Gerardo "Tata" Martino

[Ursegor]

But they dont hurt your chances of winning do they? You could bring Benatia/Thiago Silva and whoever else you wont succeed if you dont have discipline. Just look at the 2nd goal conceded against Getafe today. There were 4 getafe players in our box and only 3 of our players. The rest were standing or jogging back. Unless the players work together the team would be less than the sum of its parts.

I agree. But I don't see the connection with Valdes' or Puyol's balls. Valdes' presence wouldn't have changed the positioning of the front 6 to get back and defend.

And if we want to blame this on Martino then that's also stupid. The same Martino under whom we conceded 1 goal over 180 minutes against one of the highest scoring teams in the world in Man. City can't set up tactics to make his team defend against Getafe at home?

We lost because of bad team dynamics, not individuals. No one believes Barca is going to win La Liga anymore. Morals are low. Tito's death is surely on peoples' minds, the man has been around the squad on a daily routine for over 5 years, some knew him since childhood. There are million reasons why the team isn't performing at peak level and losing concentration right now.

Time to move on.

 

[TornAndFrayed]

It seems like his departure is inevitable...

I haven't even made up my mind about Martino.
He's had both success and failures with the very, very limited means for change he had at his disposal.

And I don't think that the fact he shared a year with this board should matter. The board just needs to go.

 

[evilhita666]

You guys have little to no memory, in the beginning of the season we were playing the best disciplined and exciting football we had in years. It was all thanks to Tata and his shit tactics. The problem became the board not backing him up and allowing him to make changes. All that 'I trust Puyol' was what the board told him to say of course. They never gave him an opportunity to keep control of things, and once Xavi went against him he lost the locker room, even though he won a game 4-0. I do think that Tata is not qualified in a sense of European pedigree, but to say that he is clueless or that he sucked is not entirely accurate, as we saw what he did in the first half of the season. The facts are facts. It's the poisonous board who are to blame!

Words of wisdom!

 

[Lomar1o]

if the tello incident is true i feel sorry for tata. busquets, puyol and iniesta are prolly the only players at barca to have the decency of preserving their emotions and supporting their coach instead of backfiring at him. tata is feeling down and he's not getting support from players. now that's fucked up! no matter how bad as a coach he might be, he seems like a very good person and i feel sorry that he has to swallow that much. only busquets came out and said that tata deserves respect and he's not the only one to blame. and now when it's obvious that tata will most probably be leaving, this treacherous board suddenly supports him? tata is our man, we want tata to stay my ass. they are just lying like they've been lying before about almost everything. current barca isn't worthy of a good man.

this is what i've told my friend: martino is the classiest coach barca could ever have. he's just oozing class D seriously. nobody would've been as self critical and humble as he is. we both know there are TONS of problems he could address to and he could've made tons of convincing excuses, because no one can deny that apart from the coach, there are also injuries, tito's death and so many other non-footballing reasons to blame. but no, he remains collected. he's isn't pointing fingers towards anything. because he truly is unsatisfied with what he did and he sincerely wanted better for barca. if he's leaving, i'm sure he'll be leaving with his head held high. i don't want him to leave man. he's the boss.

dark days are ahead of us i just hope messi, iniesta, busquets and bartra will always remain loyal. screw the rest

 

[darthvader7888]

I want him gone because I just don't think he's the man for us, but I like the fact that he's criticizing himself and admitting that he hasn't been good enough. As a person, I like him.

 

[Tomchin]

if the tello incident is true i feel sorry for tata.

Which Tello-incident do you mean?

 

[Barcilliant]

Which Tello-incident do you mean?

+1

Which incident are you talking about.

I hope Tata leaves for his own sake. The atmosphere appears poisonous and Tata himself said there are divisions within the players. He's honest and I like that.

The root cause is the board and some of the players. Unless this is addressed-all others actions, remedies are purely superficial. The board can buy a whole heap of superstars but that doesn't necessarily mean we will have a great team.

Get rid of the board, get rid of the troublemaker players. Without that we are screwed till 2016........

 

[Barcilliant]

Ok I saw the incident. Our players really are a testy rabble at the moment.

Hopefully new get to know whats happening behind the scenes at a later date.

Just not good enough.

 

[Behrox]

With the shit going on with the swelled up egos of our otherwise supposed humble players because of the board not backing the manger we need not a coach but a dictator to pull us out. Just look at the backing Moyes got by the ManU board or Ancoletti at Madrid or Pelligrini at City or even Mou at effin Chelsea. United having the worst season I think ever had a better atmosphere than us because the coach knew he was backed and players like RVP even backed Moyes even though it was inevitable that he was gonna be sacked. We need someone like El Loco or Van Gaal to kick ass and even publically critisize the players if they get out of line by the way things are going. Pique,Busi,Iniesta,Masch,Neymar and Bartra (still on the crossroads for Messi as he was out for long streches) backed Tata the rest had some sort of problem Xavi with the style, Tello coming out publicly about playing time I mean who in their right minds does that. All in all Tata if given the authority required by the coach might have been great but I don't see him getting it and the board will probably use him as a scrapegoat for the season and sack him or pressure him to resign

 

[macleod]

Tata is guilty for many things,but I like him and I think he is a good coach.He didn't stay next season,so I wish him good luck in him next teams.

 

[serghei]

Tata Martino could have worked for us in different circumstances. But, the way things are, this squad is difficult to handle:

- Xavi thinks this is still 2011, and refuses to admit that possesion for the sake of poessesion is bad.
- Messi does only what we wants, and runs only when he feels like (that's why he's been surpassed this season by a fierce Ronaldo).
- The defence is a mess.
- Players are lazy and don't grind out wins -- getting beaten 1-0 by Valladolid and Granada in the same season must be an all time record or smth.
- etc. etc.

The lack of authority made Martino's work doomed for failure. For example, in the Messi situation, after the AM loss in which Leo was like half-asleep or smth, he said that he didn't need Messi to run. That's a clear lack of nerve and courage to take on the best players and show them who the leader of this team is. Instead of making them pay atention to his tactics, he was intimidated by them. In the 2nd part of the season he showed that he didn't have the control required to fix things.

 

[PaulTaylor]

one of the main reasons i'd get rid of him is he doesn't show enough faith in the youngsters Bartra is an exemption to that but he hasn't had much choice with him. He isn't good at substitutes leaves it far to late when somethings not working out.

 

[voodoomaster]

Words of wisdom!

Nope. No wisdom there. We can thank valdes for many victories in the first half of the season - he suddenly decided to become the best goalkeeper in the world. Secondly we didnt play good football, very many people didnt like what they saw. Yes, we won, but the standards are high in Barca and Tata wasnt fulfilling them. Maybe the board had something to say, but Its quite obvious that tata was very bad choice. And another thing: did xavi start to boss the locker room? I mean, the guy is pretty close to done, and he still thinks he owns the team?

 

[Flavia]

Nope. No wisdom there. We can thank valdes for many victories in the first half of the season - he suddenly decided to become the best goalkeeper in the world. Secondly we didnt play good football, very many people didnt like what they saw. Yes, we won, but the standards are high in Barca and Tata wasnt fulfilling them. Maybe the board had something to say, but Its quite obvious that tata was very bad choice. And another thing: did xavi start to boss the locker room? I mean, the guy is pretty close to done, and he still thinks he owns the team?

Yeah, many forget Valdes immense performances. He won many games for Barça this season.

 

[i_bleed_blaugrana]

I honestly really feel for Tata. Like I would argue that even Pep would have had a nightmare of a season here too. This year in particular, we have been absolutely hammered with distraction and after distraction. Any of just one of these distractions would have derailed any elite club, and in some ways considering how much this team has been through this last year, we should be thankful that we still have a somewhat outside chance of retaining La Liga. First it was Tito's sickness, once that blew over then we had Messi's tax evasion controversy. After Messi's taxes, it was Neymargate. After Neymargate, VVs untimely end to his Barca career that was truly unfitting for how well he was playing, then Pique gets hurt. Finally after all of that, we were still a goal away from advancing to the semis in CL and were in full command of La Liga and CdR.

The biggest nail in the coffin for our season was VV's injury. Had he been healthy for this run-in, I think the CdR and that 2nd leg at the Calderon could have played out differently with him. He was playing his heart out for us in his final season and to see him go down like that was truly tragic.

Finally you mix in the transfer ban which was a huge distraction that we had to deal with in the media and finally the death of Tito, that is roughly 8-9 instances of things really not going our way and it would be near impossible to have your players playing at the optimal level with this much going around consistently throughout the season.

Yes, Tata showed some inexperience at the European level. Yes, Tata perhaps wasn't going to be the manager that ruffled the "oldguards" feathers enough to get them playing and motivated again. But I still think Tata is a very capable coach, even though he should leave. I'd say 85% of our current problems have very little to do with his performance as a coach and in differing circumstances, Tata could have succeeded.