Alik
Moderator
That is up to the manager. The squad is one of the best in the world.
Don't compare us to Roma lol.
That is up to the manager. The squad is one of the best in the world.
Don't compare us to Roma lol.
El Gato
Villarato!
Lol. You genuinely don't know how to recognise or own your weaknesses. Most Madrid and Barcelona fans don't, no surprise. Gotta be some level of stupid to think it would have ended 5-1 if not for the form preceding the Clasico, especially given you were a post away from blowing it yourselves and not as a byproduct of a managerial mistake. Everyone post-Zidane was doomed to fail. Managed decline was expected by just about everybody.
It's just so interesting to see how people don't know how expectations should change and that not competing for the CL every year means you're doing something wrong
You're in no position to demand unconditional wins in semis. Absolutely none, not historically, not based on your old leadership or attitudes to facing a loss from your GOATs.+ yes, Madrid don't have patience for the managers who don't produce the right results. Doesn't mean they've hired the right ones in the first place or that they could have done any better. It's merely the case of tunnel-vision and acting in the interest of preserving the image of 'doing something about the rot' whether it's the objectively right or wrong. Benitez wasn't a bad manager, but not the right one for that Madrid side. Lopetegui was a fall guy who was asked to manage primadonnas despite having some cool ideas that may work in various other relatively high-level jobs or international football. There was even a Varane story about him calling Lopetegui to apologise for his bad run of mistakes.
Daft black or white thinking some of you guys adopt when making decisions is nowhere near the actual truth. Watch the lack of stability unfold when you appoint Koeman, Setien or whoever else. Nothing else can happen when the only blind thing you desire is the CL no matter who you have at your disposal and how good a fit these players are for each other. BUT MUH REGULARITY IN THE LEAGUE MEANS WE CAN BEAT ANYBODY
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Messigician
Senior Member
We dont want only UCL. We are not Madrid that is not good enough for us. We want treble! No treble no party
serghei
Senior Member
Lol. You genuinely don't know how to recognise or own your weaknesses. Most Madrid and Barcelona fans don't, no surprise. Gotta be some level of stupid to think it would have ended 5-1 if not for the form preceding the Clasico, especially given you were a post away from blowing it yourselves and not as a byproduct of a managerial mistake. Everyone post-Zidane was doomed to fail. Managed decline was expected by just about everybody.
It's just so interesting to see how people don't know how expectations should change and that not competing for the CL every year means you're doing something wrong
+ yes, Madrid don't have patience for the managers who don't produce the right results. Doesn't mean they've hired the right ones in the first place or that they could have done any better. It's merely the case of tunnel-vision and acting in the interest of preserving the image of 'doing something about the rot' whether it's the objectively right or wrong. Benitez wasn't a bad manager, but not the right one for that Madrid side. Lopetegui was a fall guy who was asked to manage primadonnas despite having some cool ideas that may work in various other relatively high-level jobs or international football. There was even a Varane story about him calling Lopetegui to apologise for his bad run of mistakes.
Daft black or white thinking some of you guys adopt when making decisions is nowhere near the actual truth. Watch the lack of stability unfold when you appoint Koeman, Setien or whoever else. Nothing else can happen when the only blind thing you desire is the CL no matter who you have at your disposal and how good a fit these players are for each other. BUT MUH REGULARITY IN THE LEAGUE MEANS WE CAN BEAT ANYBODY
This would be a top notch comment if it wouldn't be so blatantly contradicted by reality.
I do recognize our main weaknesses. Which is why I want our manager sacked if he doesn't prove it in CL that he has what it takes to lead this star studded squad to at least a CL semis.
The opposite of your view is why Madrid have done history lately in CL. It's always more likely that some managers aren't cut out to lead big teams to big wins, than that world class players have suddenly forgot how to play decent football.
Have you by any chance watched some of United's games lately. Created in 3 games about as many chances as they did under Mourinho in the previus 15.
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El Gato
Villarato!
Aye. Head in the sand. Rakitić isn't average, RBs aren't average, Busquets and Pique aren't slow and past it, Messi and Suarez don't have tendencies to throw in the towel and walk when they get annoyed at the score or the teammates, you have perfect young replacements to slot right into the midfield who can be relied upon to compete with any top-level side, Coutinho's role for this Barcelona side can be defined easily and without an issue.
And in any case, any of the above would be Valverde's fault anyway.
Nothing further to add.
And in any case, any of the above would be Valverde's fault anyway.
Nothing further to add.
serghei
Senior Member
I see. So basically the role of the manager for you is non-existent. Or close to it. Well... that explains it. According to your theory Benitez and Zidane are about the same, it's just some form of concidence that Madrid played better under Zidane with the same squad and won a CL - La Liga double for the first time in their history. Benitez could've done about the same had he stayed.
Yep, the thing with this approach is that it is simply wrong. We're at a time when more and more teams have access to very good players, so the importance of having elite managers is probably very very high. Money is everywhere now so the thing that is harder to get by is world class managers. Those are a lot harder to find than players.
The players Madrid and Barca have are top class, among the very best in the game. That is non negotiable. You know you're in the wrong when you act as if the players Barca have are the level of a Dortmund, or a Tottenham. When you go down that road, all you get is laughter.
We should be asking why teams having lesser players and not that great squads play better football than us. And this leads to the manager and how he handles the quality players at his disposal. What system he choses, what kind of rotations he does or doesn't do to have his best players sharp physically, how he approaches games, these sort of things.
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El Gato
Villarato!
Top-notch conclusion mate. Shame there's no content to draw it from.
Funny as fuck that you think 2015-2017 Madrid is a equivalent in quality to this star-studded Barcelona. Genuinely laughing
EV doing better than Benitez with a worse team. Sack him!
But wait! They're not worse. Prime RBs, Raki, Busi, Pique, faultless but mismanaged Messi and Suarez, misused Coutinho! La la land!
serghei
Senior Member
Top-notch conclusion mate. Shame there's no content to draw it from.
Funny as fuck that you think 2015-2017 Madrid is a equivalent in quality to this star-studded Barcelona. Genuinely laughing
EV doing better than Benitez with a worse team. Sack him!
But wait! They're not worse. Prime RBs, Raki, Busi, Pique, faultless but mismanaged Messi and Suarez, misused Coutinho! La la land!
I see. I keep wondering myself how you can arrive at the conclusion that what Barcelona lacks the most to make the semifinal is top players.
I mean, if you'd be a police detective we'd have more innocent people in jail than actual criminals.
Alik
Moderator
Top-notch conclusion mate. Shame there's no content to draw it from.
Funny as fuck that you think 2015-2017 Madrid is a equivalent in quality to this star-studded Barcelona. Genuinely laughing
EV doing better than Benitez with a worse team. Sack him!
But wait! They're not worse. Prime RBs, Raki, Busi, Pique, faultless but mismanaged Messi and Suarez, misused Coutinho! La la land!
What squads do you think are better than Barcelona's?
Listing Messi as an example of a weak squad? What a joke. Bet you'd love to see him gone.
If Coutinho is not misused, what is he? La la land for sure.
Rakitic average? He was one of the key players in Croatia's historic world cup campaign. Perhaps if he didn't play every single minute of every single match would have a positive effect. But I guess, that's not the manager's job.
El Gato
Villarato!
Better in what way? Winning leagues or cups? Or both?
Lots of better stitched teams with players who belong with each other, are younger and cancel out each other's weaknesses. Defense wins championships. Barca don't have a great one. Liverpool's entire successful run since buying VVD is based on just that, they have their basic formation right and rely dominantly on effort of ANY player that runs out there, look at their problems prior to it - purely lack of quality to put easier games away.
Atletico's squad is probably better for the purpose of winning cup ties. Juve's is more balanced and definitely better than Barca's. Up until last year Bayern too, but at the end of their own cycle. City have a great squad that is still mentally shaky, but one that has irreplaceability issues that Barca had for years. Look at what one injury to a key player like De Bruyne does to their regularity. PSG are visibly improving mentally and compete head to head against Liverpool, only suffer when concentration is questioned, but team is definitely built better as a unit.
What is Barca's strongest 11? Nobody knows.
Lol fuck off I said no such thing.
What I said is he's slowly going past his prime and top players' moods are the clearest problem when facing adversity. AND he requires special freedoms on the pitch to make the most of his quality creating occasional tactical instability issues.
Bought into a squad where he AT THE MOMENT doesn't fit since he plays ahead of the central, but here he's asked to play either from the wing or from too deep. A LW/LCAM best suited for a game with two holding midfielders. Here he's neither. Instead he was asked to play RM to counterbalance Messi drifting central. Doesn't work great. Don't expect it to work consistently until Suarez, Busquets and Rakitić are moved on.
Average for Barcelona, particularly in defense and transition out of it where you have not one midfielder with defensive duties in an overexposed and relatively unstable side, and one that is asked to go forward to create on the flank. Was good for Sevilla doing different things. Very good for Croatia where he does different things and equally had pretty much one good, not great, tournament. Go figure how much of it is him being misused too.
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KingLeo10
Senior Member
Too bad Morten doesnt have an avatar picture
might I suggest BBZ as rakitic himself.
both croatian after all.
serghei
Senior Member
Seriously now, I think Wolfe is right in pointing out some of the flaws of the team. Where he is so wrong is attributing those issues to player quality and squad quality, when in fact they are part of different areas. There are flaws in the team which are affecting this team's performances in the CL later stages. That much is clear and realized by pretty much all serious Barca fans around here, that we have issues that need to be sorted out. Hence the panic when we see Rakitic being played even in meaningless games, when we know very well that Rakitic and Busquets aren't exactly sping chickens anymore and if they are also tired and exhausted due to overplaying, then a number of teams will probably beat us mostly on intensity alone, never mind skill and quality.
The quality of the Barca team and players however are evident and proven. So, the role of the manager is to find the issues and correct them so that they don't happen again in the same fashion. Instead, what is Valverde doing? Well, he's repeating some of the errors that he did last year, for example overplaying a group of veterans whose minutes should be much more carefully handled going into the last 3rd of the season. At the same time, he's underplaying the young players.
Most of our issues on the field in CL show a lack of vision and leadership from the manager, and, implicitly, from the board. If it was a lack of player quality and squad quality we wouldn't be as dominant in Spain for so long. We're basically struggling to find a rival domestically who can keep up with us. This is clearly not the sign of a squad who lacks quality players and it's simply absurd to suggest it is.
The quality of the Barca team and players however are evident and proven. So, the role of the manager is to find the issues and correct them so that they don't happen again in the same fashion. Instead, what is Valverde doing? Well, he's repeating some of the errors that he did last year, for example overplaying a group of veterans whose minutes should be much more carefully handled going into the last 3rd of the season. At the same time, he's underplaying the young players.
Most of our issues on the field in CL show a lack of vision and leadership from the manager, and, implicitly, from the board. If it was a lack of player quality and squad quality we wouldn't be as dominant in Spain for so long. We're basically struggling to find a rival domestically who can keep up with us. This is clearly not the sign of a squad who lacks quality players and it's simply absurd to suggest it is.
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