Joan Laporta

[JamDav1982]

How is he doing a 'great job'?

Difficult times but not done anything great so far.

 

[serghei]

Not for me.

All fit Liverpool are confortably better but doesnt mean gteed win as Liverpool dropped points to worse teams than Real this season and aything can happen.

Real have conceded a ton of goals and been weak at back. Be surprised if can keep Liverpool out but they will know they are poorer technically and sit back.

Madrid are up and down. You can't bet on them, or against them. Neither team around at the moment is that impressive for me, which leaves the final wide open.

Salah seems to be a bit off form too compared to 2-3 months ago. Madrid have best keeper and best striker in the world. That can go a looong way in a one off game.

 

[jamrock]

Madrid are playing CL final you know... with good odds on winning it.

If La Liga has 2 CL semifinalists out of 4... that's not really an indicator of the league being shit, is it?

Doesn't matter how competitive the league is or isn't if no one is watching it.

This is a business brand names pull ad dollars & viewership, no one outside out Spain cares about team not named Barcelona & Madrid, him trying to run Barcelona in the ground is only going to negatively affect the thing he himself is trying to build.

 

[JamDav1982]

Madrid are up and down. You can't bet on them, or against them. Neither team around at the moment is that impressive for me, which leaves the final wide open.

Salah seems to be a bit off form too compared to 2-3 months ago. Madrid have best keeper and best striker in the world. That can go a looong way in a one off game.

Will see how final goes but I think Liverpool are the better side going into it and Real have found ways to get to final but not great.

 

[serghei]

Will see how final goes but I think Liverpool are the better side going into it and Real have found ways to get to final but not great.

Liverpool are better side. But so was City. In the end, the margin are small, and Madrid have more experience in these games, plus have beaten Liverpool before in a final.

Let's just say that no one who values money a lot will bet serious money on this game. It's a pick'em match.

 

[JamDav1982]

Liverpool are better side. But so was City. In the end, the margin are small, and Madrid have more experience in these games, plus have beaten Liverpool before in a final.

Let's just say that no one who values money a lot will bet serious money on this game. It's a pick' em.

Dont agree.

Lets see in final how it goes.

Not sure the experience argument is all that relevant when Liverpool could easily have more players playing that have won a CL and more recently.

If experience of winning multiple CLs was such a factor Barca would not be getting humped year after year.

 

[Total-Football]

Laporta used all the semantics to avoid saying in plain language that "barca is finished"

Stunning

 

[khaled_a_d]

How do you assess this season?

I end the season angry and disappointed. Disappointed because, although I am aware that we have had injuries, you cannot lose to Cadiz, Rayo and Villarreal at home. I'm disappointed with the team's attitude. I have suffered as much or more than Xavi for this lack of character. I don't understand and it was a big disappointment. This team has never had a leadership and I have been disappointed and angry. Barca's first team at home cannot be allowed to lose to Cadiz, Rayo and Villarreal. It's a big disappointment I have as president.

Is this translated properly? Did he say we lack leadership? Or we lack lead?
In another translation someone said lead, i.e we didn't score first

 

[jamrock]

Leadership

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

Leadership

I am very happy to hear that.


Pique, Busi, Roberto and Alba needs to go

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Liverpool are better side. But so was City. In the end, the margin are small, and Madrid have more experience in these games, plus have beaten Liverpool before in a final.

Let's just say that no one who values money a lot will bet serious money on this game. It's a pick'em match.

You should bet on Liverpool. They won't be playing at the bernabeu anymore

 

[Barcilliant]

Doesn't look good, when you hear about other team's warchests. Even Tottenham has 150mil to use next summer.

Yep, alot of mid table epl teams have more money than us. At the moment we are just a big name.

 

[serghei]

Yep, alot of mid table epl teams have more money than us. At the moment we are just a big name.

Yeah... it is what it is.

 

[DonAK]

Are you surprised? Come on, it's fairly obvious we'll play 2nd fiddle to Madrid in the next few years.

To all those preaching 6th place or something, don't worry. We'll comfortably finish top 3. We've been La Liga bosses in the next 20 years or so. Have a back seat now...

It all goes in cycles. Since Eto'o and Ronnie era back in 2005 or so we've been dominating the league almost every year, and when we lost it, it was usually because some shady refereeing. Like in 2017 season for example, or some sort of freak Tamudazo like in 2007, or some offside bullshit decision in the last game of the season with the title in stake like in 2014.

The only 100% legit league losses in the last 17 years or so, prior to this season were 2008, and 2012. 2 in 16-17 years. Heck, make it 3. This is some sort of freak domination.

For me it's simple. Tough it out, get behind the team, and wait for better times, which will 100% come.

Signs are all there. 3 of our 4 best players are kids barely out of school, like Pedri, Gavi, and Fati. Most of these can barely drink a beer legally.

Okay.

So if we're indeed going to fight to be 2nd for the foreseeable future surely you believe likes of Busquets, Pique and Alba should be phased out?

I do remember all your posts pre-Xavi serghei. I don't want to hear YOU make any excuses for Xavi playing these guys 90 minutes every game now if you don't believe we can win trophies anyway.

What do you do then? You rebuild and retool so you can challenge again in 1-3 years.

I supported us hiring Xavi, but I am not going to make the excuses for him that I didn't make for our previous managers. Xavi has not deserved it as he's not a proven manager.

 

[malvolio]

Laporta's biggest enemy are the fans imo. It really is not that big of a problem in the grand scheme of things if you go 2-3 years with just a top 4 finish. Come on, for fuck's sake, just clean the club in the next 2 seasons and approach 2024-2025 with a sane club financially.

That would be great.

Just put things into perspective. 2-3 years without a title is nothing.

The thing we should really be careful with is signing big-money players that flop, which is why Ferran is a big question mark. So far he seems like a 20m bet that we got for 2-3 times the money. Far from the ideal type of signing. If we do that, the damage will be big, as we'll be in a reconstruction continuously.

Not only that. Less interested fans means a smaller turnover from tickets and merchandise. Means lower sponsorship deals going forward.

Cleaning the club financially is achievable, but what players/managers you get defines your success. No trophies, no star players and you get an Arsenal. Not a bad club, stable financially, can splash 60-70M on a player, but in the end nothing interesting about them anymore.

Barca have context on their side. Aside from Real, there is no club with a bigger brand in Spain. So probably we won't be Arsenal 2.0. But 2-3 seasons of fucking around winning nothing will get Laporta sacked, and rightly so.