Copa | Round of 32: FC Barcelona - Cultural Leonesa (5-1 agg.)

[Messigician]

1 - No injuries, which is great.


I only watched the second half and it was a bit of a snooze fest. Alena was bright, Denis had his moments, Malcom and Dembele were mostly poor and wasteful.

I thought Vidal looked lost in the Busquets role, he always seemed to be 2 seconds behind the play without the ball and on it, he simply doesn't have the passing to play there. And this comes a day after Valverde said in the pre game presser that he would never play Arturo there. For me, after tonight, he either plays further forward or not at all.


Leonesa play some decent football for a 3rd division team, they made Cillessen work and earn his bread out there.


P.S. I knew Lenglet would start scoring headers sooner rather than later. He's great in the air.

He only played there because
Of an injury to Mr reliable

 

[Porque]

For anyone wondering about Cultural Leonesa, in 2015 they were bought by the Aspire Academy in Qatar, who also own KAS Eupen in Belgium.

So they were/are basically a low investment opportunity under the same hierarchy who own PSG.

 

[PhilS]

Alena definitely helped himself with this performance, I can see him playing for Barca for many years. Munir, Samper, and D. Suarez looked like they should be last choices for the rest of this season.

At least Malcom is aggressive. You know he's on the field, he clearly is trying, these are good things. Maybe he can help the team sometime in the future, this will not be soon.

The youngsters who played on defense are ready to help the first team as needed, this is good.

Dembele won the game. Very few players can do this as often as he can, he does it a lot. Dembele played quite of bit of really terrible football in this game, just an unforgiveable lack of concentration, not passing soon enough, wretched execution of easy passes. How can this be tolerated on this team?

 

[serghei]

Was working so I just watched the recording.

First off, credit fucking Cultural! They played a heck of a game and for a team in the 3rd division to keep roughly a third of the ball throughout the match against us is impressive to say the least. They also didn't just park the bus the entire time, they had good spells on the ball, were organized off the ball and played with intensity but weren't dirty. I really like what they showed as a team and as a club and I hope to see them in La Liga a couple years down the road!

Our class showed through though with the goal at the end but it was a really disjointed game from us with some players shining and others really struggling. Imho...

The Bad:

-Semedo. I've been a big fan of his this season, he has really impressed me on both sides of the ball this season but I don't know where he was tonight. He made from my count about 5 turnovers today, 2 of them leading to dangerous breaks from Cultural. Simply can't happen if he wants to start over Roberto every match. He needed to be a leader today out there and he put us in a lot of trouble instead. Looked just slower of thought than he usually is, maybe took Cultural lightly and I hope this is a wake up call for him that you can't take any opponent lightly.

-Munir. Despite a couple decent runs here and there, and a nice flick pass in the first half, pretty much invisible throughout the entire match and missed an absolute sitter that a striker for a club of our stature should not be missing. Maybe needs more time but I'm just not convinced he can do much for us either as a starter or off the bench. Wouldn't mind seeing him moved on somewhere next summer.

-Denis Suarez. Lot of the same sentiment for him as Munir. His decision making on the ball really confuses me at times, he forces passes that aren't on to try and show something that lead to possession losses and he misses simple passes at times. He is taking time away from players who show a lot more than he does, namely...

The Good:

-Alena, no surprise here. Outside of two giveaways, just oozed class all game. Decision making, spot on. Positionally sound, always moved the ball forward when the opportunity was on. Dribbled when there was space, passed when there wasn't and make penetrative passes to the forwards and dangerous runs of his own. Please oh please, Valverde! PLAY THIS GROWN ASS MAN. Dude is sooo past the B squad, it's clear as day for me and hopefully Valverde took note of this performance as well.

-Vidal. Solid match overall, one of the more senior players who actually played like one. Not bashing Dembele, it was a good ball for the goal, but I expected a bit more out of him today. Vidal played the pivot well though, something I was a bit skeptical about with him. Phil Schoen on Bein Sports mentioned this and he's right: this sort of performance helps his case in getting more minutes from Valverde as a rotation for Busi. At the very least, he can at least see out the last 15-20 mins of a game to give Busi some extra minutes to rest.

-Malcolm. Nothing spectacular but he demonstrated some things today that suggest he deserves at least a couple more appearances off the bench moving forward. What I am most impressed with from his is his link-up play. He is surprisingly crafty with his passes, he setup Munir with a very clever little ball into him in the 1st half that he completely wasted but things like that show me he deserves more time. The pills from outside of the box and dribbles that he showed at Bordeaux will come with more confidence but I think he showed enough to Valverde today to hopefully trust him with more minutes.

I've been very curious how games like these go. Its pretty clear who our starting 11 is this season, now we need to figure out who can be trusted with La Liga matches down the line in March when we are hopefully still battling in the Champions League. Hope Valverde saw a lot of what I saw out there, sorting through who stays/who goes and crucially, developing the players in this group who he does trust really should be the biggest factor in judging him as a coach. If he can get this right and just rest our gala 11 more this season, I think we've already shown this season we should at least get to the semi-finals of the CL.

Spot on player analysis. Only disagree with Malcom as a good point. He was playing only for himself out there almost. Outside some nice first touch passes he was really all over the place.

Semedo was the worst imo. Not because of quality but because of attitude. His attitude was more one of disappointment that he didn't start the clasico, so he kind of showed a lot of carelessness about this game, as if it was beneath him to play against a 3rd division team. It doesn't help his case and certainly is a bad approach under a manager like Valverde, who clearly has a bias in favor of Roberto for the RB spot. He should have took example from Vidal's attitude. Absolutely had no problem that a great player like him is called upon vs Leonesa and showed what a beast he can be givingn 100%. At times it looked like only Vidal was professional enough to look at this game as a normal game that needs to be won. This is the type of player you need in CL for sure.

Alena and Vidal at this point are so clearly players who need to be integrated ASAP in the fulll rythm of the team. Not as obligatory starters of course, but players that are called to action constantly.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

With Vidal, he’s been in a tough spot because he came in thinking he’d get Paul’s mins back when we played a 4-4-2 pre-Coutinho. His minutes were deceptive; Valverde rightfully started integrating Coutinho and Paul played a lot less. On paper, Vidal best suits us in the double pivot and I think that’s what Valverde only trusted him in initially.

Not sure why everyone prior was bashing him but again, go rewatch the match and there was a lot more good than bad in his overall play, especially considering he switched MF positions when Samper unfortunately got injured

I didn’t trust him as a single pivot either initially; Song, Gomes, Mascherano, they have all struggled in that position and Vidal handled his own. Granted the competition, but he’s earning the right to play more in my eyes, irrespective of IG and his goal against Real. I don’t think he’ll get overrun by the likes of Eibar or Rayo in the pivot for example.

But yeah, integrating Aleñá into this team and quickly should be priority number 1 for us now as well. He’s too good to not give him a proper look.

 

[LMTR14]

Hahahaha it was he who saved barca with his free kick of genius.

he also had one of the worst free kicks I've seen in my life earlier in that game. but I guess he should still be ahead of suarez in the free kicking order (which then is messi > dembele > suarez)

 

[LMTR14]

1 - No injuries, which is great.


I only watched the second half and it was a bit of a snooze fest. Alena was bright, Denis had his moments, Malcom and Dembele were mostly poor and wasteful.

I thought Vidal looked lost in the Busquets role, he always seemed to be 2 seconds behind the play without the ball and on it, he simply doesn't have the passing to play there. And this comes a day after Valverde said in the pre game presser that he would never play Arturo there. For me, after tonight, he either plays further forward or not at all.


Leonesa play some decent football for a 3rd division team, they made Cillessen work and earn his bread out there.


P.S. I knew Lenglet would start scoring headers sooner rather than later. He's great in the air.

the fuck? semper got injured and was shown crying for at least 5 min because of it!

 

[Barcaman]

Rotations after all?

 

[khaled_a_d]

the fuck? semper got injured and was shown crying for at least 5 min because of it!

What is Samper situation btw?

Rotations after all?

Probably, the fact that we can't play more than 4 Barca B players at same time, and that Alena is counted as one of them is sad though

 

[Barcaman]

What is Samper situation btw?



Probably, the fact that we can't play more than 4 Barca B players at same time, and that Alena is counted as one of them is sad though

Injuries don't help either.

Alba, Busquets and Rakitic need to be rested.

 

[Andresito]

Aleña has officially been promoted. No more B games for him.

 

[Andresito]

Cillessen
Morer/Guillem - Chumi - Vermaelen - Miranda
Aleña - Oriol - Vidal
Malcom - Munir - Denis

Hoping/expecting something like this.

Let's hope Riqui gets some minutes as well.

 

[soul24rage]

I think we'll see a line up like

Cillessen---Semedo, Chumi/Cuenca (B), Vermaelen, Miranda (B)---Samper, Aleña, Vidal---Malcom, Munir, Denis

Cillessen, Vermaelen and Samper should be ready for this match. I hope O. Busi plays instead of Samper though.
Wague can't play because of paperwork issues, which sucks.
I hope we can see Puig play some part in this game.

 

[messi2140]

Think some of you missed this quote from Valverde: “Perhaps I’ll give some rest to our players for the Cup match, but we must admit that it is an important game and we shouldn’t make mistakes. We will see.”

We will definetely see some first team players tomorrow.

 

[Barcaman]

Only thing for him to admit is that he's way over his head in Barca.

I resent fans who settle for this.