nothing there, no plan, no philosophy. The mistakes just go on and on.


Give him time? Really? Why give stupidity time? Point being: The decision making is so poor that its fair to generalize, and I am dead serious when I say that the most knowledgeable people in this forum could do a better job.

There are some inconsistencies with your claims there.

1. If our team is so bad as you say, then how can you blame the manager so much? If the team is as crap as you say it is, then that has nothing to do with the manager and all to do with our players being of very low quality. So, which one is it? Is our team bad or is it our manager? If our team is bad, then there is no point of even inquiring about the manager at all. You first need good players, and only well after that will you care about who writes their names on a piece of paper.

2. If we are so shit, then how is it possible for us to be so close to the top in our league, and so close to topping our very tough group in the CL? We have only received one bad beating this season, away at home of the Euro-Champions. Even that game could have turned very differently if Messi had struck the ball a bit harder than he did. 0-2 up at the Bernabeu within 25 minutes or so.

3. If we assume that you are right, and our team and manager are utter garbage, then what do you expect us to do in the CL, La Liga and Copa del Rey? Let's write down your predictions and then see how they fare by year's end. Don't you agree?

 

[Heisenberg is cooking]

There are some inconsistencies with your claims there.

1. If our team is so bad as you say, then how can you blame the manager so much? If the team is as crap as you say it is, then that has nothing to do with the manager and all to do with our players being of very low quality. So, which one is it? Is our team bad or is it our manager? If our team is bad, then there is no point of even inquiring about the manager at all. You first need good players, and only well after that will you care about who writes their names on a piece of paper.

2. If we are so shit, then how is it possible for us to be so close to the top in our league, and so close to topping our very tough group in the CL? We have only received one bad beating this season, away at home of the Euro-Champions. Even that game could have turned very differently if Messi had struck the ball a bit harder than he did. 0-2 up at the Bernabeu within 25 minutes or so.

3. If we assume that you are right, and our team and manager are utter garbage, then what do you expect us to do in the CL, La Liga and Copa del Rey? Let's write down your predictions and then see how they fare by year's end. Don't you agree?

Fair arguments, but I dont agree at all.

1. This is a fallacy. You are constructing TWO alternatives where there obviously are more. At least youre argument lacks nuances. And this is why you argument fail in general: You want to "arrest" me - point out inconsistencies and so on. Therefore you dont see the whole picture.

First: You are actually wrong, you can win titles with bad players and good organization - see greece 2004 and mourinhos teams. Likewise: You can play bad football with good players - because of weak organization. So the manager is obviously important. They differ in skill as you perfectly know.

Secondly: Remember that barca had the team of the century from 2008-2011, so when when I say "since 2008", I dont mean that barca suddenly has become a very poor football team. What I mean is that we are worse than we have been for quite a while. Alves, pique, pedro, bartra, masch, rakitic, xavi, rafinha. They arent top material. You cant become a top club with 4 world class attacking players. Before we had the best midfield in the world and a brilliant defense. Now we have a much weaker midfield and a at best average defense. But none of this means that we should be as bad as we are right now, the material is still good enough to outplay most opposition, and as I have pointed out, enrique has been given a potentialy decent football team, and made it a pretty weak football team.

2. Your second point I have already handled. We should still be able to play decent football and as I said - compete in the la liga race. But enrique is making it all worse.

3. I have already confirmed established that we are not "utter shit" in the sense of a average la liga team, but we are lacking in organization and quality though.

Predictions? The usual: Cl - probably wins the group, then chelsea, bayern or real after a while. Teams with better players and better organizations than ours. So we will lose. Probably

I dont mean to be all negative. But be realistic. This barca is not a very good barca. There is some potential there, but enrique isnt realising it. And this is how football is, you have good years and bad years. Look at united. Even real didnt win cl for like 12 years - thats unbelievable weak considering their spending policy. But we had the best team ever for some years, so it wasnt that easy coming from madrid We will rise again. New board, new talents established, new players in, and we will be winners again. Of course, maybe we can steal the la liga title, but cl is out of reach at this moment.

 

[Autumn]

We played worse than we did against Celta (one of our games with the most chances created of the season (one of the best indicators of a team's performance)). But since we didn't have catastrophically bad luck this time, we won and it was deemed a success.

We can't be so results oriented in our analysis. Football matches are silly, volatile games largely influenced by chance. We have to accept that and just keep in mind that over the course of the season improbable results will converge and the true champion (probably) will triumph in the end.

We had one bad game against Malaga this season. Everything else has been fine in terms of our performance. We're a wonderful team with amazing players and have a high chance of winning the League.

This hyperbole about how bad we are really is frustrating to read every topic. It really brings me down and I'm sure others as well. Realism is fine but this absurd level of pessimism is getting way out of hand.

Please just calm down.

 

[Schumi]

We played worse than we did against Celta (one of our games with the most chances created of the season (one of the best indicators of a team's performance)). But since we didn't have catastrophically bad luck this time, we won and it was deemed a success.

We can't be so results oriented in our analysis. Football matches are silly, volatile games largely influenced by chance. We have to accept that and just keep in mind that over the course of the season improbable results will converge and the true champion (probably) will triumph in the end.

We had one bad game against Malaga this season. Everything else has been fine in terms of our performance. We're a wonderful team with amazing players and have a high chance of winning the League.

This hyperbole about how bad we are really is frustrating to read every topic. It really brings me down and I'm sure others as well. Realism is fine but this absurd level of pessimism is getting way out of hand.

Please just calm down.

I largely agree. The Celta game was one of our best, and should and would have been won easily on any other day. I also agree with you over the overbearing pessimism on this forum. But I would disagree with you on at least one point. Malaga was not our only bad game. You can also add Apoel in there. The Clasico was also a disappointment on our part since we had to have done better in such a mega game. The PSG game was destroyed by some idiotic individual mistakes.

 

[Schumi]

Fair arguments, but I dont agree at all.

1. This is a fallacy. You are constructing TWO alternatives where there obviously are more. At least youre argument lacks nuances. And this is why you argument fail in general: You want to "arrest" me - point out inconsistencies and so on. Therefore you dont see the whole picture.

First: You are actually wrong, you can win titles with bad players and good organization - see greece 2004 and mourinhos teams. Likewise: You can play bad football with good players - because of weak organization. So the manager is obviously important. They differ in skill as you perfectly know.

Secondly: Remember that barca had the team of the century from 2008-2011, so when when I say "since 2008", I dont mean that barca suddenly has become a very poor football team. What I mean is that we are worse than we have been for quite a while. Alves, pique, pedro, bartra, masch, rakitic, xavi, rafinha. They arent top material. You cant become a top club with 4 world class attacking players. Before we had the best midfield in the world and a brilliant defense. Now we have a much weaker midfield and a at best average defense. But none of this means that we should be as bad as we are right now, the material is still good enough to outplay most opposition, and as I have pointed out, enrique has been given a potentialy decent football team, and made it a pretty weak football team.

2. Your second point I have already handled. We should still be able to play decent football and as I said - compete in the la liga race. But enrique is making it all worse.

3. I have already confirmed established that we are not "utter shit" in the sense of a average la liga team, but we are lacking in organization and quality though.

Predictions? The usual: Cl - probably wins the group, then chelsea, bayern or real after a while. Teams with better players and better organizations than ours. So we will lose. Probably

I dont mean to be all negative. But be realistic. This barca is not a very good barca. There is some potential there, but enrique isnt realising it. And this is how football is, you have good years and bad years. Look at united. Even real didnt win cl for like 12 years - thats unbelievable weak considering their spending policy. But we had the best team ever for some years, so it wasnt that easy coming from madrid We will rise again. New board, new talents established, new players in, and we will be winners again. Of course, maybe we can steal the la liga title, but cl is out of reach at this moment.

1. Which Mourinho team had bad players? And if you are here insinuating that Mourinho always adds to his teams then you are sadly mistaken. He may have won with Porto and Inter and yada yada yada, but he also failed consistently with super-rich clubs such as Real Madrid and Chelsea. Let me repeat: CONSISTENTLY FAILED!

2. You also say that most of our players are pretty average, which is in my opinion very harsh (even though I tend to be a tough critic myself) The players you have listed there are not world class, or in the case of Xavi and Alves, not world-class anymore. On that I would agree. But to hint that they are just some average players is pushing it a lot. And even if you are right, and we have so many weak players, then how can anyone blame Lucho? But then you go on to say that we are a potentially "decent" team which has been made "pretty weak"! You then list three teams you claim are better than us at the moment. So by your account, we are the 4th best team on the planet, even with all those not-good-enough players and a rubbish manager to boot. WOW! That is some spin on the genuine meanings of words like "decent" and "pretty weak". If being the 4th best team on the planet is "pretty weak", then how would you describe the rest of the teams on the continent? What terminology in the English language would be fairly descriptive of those teams. I am really interested in finding out.

3. I will again accept your argument that those three clubs are currently better than us. But I would still like to know by what margin are they better than us and how many goals can we expect to shift against those teams when we have to face them?

4. An argument about Real Madrid being better than us can certainly be logically grounded. Bayern could fit the description as well, but I wouldn't be so certain of it. Things can change quite rapidly in football. As for Chelsea, well, one has to wonder what they might have done to be considered better than us. I would be quite elevated and genuinely enlightened if someone could justify how Chelsea can be considered as a better football side than FC Barcelona.

 

[PhilS]

After comfortably winning this game against an opponent that played very well for most of the match, clinching going through to the CL knockouts after just four games, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that the coach should be immediately fired, that this is the worst Barca team in memory, and that most of the first 11 are terrible players.

Sure, Messi has his shooting touch back, Xavi is playing better than anyone could expect for a 36 year old, Bartra looks like he should start every game, Alba had a fantastic game, yet another clean sheet, the #2 keeper is finally looking like a top-flight #1. None of this matters, this is one of the worst teams of all time.

Just a few more Barca victories, then most of the posters on this forum can give on life completely.

 

[Schumi]

After comfortably winning this game against an opponent that played very well for most of the match, clinching going through to the CL knockouts after just four games, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that the coach should be immediately fired, that this is the worst Barca team in memory, and that most of the first 11 are terrible players.

Sure, Messi has his shooting touch back, Xavi is playing better than anyone could expect for a 36 year old, Bartra looks like he should start every game, Alba had a fantastic game, yet another clean sheet, the #2 keeper is finally looking like a top-flight #1. None of this matters, this is one of the worst teams of all time.

Just a few more Barca victories, then most of the posters on this forum can give on life completely.

A very nice way of putting it. And yes, many people completely fail to take into consideration the fact that Ajax played pretty well last night. They have some very young and very athletic players with real pace and stamina, something against which we have struggled in the past.

Also, outside the freakish defeat versus Celta Vigo, our other two defeats came at the hands of mighty opponents on their home grounds. The only team to truly outplay us and at times outright embarrass us was Real Madrid, and even against them we had a golden opportunity to make it 0-2. PSG game could very easily have turned our way.

 

[Ursegor]

This was a much better game than Celta. Celta was a catastrophe. Chance gallore through individual skill (Nerman long range shot, Messi freekick) or not, I don't care. There was no midfield. Defenders hoofed it straight to the forwards. Probably the Alcuntara genes stinking up the place. smh

Ajax had a good spell of domination from minute 25 to minute 30 but that was about it. The second half I rewatched twice. I do that when I enjoy games, which means very rarely these days but the 2nd half was worth it. The organization (even before the red) was as close to 08-12 Barca as it gets with defense, midfield, forward line very close to each other, compact and defending as 1 unit. Even Messi was tracking back from the wing and pressuring the goalie when in the center. There weren't large spaces all over the pitch. And make no mistake, it wasn't coincidence that Messi was "oldschool Messi" and Busquets was vintage Busquets again. There was an element of organization to the team overall. Not perfect by any means but encouraging. Scrubrique better build on this.

Suarez will need more time to catch rythm in general and develop an understanding with the rest of the team.

Also a Pique-less Barca is a good Barca.

 

[Schumi]

What do people think about these possible line-ups?


……… Montoya … Mathieu… Bartra………
Pedro … Rakitic… Masherano … Alba
…………….Messi …. Neymar……………….
…………………..Suarez…………………………

or

… Montoya … Mathieu… Bartra.. Alba...
..… Busquets… Masherano.....
....Rakitic……….Messi …. Neymar……….
...…………………..Suarez…………………………

 

[Flavia]

What do people think about these possible line-ups?


……… Montoya … Mathieu… Bartra………
Pedro … Rakitic… Masherano … Alba
…………….Messi …. Neymar……………….
…………………..Suarez…………………………

or

… Montoya … Mathieu… Bartra.. Alba...
..… Busquets… Masherano.....
....Rakitic……….Messi …. Neymar……….
...…………………..Suarez…………………………

Unrealistic for Lucho, as you put Montoya there. And if you're going with a back 3, better put Masch in. And Busquets in the mdf. Yesterday he played very well.

 

[Schumi]

Unrealistic for Lucho, as you put Montoya there. And if you're going with a back 3, better put Masch in. And Busquets in the mdf. Yesterday he played very well.

You mean Mascherano in for Alves/Montoya, and Raktic-Biscuits in midfield?