Ivan Rakitić

[serghei]

Still a mind-boggling decision to for Rakitic instead of Kroos. Thanks Enrique I guess.

Can't understand it either if it was really a case of Rakitic or Kroos and we chose Rakitic. Kroos was obviously the better player.

 

[clemente]

We needed a workhouse to cover for Messi and Alves, Kroos cannot do that, so he was the better fit at the time, but I don't know how is he still a starter here since he can't even cover the distance anymore.

 

[mc_lovin]

I know the reasons for it, but the sane thing would have been to value talent more.

 

[BBZ8800]

I know the reasons for it, but the sane thing would have been to value talent more.

Coutinho is more talented than Rakitic.
It doesn't help.

Since we don't need talent but a babysitter for Messi.
Or two babysitters for Messi and Suarez.
Or three babysitters for Messi, Suarez, Coutinho/Dembele.

If you want Messi=you'll need babysitters and a weaker midfield.
If you want a good midfield=get rid of players like Messi, Suarez, Dembele, Coutinho who don't work too much.

A never ending catch 22.

 

[mc_lovin]

Talk about false equivilance... Coutinho has nothing in common with Kroos and Rakitic. This whole babysitter stuff is complete bullshit as well, you are probably the only one who sees Rakitic as some kind of defensive god. Our single biggest problem in the last 3 years has been our lack of quality in midfield. And Rakitic especially has been tragic for the most part.

 

[BBZ8800]

Talk about false equivilance... Coutinho has nothing in common with Kroos and Rakitic. This whole babysitter stuff is complete bullshit as well, you are probably the only one who sees Rakitic as some kind of defensive god. Our single biggest problem in the last 3 years has been our lack of quality in midfield. And Rakitic especially has been tragic for the most part.

Someone started debate here Rakitic vs Kroos in 2014.
The answer was that we needed a babysitter for Messi BACK THEN.
In those days, younger Rakitic was a good babysitter.
He is not that good anymore.
But the problem of a babysitter for Messi and Suarez remains.
They are older and slower each new Month.

About the biggest problem of our team being midfield, fine.
Still, we don't have a single fast attacker.
We don't have young attacker currently in GSM trio.

You can clone three Frenkies in midfield and our attack will still probably suck in a CL since every ball will be passed to Messi, and he is easily neutralized today aged 32 by big teams.
Then you could reply: but this is why we need more attackers besides Messi.
True.
We have Suarez who is done and Griezz who is very awkward and with similar flaws (slow, can't dribble, can't create chances for himself).
Then by the time when we will find 1-2 new good attackers (which will take a few years and a few bad attempts), Messi will be done and we will need new Messi.

I just can't understand how people can think that we have a nice and a balanced team.
If you are one of them, my advice: prepare yourself for rocky times.
This sinking ship has just started to sink.
This is only a beginning.
The end is far, far away.

No matter how bad are we today, in 2 years, you will look back to a January of 2020 with nostalgia, since we will be way worse than today, more or less no matter what we do.
Because Messi will be either gone or semi retired aged almost 35.
Busi will be gone and no new player of that caliber will play.
Suarez will be gone and new attackers are quite meh.
Griezz will be even more older, slower and meh.
Alba will be gone.
Pique will be gone.

And no: anyone could be better than Suarez, Pique, Busi, Alba won't turn out well.
But wait and see.

We have the oldest and the most mentally and physically drained team in a current era.
And they will be more and more shit each new week.

You can hire 3 Peps tomorrow, no one will force these players to work and run, since they can't do it anymore.
The only option is to turn the page and buy new players.
And that worked well when we had La Masia core with world class domestic players like Xavi, Iniesta, Valdes, Puyol, Motta under Rijkaard.
Or Xavi, Iniesta, Busi, Pique, Pedro under Pep.
We had a core for the future.
Today we don't have even that.
We have Riki Puig

Yeah, EV sucks.
Yeah, Raki is old and meh.
Yeah, midfield sucks.
But we have so many problems and our team is so bad, old and rotten that those tiny changes won't help.

An analogy:
If you play Raki=we suck.
If you bench him=we still suck. Arthur is MIA, and you have to play Busi-Frenkie-Vidal. Busi is done and Vidal is like a crazy horse running around.
You can't improve.
The only question is: whether you want to suck in a way No1 or in a way no2.

Or:
If you play Suarez=we suck.
If you bench him=we suck even more.

Well, the same is with EV, Raki, midfield.
You can fix 1 or 2 problems.
But we have like 101 problems in total.

This is the worst team and a board/directors/coaches since Gaspart's era in early 00s.
In fact, this team is probably even worse.
Those poor guys in 2000s had "human" players like Rivaldo, Kluivert and Overmars.
This team have Messi.
When you remove Messi from this team, this is probably the shittiest bunch of players than in 2000s.

Insane levels of horrible players, zero motivation, old players, slow players, pussies.

Kisses and hugs

 

[mc_lovin]

I have no idea what you are ranting about ;D

The topic is Kroos vs Rakitic, and the former would have been preferable in every conceivable midfield setup. The day we started to worry about workrate we suffered heavily. You simply dont go for an inferior talent with slightly better workrate, thats not the Barcelona way. Heck, I wouldnt call that the Barcelona way, its simple sanity. Same as with Andre Gomes vs Bernado Silva really, it was painfully obvious for half the forum here who the real deal was.

And no, I dont think we have a balanced team in any way, but things would look much brighter if we went for talent instead of "workhorses". That was our first step to failure, and not holding on too long for Suarez (or Busquets) for example.

 

[JohnN]

Things will continue to decline at least until the elections make no mistake about it. And after that, we won't have any new prospects to replace our old guard, so we will need to start from scratch. Dark times seem to be heading our way for a couple of years now.

 

[Judoman]

If you want Messi=you'll need babysitters and a weaker midfield.
A never ending catch 22.

No.
Babysitters=athletic players, so speed, stamina, strenght...

In no way that means "weaker midfield". Not even talent vise.

 

[BBZ8800]

The day we started to worry about workrate we suffered heavily.

Your post sounds as if we dominated for 30 years and then we turned from talent to workrate and failed.

Since 1992, we always relied mostly on technique.
And more or less, we always sucked in Europe.
The only time when we won was in 2006 with Deco and 2 workhorses (Edmilson/Motta-Van Bommel).
And during Pep.
But about that era it is hard to tell whether we won due to Barca DNA players or due to Messi and Xavi-Iniesta.

That type of midfield without Messi has been quite shit in Europe for 20 years.

Don't confuse Xavi-Iniesta with Barca'a way.
Xavi-Iniesta were aliens.
With others, weaker players, we were usually as meh as today.

 

[Zidane82]

Things will continue to decline at least until the elections make no mistake about it. And after that, we won't have any new prospects to replace our old guard, so we will need to start from scratch. Dark times seem to be heading our way for a couple of years now.

It’s absolutely outrageous that we have a manager who cannot improve players and in fact he does the opposite.

Klopp ( and to a lesser extent Pep) has actually improved every player in the Liverpool squad

 

[MTL_Barca]

If there was the opportunity it was still a mistake to not sign Kroos imo.

After already losing Thiago in 2013 and Xavi being close to the end of his career they should've known Barca will eventually need another midfielder who can control and pass but they only replaced Cesc with Rakitic. Then signed Arda the year (or more like 1,5 due to the ban) after and Andre Gomes in 2016. Both huge flops. Next in line was Paulinho 2017 until they finally found a fitting midfielder in Arthur 2018. But he was a young player from Brazil and at the same time Iniesta left and the other midfield starters Rakitic and Busquets were already declining. On top of that the chosen Iniesta heir Coutinho turned out to be the most expensive flop in football history.

What the board did to the midfield is honestly just tragic. The only way to make it even worse would've probably been to fuck up the signing of Frenkie and go with Rabiot instead

 

[FCBfan22]

I dreamt today that he scored from the edge of the box in 89th minute for 5-2 and despite being utterly useless the whole game, some of the forum was wanking over his performance and crowning him the best midfielder (FDJ scored 2 in this match, while Leo and Griezmann had one each, Leo also had 4 assists).

 

[mc_lovin]

Your post sounds as if we dominated for 30 years and then we turned from talent to workrate and failed.

Since 1992, we always relied mostly on technique.
And more or less, we always sucked in Europe.
The only time when we won was in 2006 with Deco and 2 workhorses (Edmilson/Motta-Van Bommel).
And during Pep.
But about that era it is hard to tell whether we won due to Barca DNA players or due to Messi and Xavi-Iniesta.

That type of midfield without Messi has been quite shit in Europe for 20 years.

Don't confuse Xavi-Iniesta with Barca'a way.
Xavi-Iniesta were aliens.
With others, weaker players, we were usually as meh as today.

What we did 30 years ago is completely insignificant. The mistakes we did five, three or one year ago are not and cant be excused with historical data. We "always sucked" in Europe is such a shit argument and has nothing to do with modern, much richer and professional (you would think at least) Barcelona. And what the fuck have those "weaker" players have to do with anything. We chose fucking Rakitic over a midfield great. Thats it. We chose fucking Andre Gomes over Bernado Silva. We thought Coutinho, Dembele and Griezmann were good ideas. Our recent shitshow on the transfer market has nothing to do with Barca DNA.

We are not on this downward spiral because we tried to stick to "Xavi and Iniesta" kind of players or Guardiolas ideas (your boogeyman). We are on this downward spiral because we chose shit players. Simple as that. And Rakitic is one of the worst Alibi players I have seen here.

No idea why you try to hit me with your Barca DNA is shit train.

 

[Thiago10]

defensive mastermind