Maradona37
Well-known member
It occurred to me for many years that Pep, and the players from that team, and the team in general, attract a lot of morons who try to put them down. I will give some examples.
We constantly hear about how Barca had a lot of decisions go in their favour, BUT we never hear about the decisions that go against them in the same games. Sheer one-sided bias. We could go further into individual decisions but we won't. Alternatively, Real Madrid scored plenty of offside goals and Casemiro got away with murder in all their CL wins, yet few people make a big thing of it.
Pep. He's by far the greatest tactician and manager on the planet. But he's constantly subjected to claims of 'Fraudiola', not even ironically either, or was before he went to Man City. He's a bit of a dick yes but he's seen as a joke character by some. OTOH, we have Ancelotti - clearly a much worse coach than Pep and nowhere near him tactically, but it's in fashion for everyone to act like the sun shines out of Ancelotti's arse, go on about how 'cool and unflustered' he is, and generally act like he's the 'Don'.
Messi. This is probably due to jealous fanboys of other players (eg Ronaldo and Lewa), but we constantly hear about how he 'robs BDs'. First of all, that's funny, because CR has robbed plenty and there's no way a player of his ability should have five, certainly not in Messi's era. He was constantly winning it when his team-mates saved him in CL Finals and he was getting nowhere in international tournaments and La Liga. As for Lewa, we always hear Messi scores against weak teams and is poor in big games (bollocks), but there seems to be zero accountability for the fact that Lewa spent the vast majority of his prime years playing for a Bayern team that had a stanglehold and monopoly over German football. Even the year people act like it was an outrage Robert didn't win and Messi did (2021)- what did he actually do? He scored a lot against BL teams much weaker than Bayern, and won the BL, as Bayern always do, but (like most years) he was poor in the CL. Messi's stats outside of goals pissed all over his. Points again to people jumping on the bandwagon of a player who nobody dislikes and is cool to flatter i.e Lewa. Lewa is very similar to Carlo in that he is a very well-liked figure and people try to protect his failures from criticism.
And then just generally other players - Busquets is a 'cheater', but Casemiro isn't apparently, Iniesta didn't score enough goals, Xavi couldn't survive outside of the Barca system, Pique couldn't lace Ramos's boots etc. And just in general Barca were 'boring' (absolutely clueless bollocks spouted by people who have never played football, or if they have are absolutely terrible at it) and much worse to watch than Real Madrid and Man United's rudimentary counter-attacking.
I put all this down to envy, as I say. People don't like that Barca are the best team in our lifetime, with the best players (and by far the best player since Maradona), so their small-mindedness and envy causes them to attack the protagonists of that team far more than others. In fact, the personnel from other teams (Bayern, Real Madrid, Carlo, Ferguson, Ronaldo, Lewa, Modric) are seen as the saviours saving us from 'boring Barca'.
I am not even a Barca fan, but just my take.
We constantly hear about how Barca had a lot of decisions go in their favour, BUT we never hear about the decisions that go against them in the same games. Sheer one-sided bias. We could go further into individual decisions but we won't. Alternatively, Real Madrid scored plenty of offside goals and Casemiro got away with murder in all their CL wins, yet few people make a big thing of it.
Pep. He's by far the greatest tactician and manager on the planet. But he's constantly subjected to claims of 'Fraudiola', not even ironically either, or was before he went to Man City. He's a bit of a dick yes but he's seen as a joke character by some. OTOH, we have Ancelotti - clearly a much worse coach than Pep and nowhere near him tactically, but it's in fashion for everyone to act like the sun shines out of Ancelotti's arse, go on about how 'cool and unflustered' he is, and generally act like he's the 'Don'.
Messi. This is probably due to jealous fanboys of other players (eg Ronaldo and Lewa), but we constantly hear about how he 'robs BDs'. First of all, that's funny, because CR has robbed plenty and there's no way a player of his ability should have five, certainly not in Messi's era. He was constantly winning it when his team-mates saved him in CL Finals and he was getting nowhere in international tournaments and La Liga. As for Lewa, we always hear Messi scores against weak teams and is poor in big games (bollocks), but there seems to be zero accountability for the fact that Lewa spent the vast majority of his prime years playing for a Bayern team that had a stanglehold and monopoly over German football. Even the year people act like it was an outrage Robert didn't win and Messi did (2021)- what did he actually do? He scored a lot against BL teams much weaker than Bayern, and won the BL, as Bayern always do, but (like most years) he was poor in the CL. Messi's stats outside of goals pissed all over his. Points again to people jumping on the bandwagon of a player who nobody dislikes and is cool to flatter i.e Lewa. Lewa is very similar to Carlo in that he is a very well-liked figure and people try to protect his failures from criticism.
And then just generally other players - Busquets is a 'cheater', but Casemiro isn't apparently, Iniesta didn't score enough goals, Xavi couldn't survive outside of the Barca system, Pique couldn't lace Ramos's boots etc. And just in general Barca were 'boring' (absolutely clueless bollocks spouted by people who have never played football, or if they have are absolutely terrible at it) and much worse to watch than Real Madrid and Man United's rudimentary counter-attacking.
I put all this down to envy, as I say. People don't like that Barca are the best team in our lifetime, with the best players (and by far the best player since Maradona), so their small-mindedness and envy causes them to attack the protagonists of that team far more than others. In fact, the personnel from other teams (Bayern, Real Madrid, Carlo, Ferguson, Ronaldo, Lewa, Modric) are seen as the saviours saving us from 'boring Barca'.
I am not even a Barca fan, but just my take.
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