Ernesto Valverde - V1

[vlad]

with valverde confusing most of us yesterday, im thinking he also confused klopp, since they were set up for defending and counter attacks, since barca didnt press and push high up on the pitch, liverpool found themselvs with the ball more then they were prepared and didnt perform as they meant.


i want barca to look attacking and press like hell at camp, but this episode with valverde, its also usefull expirience, you dont have to play best football on planet to do well in CL, like barca was doing every year when they won

 

[BBZ8800]

Do you like pep performances in CL since he left barca? I ask you that because its not realistic to repeat such generation and playing such football isnt really best formula for CL. You use ajax for example, they also got lucky with generation and coach pick, thats rare, just look how they were doing all those years before this season, while you cant expect this from ajax every season, they dont have enough money, you also cant use zhem for some kind of example how barca should do every season, that said, im not happy with valverde, but tjis squad he has, isnt so great either, its overrated.

1. Ajax plays in the same way always.
Yet, they needed 24 years to reach Cl's quarters.
This guy says: let's copy Ajax, lol.

2. Pep today plays the same as Pep at Barca.
Yet, Pep had 6 failures in a row and his teams play naive in defense like Sunday league teams.

3. Whenever Barca played like Barca in a Cl post Pep, we lost heavily, because it is very hard to win in Barca's way today.

4. Spain still plays like Pep's Barca.
Their results since 2012 are horrible, the same as Barca in a Cl when we play like Barca, the same as Pep.

So, on this sample, we have:
25 years of Ajax
5+ seasons of a crap Barca playing like Barca
6 seasons of Pep at Bayern and City
7 years of a crappy NT Spain

Out of 43 samples, this guy finds one example where Barca's type of football works, and where it failed in other 42 occassions and he suggests:
Fuck everything, let's sack EV, let's play like Ajax.
Because 1 out of 43 are quite good odds...

Even though a midfield of Ajax is way more overally balanced than a midfield with Arthur, Puig, Alena, Roberto etc.

 

[Gohan]

Whether we like it or not, Ernesto Valverde's tactics paid off. Our defense is looking incredibly solid, showing we can actually defend when under pressure. It helps that we have a world class goalkeeper that, arguably, is in his best form ever. Combine this solid defense with an inform Messi, and there you have it. A solid recipe to win games. This Liverpool has been incredible this season and we took them down with 3-0, keeping in mind that we could've scored 1-2 more at the end of the game. So we have to give EV credit where it's due. It's risky to start off with Vidal in a huge game like this, but it paid off.

Defensive football isn't always pretty, but in 10 years the only thing we will look back at are the trophies.

Treble here we come

 

[tacticvarium]

Our defense was far from solid.
Gave them too many opportunities which could be easily turned to goals. We were super lucky that we didn't concede any goals.

 

[El Gato]

Our defense was far from solid.
Gave them too many opportunities which could be easily turned to goals. We were super lucky that we didn't concede any goals.

Not really, most chances weren't great at all. 2 shots by Milner, 1 really difficult touch for Mane, 1 good shot by Salah and 1 sitter missed. That's 1 great chance total.

By comparison Barca had the Vidal chance, the Suarez chance and the Dembele chance at the very least that they should be scoring. Half-chances are something Barca has been giving up for ages. And it's good to concede more of those than clear-cut sitters for the opposition.

 

[BarçaBarça]

Why not both though? Pep's era proved it, we saw that it's possible, so why settle for anything less? By doing it you're actually being a bad fan.

It's like when people kept claiming those days are gone and that it's not possible to play beautifully and win anymore, and then Ajax proved otherwise this season, and on a much larger scale actually, considering their club size and budget. They will probably have the same chance for a historic treble, but by playing the most beautiful football by any club since our Pep era, and to top it all off, even with a team more than 10 times cheaper than ours, which would make their treble that much more special than ours this season, it would go down on par with our two trebles and sextuple under Pep.

This is what it comes down to, isn't it? The good fans and the bad fans. You are only good if you want us to play excitingly attacking football no matter what. I say that is bullshit, tbh. Most of us in here wants us to play excitingly, but some point out that we might have to compromise for a while due to squad-issues and the lack of success in CL in recent years.

You point to Ajax, so let's look at Ajax. They have been great in CL this season and this season only. Would you accept that for Barca? Playing great, but only winning CL every 10 years? Of course not. The thing that is wrong with the way you think about it is exactly the same thing that is wrong with the way some think about the league title: We won, so we could just as easily have won by playing some other way. There is absolutely no prove that we would. But we won, so be happy.

I would prioritize CL/league successes more consistently than playing better and with more sporadic titles. You say why not both? Because the assumption is that new playing style with high press and full attack works well with the players we have, and we cannot be sure about that. We can be sure that this way works, because it has proven to work, simple as that. Maybe after 3 league titles and 3 CL's we can get bored of winning and experiment for fun with Alba in midfield (Pep+Tuchel special[SUP]TM[/SUP]) and other innovative/non-boring concepts. Maybe even next year where we get a more dynamic player in midfield in, Coutinho is lost and Dembele has secured his starting place. That could be more exciting to look at than now, but very much because we have new players and some titles in the bag already...

 

[khaled_a_d]

Best, no.
Succesful, maybe.
Football is not only about scoreline.
If you only go by that, your watching the wrong sport.

Football isn't only about one way of playing either. If you can enjoy only one type of football you are watching the wrong sport

Why not both though? Pep's era proved it, we saw that it's possible, so why settle for anything less? By doing it you're actually being a bad fan.

And Pep himself proved it wasn't repeatable. And that Pep team should have even earned more success if they were a bit more pragmatic

and then Ajax proved otherwise this season, and on a much larger scale actually, considering their club size and budget.

Hmm, do you think if we were playing same exact football as Ajax, people would consider this football so beautiful or attractive Barca football?
Ok, let's take some deeper look at this team with some stats, I know it doesn't tell the whole story but let's just look at "that" part of the story:

Vs Bayern: 44% possession.
VS Bayern: 56%

VS RM: 49% possession.
VS RM: 43% possession.

VS Juve: 58% possession.
VS Juve: 48% possession.
Beat Juve 3:1

VS Tottenham: 53%possession.

We had over 60 possession twice against Manu for example, and people still didn't like our showing. Ajax played 7 games against good opponents but lost possession battle 4 of them, if this happened here it would have been epic meltdown.
And while they were doing great, they weren't playing Tiki-Taka running circles and dominating their opponents in a Pep-esque way.
Opponent approaches against them is way different than Barca. And they have the perfect blend of youth and veterans, something we really lack (most minutes this season is for our 6 over 30 starters, and deservingly so).
People simply held them for different standards than us, which obviously they should. But you can't really say that this "showed us" we can do both playing beautiful and win. Totally different circumstances
If this team was wearing red and blue, people would have perceived them in different way. Their team knows how to win ugly too, just like every big team should know

 

[kollegah]

L Pool had 1 real chance that was the salah miss (only because Busi blunder before and team still thinking about MEssis FK)

the shots from milner and salah were not that great

 

[Havesaks]

Yes, I posted something similar somewhere else. They way this Barcelona approaches gameflow and phases is different. We let opponents play their game have the ball, then we possess ball and pass it around, then we shift into a more attacking mode and Barca will switch between these a couple of times during the game. I have read so many times this season that an opponent supposedly played better or deserved the win had chances only to lose without scoring a single goal.

We conserve energy and keep disrupting the rhythm of the opponent.

Valverde is a calculated bastard.

Really good description, i totally agree

 

[Andrew M]

The title of this thread is embarrassing. Such a lack of respect. When Messi retires we'll see who the real fans are

 

[Havesaks]

i think the title at this point is meant to work as a good luck charm. And not in disrecept, all tho it started out that way. If he we win the treble it should and all luck has been emptied from the charm, we should change it to "GoatVerde"

 

[Joan]

3 games away from the treble, and the title doesn't change. Gonna have a field day if it happens

 

[BarçaBarça]

3 games away from the treble, and the title doesn't change. Gonna have a field day if it happens

It will change after the treble until first match next season where De Jong starts on the bench.
Then we will be back to 'Retardo has destroyed our club' again, bet on it.

i think the title at this point is meant to work as a good luck charm. And not in disrecept, all tho it started out that way. If he we win the treble it should and all luck has been emptied from the charm, we should change it to "GoatVerde"

TreblEsto GoatVerde

 

[malvolio]

since we haven't lost yesterday and we are in the driver seat for qualification in the final, all the moaners in here switch the agenda to our current style and lack of beautiful football(like we are parking the bus a la mourinho or atletico).

we are completing a 10 years cycle of unprecedented winning and we are envious at the flavour of the year ajax team(which i also like and admire btw).

 

[Andrew M]

It would just be nice if everyone could unite in support of our team (including coach) yet despite this being a great season so far there's still petty complaints.

People behave as though we play shit football. I recognize that we don't have 70% possession all the time and the purity of 2008-12 is not present, but sometimes you have to adapt and evolve.

If you watch the Spurs - Ajax contest you'll see that in the second half Ajax they had to suffer and defend in their own half as a team. Even the almighty Pep himself played it very conservatively in his away leg vs Spurs. Had Valverde done that he would have been slaughtered.