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Flavia
Guest
Injuries surely played a part. But in the end, Rakitic helped a lot in winning the treble. He was surely one of the top 5 Barça players for me, last season.
Ivan Rakitić
- Thread starter Barcaman
- Start date
Injuries surely played a part. But in the end, Rakitic helped a lot in winning the treble. He was surely one of the top 5 Barça players for me, last season.
Cant see why, Messi, Iniesta, Pique, Neymar and Suarez are 5 players that were easily better imo.
JamDav1982
Senior Member
Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Busi, Pique, Alves were all surely better than Rakitic?
Rakitic had a good season but I personally felt the midfield area with him and Iniesta got dominated too often and were bailed out by the forwards or good defending.
Will never agree Rakitic was awful though, he clearly had a good season across the board but still not the top standard Barca require for me.
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Flavia
Guest
I wouldn't put Iniesta there. Far inconsistent all season, although he shined in the ending. Top 10 for him. You also forgot Busi. And I place Rakitic above Suarez. It was thanks in a good part to Rakitic that msn could shine. He defended a lot, helped hold the midfield. My top 5 is Messi, Busi, Pique, Neymar, Rakitic.
He clearly had a good season, dont think he was that great as some seem to think. Messi, Suarez, Pique, Iniesta, Neymar, Busi were all better imo.
JamDav1982
Senior Member
The front three improved hugely when Suarez entered, Rakitic was there before that.
Suarez had so many important goals and link up play and turned up in virtually every big game.
Barcas success was made last season on best front three ever largely playing amongst themselves. Not even close for me that Suarez was better and far more influential to the season.
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Flavia
Guest
People tend to only remember the last part of the season. Although Rakitic struggle at 1st, throughout the whole campaing he was consistent. That's why I place him higher than Suarez or Iniesta. But that's just me, everyone will have a different opinion.
El Flaco
Active member
Rakitic was suerly good during the last season, I think no one will against it.
But I was talking about why some says we shouldn't make a comparison between the Croatian players when it's fully acceptable to do the same thing about Messi & Cristiano...
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Flavia
Guest
One person said this. Maybe you should engage him/her about that to discuss. No point in dragging Messi or cr into this.
Barcafan 2304
New member
Just worrying about his form this season. Hope it's temporary and he steps it up soon.
Barcafan 2304
New member
Which means we need to look at reinforcements for the midfield ASAP!
Sea_of_Frost
Member
But Messi and Cristiano have similar roles don't they? Don't people compare them for the same reason? For a long while now, they've been the primary goal scorers of their team (maybe now Messi is more of a playmaker but 2012 Messi was pulling us through solely based on his goal scoring exploits in an overall bad season). The attack of both Madrid and Barcelona goes through both of them in the final third. Attackers have always been considered this way. Messi is different in the sense that he's a playmaker as well. But those type of attackers are literally non-existant, hence, they're always compared to the other attackers present who's primary job is to put the ball in the back of the net.
Comparing Modric and Rakitic is like comparing Vidal to Thiago and saying Thiago is better.
Obviously Thiago is better as a deep lying playmaker. But Vidal's job isn't only playmake, is it?
silvia
New member
that is true. last season is largely due to front three. but those front three doesn't help much in defense.
That's the reason Rakitic hid his offensive abilities and did supportive roles.
If Suarez and Neymar scored a lot this season, rakitic would look a lot better.
that is why i prefer verratri over pogba.
and you can't compare rakitic and modric like messi and ronaldo.
we ve seen messi and ronaldo for almost 10 years. but rakitic and modric?
Fit modric is better than Rakitic that is all hypothetical argument. i can say fit vermalen is better than pique. but that makes no sense.
BBZ8800
Senior Member
Wrong example.
In 2004-2005-2006, Etoo was something like Neymar today.
Like 3rd, 4th or 5th best players in the world.
Mourinho was offering silly amounts like 120M each for Ronaldinho and Etoo.
He wasn't interested in any other Barca's player.
Pep later wanted to sell Etoo, from other reasons.
About Rakitic, it seems that people are blinded by the current season, and have forgot how Rakitic played in the last Season.
Whenever he played, we had more balance (than without him).
If we had some more flashy player (example: Coutinho), we would lost all the balance, and we wouldn't win a CL.
Raki isn't as flashy as some players, but he brings a lot of balance, a lot of defending, workrate, a good connection with Messi, smart runs into the box, he scored some important CL goals (Man. City, Juve) unlike Modric etc.
Imo, 8 players without whom we couldn't play last Season were:
= Bravo, Alves, Busi, Raki, Iniesta, Messi, Suarez, Neymar
-- Pique, Masch, Alba are more easily replacable
-- that doesn't mean that they haven't played well, but that even we in the team have somewhat similar players who can play instead of them
-- and not to mention that there are 100s of similar players in other teams (to buy)
-- on the other hand, the world isn't exactly filled with "new" Busi's, Iniesta's, Raki's, Neymar's etc.
About Modric vs Rakitic, a lot of users here are from Croatia.
I have never been a huge fan of Modric (he is an awesome player, but I don't rate him as high as media rate him)
-- so, since people are already talking bad about Rakitic, here are some remarks about Modric which people in my surroundings repeat about him:
1. Modric almost NEVER plays good for NT team of Croatia
-- like once in 10 matches
-- he should be the leader and the best player, and he always plays like as if he either don't know how to play football, or as if he is saving himself for club football
2. Modric can play well mostly when he is surrounded with CR7 and similar world class players who are big stars
-- he is a perfect waterboy
-- he shines the most when key stars are heavily marked, and when he can "run the show" from the middle and when he has a lot of space in the middle
3. Modric is also "missing some courage/balls" in big matches. That was clearly visible with Croatian NT matches on the last Euro and World cup
-- when he is needed the most, to step in, he hides and does nothing (again, except if he has 5 big boys like Cristiano, Alonso and other beside him).
-- if he is supposed to be the main man, he usually doesn't deliver anything
4. in his Tottenham days, a lot of Tottenham's fans made jokes about him that he always plays well, but nothing actually happens after his plays
-- people were posting stats, which said something like 100 matches, 4-5 goals, 4-5 assists in a few seasons there, saying that it is not enough for such an expensive midfielder
-- ok, he is not a scorer, but some key goals or key assists every now and then are needed
-- he improved in assists in Real Madrid, but again, that is Real Madrid, everyone improves there with 10 stars around you
5. Modric is currently involved in a scandal involving Zdravko Mamic from Dinamo
-- Mamic is basically signing all young Croatian future superstars, then he hypes them and "forces" coaches of Dinamo to build a team around them so that they can shine (Modric, Halilovic etc), then he hypes the local media to write about those youngsters and also, he forces NT coaches to play those youngsters no matter what, so that their price can jump
-- Mamic then sells them for huge prices, he takes most of the money, and players often don't pay the taxes and they even pay a part of their wages in new teams to Mamic
-- now, Mamic will go to jail eventually, but also, it needs to be said that he "created" those players and that without his hyping and pushing, they wouldn't play at Dinamo at such an early age and they surely wouldn't play in an NT team in such an early age (only to raise their transfer fees)
-- so, players are acting as if they are innocent now, but they were also involved in criminal actions and they knew how that machine works
-- Modric is one of the main players involved in this, and he was questioned by the court and he said that he paid a lot of money to Mamic, without paying taxes
Anyway, Raki isn't as technically gifted as Modric.
But Raki has more "balls", and he hides less often.
Raki can be a leader of both a world class team and of a crappy team where he is the main man.
He will take the responsibility.
Rakitic can score goals. And his shot has a lot of power in it, unlike Modric's baby-shots.
Modric will shine in teams like Real and Barca.
He is technically gifted, dictates play well.
But he has some issues with confidence when he is isn't playing alongside CR7 and other boys and sometimes he crumbles and hides on the field, when he is forced to be the leader.
If people shit on our Raki, well, even Modrinho isn't the most perfect player in the world, without any flaws.
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