Funny how Barcelona 2014/15 wasn't the best Barcelona ever, but had the best UCL run

[matbezlima]

It's funny how the Barcelona teams from the 2008/2009 and 2010/2011 seasons, specially the latter, were probably better collectively than the Barcelona 2014/2015, yet Barcelona 2014/2015 had the most consistent, confident and controversy free UCL KO run in their title in both results and great football. 2009 has the Stamford Bridge game and 2011 has Van Persie's red card, though I would like to say that Barcelona was far superior in the second leg despite not playing at their best (Arsenal didn't shoot once and were back into the tie only due a Busquets blunder own goal) and they were brilliant in the first leg despite the loss and had a goal wrongly ruled out as offside in that first leg too. As terrible as Van Persie's red was, Barcelona's superiority in was still very clear, unlike the games against Chelsea in which Barcelona could never really impose themselves, specially at Stamford Bridge.

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About Barcelona's 2015 UCL KO run, they were truly great against City and PSG, winning both at home and away (and their 1-0 victory against City at the Camp Nou was the most misleading Cheia 1-0 that you will ever see, Barcelona really played fantastic football and were denied by Hart in a day of prime Buffon. Messi didn't score, but had one of his best performances, pure class in almost every touch of the ball and near perfection. Barcelona's most equal games were against Bayern and even then Barcelona was slightly superior and Bayern didn't shoot on target once in the first leg, though we need to acknowledge that Bayern was missing Robben and Rib?ry.

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The only controversy that I can remember from 2015 is a penalty not given in the final that eventually led to a Barcelona goal in a counter-attack, but the referee was clearly with his back turned when the penalty, so it was an honest mistake and otherwise he never showed a bias for Barcelona in the final, correctly nullifying a Neymar goal due to a very slight handball and being merciful to Vidal from Juventus, I don't know how Vidal was not sent off in that game. Overall, not a truly great Barcelona performance, unlike 2011, but still a dominant and assured win for the vast majority of the game. It's also funny how Barcelona 2014/2015 was uninspiring in 2014 and truly great in 2015. Still, Barcelona 2008/2009 and 2014/2015 are aproximately equal in my book, but this could not fit in the title of this thread. It's Barcelona 2010/2011 that I truly consider signficantly superior without doubt. I explain why in the link below.

http://www.barcaforum.com/showthread.php/17984-Barcelona-2010-2011-seems-so-clearly-better-than-2008-2009-when-I-watch-both-play?p=2161065

 

[Neymessi]

in 15 the teams weren't really all that except Bayern and they were missing their 2 best players in robbery and we were 0-0 in the 80th min and it took a Messi individual brilliance to make it 2-0 after which they shouldn't have gone further and seen off 2-0 and it would have been a very end to end game in the second leg.

Quarters PSG was pretty meh and R16 Manc was also pretty meh. Juve was good but finals of 09 and 11 had a much much better Manu.

 

[serghei]

in 15 the teams weren't really all that except Bayern and they were missing their 2 best players in robbery and we were 0-0 in the 80th min and it took a Messi individual brilliance to make it 2-0 after which they shouldn't have gone further and seen off 2-0 and it would have been a very end to end game in the second leg.

Quarters PSG was pretty meh and R16 Manc was also pretty meh. Juve was good but finals of 09 and 11 had a much much better Manu.

Pretty much. 2015 level of competition seemed similar to Madrid's competition in their 3CLs. Flawed teams and an injury ridden Bayern, plus a finalist that isn't known for getting things done.

 

[Alik]

in 15 the teams weren't really all that except Bayern and they were missing their 2 best players in robbery and we were 0-0 in the 80th min and it took a Messi individual brilliance to make it 2-0 after which they shouldn't have gone further and seen off 2-0 and it would have been a very end to end game in the second leg.

Quarters PSG was pretty meh and R16 Manc was also pretty meh. Juve was good but finals of 09 and 11 had a much much better Manu.

2011 quarters and R16 were Shaktar and Arsenal respectively.

 

[serghei]

2011 quarters and R16 were Shaktar and Arsenal respectively.

Arsenal was a top team back then. And the 2011 Madrid was stronger than all of City, PSG and Bayern from 2015.

 

[Messigician]

Best attack though

 

[The Observer]

14/15 was the best Barca. The previous versions couldn't win a difficult game without resorting to cheating or controversy.

08/09 would have been out to Chelsea if VAR were already in place. No questions. Even after making it 1-0 in added time with the first shot on target, Chelsea should still have gotten that penalty for Pique's handball. So that team couldn't even hold on for 2 minutes against 10 men Chelsea.

10/11 Mourinho found the right answer with Pepe in the middle as we saw in the Copa del Rey final loss and previous Bernabeu Clasico draw but Alves spun himself 3 times around his own axis to get Pepe sent off. Completely instructed by the coach to do that, see all those face clutches in that game by Barca players:

Not to mention the funny van Persie red card and STILL Bendtner was a toepoke away from knocking "best Barca eva" out.

14/15 was the best version easily. Less midfield dominance (still elite) yet more variety, deadly counters and much more individual quality. I trade Suarez and Neymar in their primes over Pedro and Villa shoehorned to the left wing for a bit less midfield dominance any day every day.

Anything else is nostalgia or Pep fanboyism. All those 6-2s and 5-0s were against garbage teams as well. Madrid in 08/09 with 40 year old Raul and Drenthe, Bayern under Klinsmann in their worst shape ever, Arsenal when they were missing half their team everytime we played them. lol

 

[serghei]

14/15 was the best Barca. The previous versions couldn't win a difficult game without resorting to cheating or controversy.

08/09 would have been out to Chelsea if VAR were already in place. No questions. Even after making it 1-0 in added time with the first shot on target, Chelsea should still have gotten that penalty for Pique's handball. So that team couldn't even hold on for 2 minutes against 10 men Chelsea.

10/11 Mourinho found the right answer with Pepe in the middle as we saw in the Copa del Rey final loss and previous Bernabeu Clasico draw but Alves spun himself 3 times around his own axis to get Pepe sent off. Completely instructed by the coach to do that, see all those face clutches in that game by Barca players:

Not to mention the funny van Persie red card and STILL Bendtner was a toepoke away from knocking "best Barca eva" out.

14/15 was the best version easily. Less midfield dominance (still elite) yet more variety, deadly counters and much more individual quality. I trade Suarez and Neymar in their primes over Pedro and Villa shoehorned to the left wing for a bit less midfield dominance any day every day.

Anything else is nostalgia or Pep fanboyism. All those 6-2s and 5-0s were against garbage teams as well. Madrid in 08/09 with 40 year old Raul and Drenthe, Bayern under Klinsmann in their worst shape ever, Arsenal when they were missing half their team everytime we played them. lol

Lol.

- The diving tactic was used as a response after Mourinho's Madrid started to kick the shit out of our players. Yea, it was wrong, but we mostly did it against Mourinho teams, because Mourinho played dirty. We chose to play dirty too, and exaggerating contact to get their players sent off was what we did.

- Against Arsenal, until the wrong red card, there were a legit goal disallowed in England at 0-1 (could've been tie over right there), plus a clear penalty for Messi at 0-0 on Camp Nou. So that's out too. If anything, we had more reasons to complain than Arsenal.

- Against Chelsea, the overall ref. mistakes balance were something like 3-3 or so in the whole tie. 3 penalties for Chelsea (nobody gives 4 out of 4 in those situations ), plus a penalty for Barcelona at home (Bosingwa for Henry, it could've been a red card as well arguably), a non existent offside for Eto'o, 1 vs 1 with Cech, plus a wrong red card for Abidal.

- Also, it was us who were with 10 men, not Chelsea

 

[El Gato]

Arsenal was a top team back then.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[serghei]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

2 years before they made the CL semis, smart-ass...

 

[Messi983]

TBH don't really miss those times when we had like 10 El Classicos in one season.

 

[Andresito]

The front three of 2014/15 were so individually good that it didn't matter if 90% of the team were underperforming, they could win games on their own.

The problem is that it's unreliable and a risky way to go because basically everything was up to the front three to solve. In the CL we managed to hit the form perfectly, when Messi had an off game, Neymar and Suarez were beasting and vice versa.

The rest of the team wasn't good enough to be compared to 2011 edition where we basically had the best players for each position for our tactics. 2015 team had a lot to improve which was apparent in the following seasons.

 

[Neymessi]

I just saw that this has been posted in Redcafe also and a majority of them are saying 15 was better than both 09 and 11.

If anyone from there is reading this then 15 Barca was comfortably worse than either 09 or 11. Most of you didn't watch us that closely but we did and imo most of us would agree 09 and 11 were comfortably better. Defeating that Manu in the finals twice is alone more than sufficient argument how strong the competition was back then, PSG was a star-studded team but nothing special. 09 and 11 Barca would have technically obliterated that PSG or Manc much easily than the 15 Barca did. Bayern was great in 15 but they were missing Robbery and we barely won 3-0 after being 0-0 in the 80th min at home, that too thanks to Messi and they conceded the third stupidly. Had they stayed back and seen off 2-0 then one shouldn't forget how tricky the second leg could be with Mats doing absolutely stunning stuff to save us in the second leg and they being better overall than us in the second leg.

We were at the top of the world for only 6 months in 15, when 14 was ending we were in tatters with lucho on the verge of being sacked. And when the new season began of 15/16 we were good for the first few months and collapsed in 16. There is a reason we were very consisten for at least half a decade back then.

 

[serghei]

2014-15 Barcelona is somewhat similar with 2016-17 Madrid. It's a tossup between them.

 

[Andresito]

TBH don't really miss those times when we had like 10 El Classicos in one season.

It was a tough period psychologically for most fans I'd imagine, including me. But looking back with the results in hand it's a series of games I'm glad it happened.

Plus it's somewhat of an important milestone in the Barca v Madrid rivalry. It showed how much further ahead Barca were with Madrid trying EVERYTHING to derail us, with Mourinho leading the shitshow both on and off the pitch.