Gerardo "Tata" Martino

[xavi_the_Boss]

Maybe Tata was informed about it.

 

[JamDav1982]

The way Zubi has disrespected Tata with his 'secret' meeting with Lucho today is utterly disgusting.

Steady on.

It is not great for Tata but if they are replacing him with Lucho then it is the right thing to do in terms of getting set for next season.

These type of things happen all the time.

 

[DonAK]

Maybe Tata informed them that he will leave?

 

[Stric]

The way Zubi has disrespected Tata with his 'secret' meeting with Lucho today is utterly disgusting.

Not necessarily. Maybe Tata informed Zubi that he's leaving first.

 

[DonAK]

El Periodico reporting that Tata handed in his resignation.

 

[big_man]

I agree with you in essence.

Jonathan Wilson over at the Guardian basically said the same as you about tiki-taka, only difference is he went after the old abstraction that football goes in cycles and that the posession cycle is coming to an end; and as a consequence made it only easier to swallow.

I'm not sure whether posession based football is done and dusted, but at least for me, posession has always been a result of the circumstances and not a way to achieve a result. Excessive posession always stroke me as a pragmatic solution to a specific problems, mainly as a substitute for actual defending. And Barca needed that, in 10/11 way more than in 08/09 for example.
The downfall of posession based play is caprice, a poor implementation and lack-luster middle-grounds. When it stops to be a pragmatic solution and becomes a philosophy or a dogma - when people get the idea that it is a keystone of an entire club and therefore irreversible, which is solely an observation based on a too narrow timeframe. At its' worst, it makes players complacent because they have the psychological proxy power to ignore the result as long as the posession level meets the expectations - which in itself is based on the common misconception that posession means dominance/forcing your play on the opponent. The matches you referred to are case studies of exactly why this is actually a misconception.

Meanwhile, back at the Barcaranch, we're all sitting on the highest possible horse. Winning per se isn't a joy, it's a necessity. And it has to be in a certain style as well. In these parts, we look down on notorious bus parkers like Chelsea, on counter-attacking sides like Real or those who throw some rather cynical stuff in the mix from time to time like... everyone but Barca (most of the time).
But when it comes down to it, this is just a another peculiarity of organisational blindness that affects everyone somehow involved with this club. Even more, it's loss of reality.

As for Tata, he tried and failed. He was asked to pick up where others left off and the result is on the table for everyone to see. His failure isn't a nearly trophyless season or some questionable results in La Liga; his failure is that he couldn't convince Barca that change is a necessity and that this needs time. Nevertheless, he knew that the Camp Nou benchmark is results + entertainment value while ignoring the circumstances. He knew that nobody will calmly analyze the problems of the team and differentiate between what is his fault and what isn't once he starts to lay his hands on what people perceive as a keystone of the club. And what will happen now is pretty obvious: He'll leave, another one comes and Barca pretend that all problems are solved. Throw a few new players in the mix, get rid of deadwood but keep the dogma.

What happens after that is obvious as well: Nothing will chance and I guarentee you that we will be back at square one next year.

God bless this man. The bit in bold especially is an absolutely brilliant point.

I agree with you and that was my point with my earlier post. Sacking Tata or not is not the issue. The issue is this cringey obsession with possession and "dominating" your opponents that it has seriously crippled the club and a lot of fans. It doesn't help that now we are in a stat-mad age where it is used as the sole tool for assessing games.

I say this because I remember arguing with someone at the start of the season about the shots conceded stat. He claimed we were not dominating because of that, I showed him a video of the match that actually showed that out of the 15 shots the opposition made (think it was Rayo away), only about 1 or 2 were actually real chances.

The Madrid-Bayern game is another example, you look at the stats, Madrid only had like 9 shots, Bayern had like 20, having a Barca specs on one will say Bayern dominated, but anyone that watched that match shows how laughable such a claim is.

This is the problem, people are saying we looked shaky at the start of the season, but that 1st half of the season was a joy to watch for me. We lured opponents into false sense of security and boom, goals out of nothing. I personally found it exciting and couldn't give a damn about how many shots we conceded or how much possession we had.

The problem is that everybody started complaining, this is where a guy like Mourinho (much as I think he is pathetic) earns his money, he never backs down under pressure, Tata on the other hand did and this is where the real problem started. IMO, if he stuck to his guns I think we would pissed on La liga. He caved in and in the second half of the season we went back into aimless possession mode again.

As you said, sacking Tata is just papering over the cracks. The problem is way bigger than him and I find it funny people think its as simple as hiring another coach and signing one defender

Also, I am somewhat disappointed in Xavi. Yes his legs have gone, but I know he has the ability to do a Pirlo. It seems as though he didn't want to adapt to a different style of play, and as godly as he is, Xavi you are still a player and you do as the coach says.

I felt he was going through the motions and is one of the culprits of the relapse to aimless possession. IMO we should have given Cesc (In the middle of the park!) more trust and start him ahead of Xavi whether he had a good or bad game, I think Tata realised Cesc was more suited to his style but didn't have the balls to do it permanently. Someone talked about Xavi criticising the teamplay, I never caught on to him saying that but I wouldn't be surprised if he did (Any quotes?). It makes sense to me as he seems like the perfect Barca DNA fanatic I was talking about.

In any case, Tata failed, but as you said, he failed to sell an idea. I also think (from his quotes) he is selling himself short because I personally saw some improvements in this team in certain games. We lost to Atletico without Pique and Valdez, surprise surprise Atletico got their precious away goal via shot that Valdez would have probably been alert for. Madrid game at the Copa final? same thing, Valdez would probably have saved that Bale goal.

These things were out of his control and the difference between winning the Copa and being in the last 4 could well have been because of those 2 players missing- what was he supposed to do about that.

In hindsight, what we have seen this season is that we have 2 of the best teams in the world in our league that are in the CL finals, both teams embarassed supposed superiors in Chelsea and Bayern, we did fairly well against both in all the games we played against them considering the circumstances, another credit should go to him for this.

His biggest faults lie in motivating the players, which he failed to do for the smaller games. For all the hoopla about our league form, we are only a few points off and if he had motivated the players for these (Case in point getafe) games we would be running away with the league. He was fine in the big games for the most part.


All I know is I'll hate to see someone like Lucho(lol) come in and we start playing like a bootleg version of a Pep team again, god the horror of Madrid putting 4 past us, you think we had a horrible season, wait till that starts to happen regularly, and you bet it will if we don't make major changes.

 

[JamDav1982]

Interesting quote from Tata after Getafe game. Apologies if already posted.

"If we have been unable to win today, we don't deserve to have more chances in La Liga. The players know what is dividing the club and what is the choice. There is still time to tell my future. I do not like to avoid responsibilities and feel that I am responsible. During the season we had some shortcomings which we haven't resolved''

 

[Behrox]

God bless this man. The bit in bold especially is an absolutely brilliant point.

I agree with you and that was my point with my earlier post. Sacking Tata or not is not the issue. The issue is this cringey obsession with possession and "dominating" your opponents that it has seriously crippled the club and a lot of fans. It doesn't help that now we are in a stat-mad age where it is used as the sole tool for assessing games.

I say this because I remember arguing with someone at the start of the season about the shots conceded stat. He claimed we were not dominating because of that, I showed him a video of the match that actually showed that out of the 15 shots the opposition made (think it was Rayo away), only about 1 or 2 were actually real chances.

The Madrid-Bayern game is another example, you look at the stats, Madrid only had like 9 shots, Bayern had like 20, having a Barca specs on one will say Bayern dominated, but anyone that watched that match shows how laughable such a claim is.

This is the problem, people are saying we looked shaky at the start of the season, but that 1st half of the season was a joy to watch for me. We lured opponents into false sense of security and boom, goals out of nothing. I personally found it exciting and couldn't give a damn about how many shots we conceded or how much possession we had.

The problem is that everybody started complaining, this is where a guy like Mourinho (much as I think he is pathetic) earns his money, he never backs down under pressure, Tata on the other hand did and this is where the real problem started. IMO, if he stuck to his guns I think we would pissed on La liga. He caved in and in the second half of the season we went back into aimless possession mode again.

As you said, sacking Tata is just papering over the cracks. The problem is way bigger than him and I find it funny people think its as simple as hiring another coach and signing one defender

Also, I am somewhat disappointed in Xavi. Yes his legs have gone, but I know he has the ability to do a Pirlo. It seems as though he didn't want to adapt to a different style of play, and as godly as he is, Xavi you are still a player and you do as the coach says.

I felt he was going through the motions and is one of the culprits of the relapse to aimless possession. IMO we should have given Cesc (In the middle of the park!) more trust and start him ahead of Xavi whether he had a good or bad game, I think Tata realised Cesc was more suited to his style but didn't have the balls to do it permanently. Someone talked about Xavi criticising the teamplay, I never caught on to him saying that but I wouldn't be surprised if he did (Any quotes?). It makes sense to me as he seems like the perfect Barca DNA fanatic I was talking about.

In any case, Tata failed, but as you said, he failed to sell an idea. I also think he is selling himself short because I personally saw some improvements in this team in certain games. We lost to Atletico without Pique and Valdez, surprise surprise Atletico got a goal that Valdez would have probably been alert for. Madrid game at the Copa final? same thing, Valdez would probably have saved that Bale goal.

These things were out of his control and the difference between winning the Copa and being in the last 4 could well have been because of those 2 players missing- what was he supposed to do about that.

In hindsight, what we have seen this season is that we have 2 of the best teams in the world in our league that are in the CL finals, both teams embarassed supposed superiors in Chelsea and Bayern, we did fairly well against both considering the circumstances and it does make you thin, doesn't it?

His biggest faults lie in motivating the players, which he failed to do for the smaller games. For all the hoopla about our league form, we are only a few points off and if he had motivated the players for these (Case in point getafe) games we would be running away with the league. He was fine in the big games for the most part.


I hate to see someone like Lucho(lol) come in and we start playing like a bootleg version of a Pep team again, christ the horror of Madrid putting 4 past us, you think we had a horrible season, wait till that starts to happen regularly, and you bet it will if we don't make major changes

Xavi said in an interview that Barca's style is non-negotiable and that was before the winter break I believe

Interesting quote from Tata after Getafe game. Apologies if already posted.

"If we have been unable to win today, we don't deserve to have more chances in La Liga. The players know what is dividing the club and what is the choice. There is still time to tell my future. I do not like to avoid responsibilities and feel that I am responsible. During the season we had some shortcomings which we haven't resolved''

Tata giving hints about the shit that happened in the 2nd half of the season

 

[Paganinisrvnge]

Some brilliant posts in this thread. I agree that if we kept Tata's approach the whole season; we'd probably have at least one trophy if not more. Tiki-taka was beautiful to watch but it's become a sickening obsession and it needs to stop. The objective of matches is to win and how do you win? By scoring goals? We had the best counterattack in the world for a few months and then we suddenly went to extremely tame possession game. Did Xavi's supposed meeting with Tata have anything to do with it if it really happened? I don't know but what I do know is that we need to become more tactically flexible. Are we going to stick to 4-3-3 and dominating possession forever? We'll waste Messi and the other young players' best years if we don't adapt. The game of football changes constantly and it's important to adapt.

 

[xavi_the_Boss]

Interesting quote from Tata after Getafe game. Apologies if already posted.

"If we have been unable to win today, we don't deserve to have more chances in La Liga. The players know what is dividing the club and what is the choice. There is still time to tell my future. I do not like to avoid responsibilities and feel that I am responsible. During the season we had some shortcomings which we haven't resolved''

I think Xavi also said something like that.So their must be something wrong.

 

[Stric]

It would surely make sense. When you look at the entire season, there's really a dividing line there. Somewhere along the way something happened.

 

[Cule4life]

It would surely make sense. When you look at the entire season, there's really a dividing line there. Somewhere along the way something happened.

That would be the meeting between Xavi and Tata

 

[Stric]

That would be the meeting between Xavi and Tata

If that rumor is really true, then Xavi is a moron, and a dick, to boot.

 

[Cruijffista]

Everybody knows Tata is gone.

I'm glad Lucho is being contacted immediately so we have a plan going forward and possibly secure some transfers before the World Cup.

 

[darthvader7888]

If that rumor is really true, then Xavi is a moron, and a dick, to boot.

If that meeting happened, Xavi was in the wrong in trying to tell the coach what to do. However, Tata shouldn't have succumbed to what Xavi telling him what to do. This is why we need a more authoritative coach.

Imagine Xavi trying a meeting with Mourinho or even Pep. He'd be told to fuck off and he'd be benched right away.