Is it time to ditch possession football and build up something from the ground up?

[Flavia]

Only on the surface and done by not very good people. Pep's system is a passing positional game with off the ball movement and pressing in the opponent's half once the ball is lost. I don't see why we shouldn't keep that.

We would need Pep for his system to work. And that's not happening.

 

[DonAK]

We would need Pep for his system to work. And that's not happening.

We don't need a carbon copy of Pep's system, but we can build on his system's basic principles.

 

[serghei]

We don't need a carbon copy of Pep's system, but we can build on his system's basic principles.

Exactly. It's either we start with the pressing and off the ball movement again, or we need to invest something like 150m only in defence. 3 of our starting back 4 have big big troubles when the other team plays directly on them.

 

[Leo_Messi]

Once again it seems to me that people miss the fact that a system (no matter what kind of system) depends solely on the players that can be found in a given squad.

We can't use the same tactics as successfully as Pep used them even if we copied them fully tomorrow. Not because those tactics were poor but because our current squad is not suited for those tactics if the goal is to see a similar outcome once again. Not anymore. For that to work again we would need a Xavi and Iniesta in their primes. Not going to happen. Ever.

Lucho and the pathetic excuse of a board should sit down and figure out how to best use the strengths of our current squad. Whatever it takes to improve our chances of success should be pursued.

In our current position we have no right to be overly picky.

As I wrote then I have seen glimpses of what Lucho has been planning to change tactics wise but unfortunately the squad that he inherited is not optimal. What he told about his visions back in May do not harmonize with what we have seen on the pitch. Yet that is.

We should give him until February and March to see if some of those changes have been implemented correctly.

Personally I liked what I saw against PSG in the return leg. Sure, the players were not fully accustomed to it but it was a nice change of scenery and it obviously surprised the opponent. The end result was also good. This system/tactic can be improved with time. Or other systems for that matter.

 

[Flavia]

We don't need a carbon copy of Pep's system, but we can build on his system's basic principles.

Exactly. It's either we start with the pressing and off the ball movement again, or we need to invest something like 150m only in defence. 3 of our starting back 4 have big big troubles when the other team plays directly on them.

Pep's system is not the only one who can bring success to Barça. It wasn't the 1st to do so, and hopefully won't be the last. Thinking like that is what is keeping the club from evolving. Most still believe this is the only way, or the best way. It was the best way back then, when Pep was here. Things change, football evolve. Pep is not even playing the same system at Bayern anymore.

 

[DonAK]

Pep's system is not the only one who can bring success to Barça. It wasn't the 1st to do so, and hopefully won't be the last. Thinking like that is what is keeping the club from evolving. Most still believe this is the only way, or the best way. It was the best way back then, when Pep was here. Things change, football evolve. Pep is not even playing the same system at Bayern anymore.

He is not, but his basic principles of pressing and off the ball movement as serghei said remains the same. That's what I meant. We don't need and we won't get a copy of Pep's system, but we must instead use the basic principles he left with and build something on it and move on.

But for that you need capable people leading the club with a vision of how they want Barcelona to be and right now it's quite obvious that we've not got those people.

 

[BBZ8800]

Rijkaard's Barca in their prime, before we won the CL in 2006'

If people don't have 90 minutes to watch this, even first 10-20-30 minutes will be enough.

1. we played attacking
2. we played beautiful
3. we played possession football, but slightly different than today
4. we were much more direct

Even after watching this match for only 10-15 minutes, people will see the difference with the current Barca.
Our current passes are so slow, so short and so "safe".

Just look how everything looks "fast" in that Barca in 2005-2006'.
When we have a chance for counterattack, we try a counterattack.
When we can try a solo action, we try a solo action.
When we can shoot, our players don't hesitate to try long ranged drives.

I will never understand why a returning to that type of possession possession with slightly more direct approach would be a bad thing, and why we should stick to Pep's-never-lose-the ball-no matter-what-style.

Please people, just look at this match for 15-20 minutes, and try to remember when the current Barca tried so many faster/direct actions in one match.

Moving away from Pep's style doesn't mean that we will play like Stoke.
There are 1000s other variations of possession football, like in this video.

 

[instinct]

Rijkaard's Barca in their prime, before we won the CL in 2006'

If people don't have 90 minutes to watch this, even first 10-20-30 minutes will be enough.

1. we played attacking
2. we played beautiful
3. we played possession football, but slightly different than today
4. we were much more direct

Even after watching this match for only 10-15 minutes, people will see the difference with the current Barca.
Our current passes are so slow, so short and so "safe".

Just look how everything looks "fast" in that Barca in 2005-2006'.
When we have a chance for counterattack, we try a counterattack.
When we can try a solo action, we try a solo action.
When we can shoot, our players don't hesitate to try long ranged drives.

I will never understand why a returning to that type of possession possession with slightly more direct approach would be a bad thing, and why we should stick to Pep's-never-lose-the ball-no matter-what-style.

Please people, just look at this match for 15-20 minutes, and try to remember when the current Barca tried so many faster/direct actions in one match.

Moving away from Pep's style doesn't mean that we will play like Stoke.
There are 1000s other variations of possession football, like in this video.

 

[Leo_Messi]

Rijkaard's Barca in their prime, before we won the CL in 2006'

If people don't have 90 minutes to watch this, even first 10-20-30 minutes will be enough.

1. we played attacking
2. we played beautiful
3. we played possession football, but slightly different than today
4. we were much more direct

Even after watching this match for only 10-15 minutes, people will see the difference with the current Barca.
Our current passes are so slow, so short and so "safe".

Just look how everything looks "fast" in that Barca in 2005-2006'.
When we have a chance for counterattack, we try a counterattack.
When we can try a solo action, we try a solo action.
When we can shoot, our players don't hesitate to try long ranged drives.

I will never understand why a returning to that type of possession possession with slightly more direct approach would be a bad thing, and why we should stick to Pep's-never-lose-the ball-no matter-what-style.

Please people, just look at this match for 15-20 minutes, and try to remember when the current Barca tried so many faster/direct actions in one match.

Moving away from Pep's style doesn't mean that we will play like Stoke.
There are 1000s other variations of possession football, like in this video.

Most teams back then did not sit back and defend with their entire team from the start to the end as 95% of all teams do currently.

This particular game was one of the best games during Rijkaard's entire tenure. That's quite a big benchmark to use as an example. Moreover this was against a RM (Galácticos back then) who could not defend even if their life's depended on it.

The playing style, number of goals that we scored were not really that great under Rijkaard. It was Ronaldinho and everyone else almost. A bit like it is currently with Messi and everyone else. If I am to be harsh. Pep's team was a vastly superior team on almost every front and a much more entertaining team to watch IMO.

Anyway Pep's era is gone and I agree that we have to look at the current realities and use a tactic that can best utilize the current squad's strengths. That's the job of Lucho and his team.

 

[Hamzah]

We were definitely more "fun" in the early Rijkaard years. Even during Pep's peak some of the smaller games were a bit clinical and dull even though we won (I know that sounds crazy but it is kind of true).

Of course peps teams were superior but I hope people get my point.

 

[Bertus]

We don't need a carbon copy of Pep's system, but we can build on his system's basic principles.

Then we have a big problem.

How is Barca supposed to recruit a worldwide renowned coach if he's not free to do his own thing.

Do you really think any of the best coaches around would like to hear :

"we want you to do something based on what pep did because pep is the best and since he's the best, you're inferior and so need to have a project based on pep's principles since, I hope you understood it, pep's the best".

Really. Well. I understand why Barca recruits third rate coaches now. It all makes sense.

In short, you guys want Pep back.

 

[Bertus]

Look, if Barca recruited Van Gaal, what do you think he would have done?

Do you really think he would have followed instructions?

No, he would have gone with his own project and sold/recruit as many players as he needs to fit his masterplan.

I don't understand how you guys expect those "best coaches" to accept to follow a route decided by others.

...

If Barca's board is acting like that, then yeah, we can expect more lucho/tata type of coaches in the following years.

It's depressing.

 

[BBZ8800]

Most teams back then did not sit back and defend with their entire team from the start to the end as 95% of all teams do currently.

This particular game was one of the best games during Rijkaard's entire tenure. That's quite a big benchmark to use as an example. Moreover this was against a RM (Galácticos back then) who could not defend even if their life's depended on it.

The playing style, number of goals that we scored were not really that great under Rijkaard. It was Ronaldinho and everyone else almost. A bit like it is currently with Messi and everyone else. If I am to be harsh. Pep's team was a vastly superior team on almost every front and a much more entertaining team to watch IMO.

Anyway Pep's era is gone and I agree that we have to look at the current realities and use a tactic that can best utilize the current squad's strengths. That's the job of Lucho and his team.

I wanted to watch only 10-15 minutes of the match from my link, but then I watched 15 minutes and said to myself: Ok, let's watch 15 minutes more.
Then 15 minutes more etc.
I watched till 0:3 around 80th minute now.

I have almost forgot how we played back then.
But here are a few thoughts after watching that match and that system compared to the current:
1. Victor Valdes NEVER passes the ball to one of 4 defenders when he has the ball
-- he boots the ball upfield to Ronaldinho/Etoo/Messi all the time
-- aka, he tries a quick counterattack and we don't want to wait until 11 players of our opponents sit in their box and defend
2. back 4 don't pass the ball between themselves for ages like today
-- again, they pass the ball to Xavi or Edmilson, or DL Van Bronckhorst immidiately passes the ball to Ronaldinho who then tries a dribble/shot
-- so, again, we don't sit and wait until our opponents take their positions and park the bus in their box
3. we can see a lot of long balls, and long through balls into space (we don't see that too often today)
-- there weren't too many slow, safe, short passes from our team in this match
4. first goal was scored in 2-3 touches between Messi and Etoo
-- 2nd Goal, we get the ball in our box, 1st player passes to our midfielder, he passes to Ronnie, Ronnie runs, dribbles past two players and scores
-- again, we didn't wait for them to sit back and park the bus
-- the 3rd goal, the same story: we take the ball, 2-3-4 quick passes, Ronaldinho is alone against 1 or 2 players, he dribbles and scores
5. DR Alves
-- in the last years, Alves is leading almost 50% of our attacks
-- in this match, DR Oleguer just passes the ball in his own half, and the ball is quickly released to Xavi or Messi
-- DL Van Bronckhorst also didn't contribute too much in this match offensively
-- today: we allow teams to park the bus, the middle of the pitch is then crowded and the only option is to give the ball to Alves and Alba to cross 100s of times
6. further, all of our passes were always forward
-- not too many passes were going left to right, then again back to left, then to Busi etc
-- for example, a few times Mcs Xavi and Deco had the ball, and they tried risky passes, some were successful, some were poor
-- but I asked myself: wtf is this? Because in the last 7-8 years, whenever Xavi has the ball, he stops, he turns, he looks back, he plays safely back to Busi or someone, Busi plays to Alves, Alves plays to Busi, Busi plays to Xavi, and 30 seconds later we are in the same position as 30 seconds ago, but nothing happened, except that the opponents have parked the bus
7. plus, even though we lost possession a lot of times in this match because we tried direct and risky passes, we still didn't have too much troubles in defense (because today we are afraid of defending after losing possession)
8. we tried a few longshots

Anyway, now we have to ask ourselves:
-- are teams parking the bus today because they want to or because we are "asking" for it with our slow building game (Gk passes to a Dc, he passes to another Dc, he passes to Alves, he passes to Busi, Busi passes to Xavi, Xavi passes to Busi, Busi passes to Alves etc)?

Again, take a look at the game for 10-20 minutes, and basically we didn't have to face parked bus or the whole defense nor once.

In this match, the plan is simple:
= play a quick counterattack and get Ronnie/Etoo/Messi alone with only 1 defender
-- repeat that 7-8-10 times during a match, they will beat their markers a few times, and we will have 5-6 clean goalscoring opportunities
-- and this is exactly what happened

Today?
-- we always wait until the opponent parks the bus because we don't want to play quicky/directly because we don't want to lose the possession, lol.
And then Messi has to play against 3-4 defenders against him instead like 1 or max 2 players infront of him, like in this match

Who doesn't agree, just please watch 15-20 minutes of the match

 

[khaled_a_d]

Rijkaard's Barca in their prime, before we won the CL in 2006'

If people don't have 90 minutes to watch this, even first 10-20-30 minutes will be enough.

1. we played attacking
2. we played beautiful
3. we played possession football, but slightly different than today
4. we were much more direct

Even after watching this match for only 10-15 minutes, people will see the difference with the current Barca.
Our current passes are so slow, so short and so "safe".

Just look how everything looks "fast" in that Barca in 2005-2006'.
When we have a chance for counterattack, we try a counterattack.
When we can try a solo action, we try a solo action.
When we can shoot, our players don't hesitate to try long ranged drives.

I will never understand why a returning to that type of possession possession with slightly more direct approach would be a bad thing, and why we should stick to Pep's-never-lose-the ball-no matter-what-style.

Please people, just look at this match for 15-20 minutes, and try to remember when the current Barca tried so many faster/direct actions in one match.

Moving away from Pep's style doesn't mean that we will play like Stoke.
There are 1000s other variations of possession football, like in this video.

Man,always loved Rijkaard days here .and always said if a past system can be repeated at Barca it is his system ,it had the combination of physics ,skills and speed and it allowed many different type of players to fit the system

 

[serghei]

I don't understand how you guys expect those "best coaches" to accept to follow a route decided by others.

The best coaches adapt their style to the teams they arrive at. They asses the situation and decide what style suits that team the best. You think what, that if say Mourinho comes tomorrow on Camp Nou, he'll build a defensive Barcelona?