Lionel Messi - v7

[BBZ8800]

Load of shit bbz. Valverde had a team in much better shape and a lot younger. Yiu should know that player declines are on average an exponential curve.

Still a shit team.

Mighty Rakitic, Busi, Alba, Roberto, Arthur, Malcom, Boateng, granny Iniesta, Paulinho, Gomes, Denis, Semedo, Paco, Digne, Vermaelen, Mina, Deulofeu.

The only difference was playable Messi.

Don't tell me that you are now crying for Suarez, Raki, Arthur, Busi, Roberto, Pique and co from those days.
Each of them was called as the biggest cancer in our history.
Some of them even during EV's days.

A guy almost went invincible with Raki-Busi-Paulinho-retired Iniesta midfield, lol.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

The messi thing wasn't predictable, but it was hilarious people thinking he could play until his late 30s simply because he's talented lol. Remember the days of he can just move deeper into midfield and play Xavi's role...?

The completely unbalanced, defensively weak team though - that was completely predictable and avoidable. Now that they finally realise we need new players, we're too broke and bloated to invest in that anyways. Yeah we won't be able to bounce back for at least another 2 years.

Yeah i rememeber 2013 when everyone said that Messi will take Xavi's posiiton when he is 33+ while Ronaldo will be trash after 30 as loosing his pace lol

 

[Messigician]

Still a shit team.

Mighty Rakitic, Busi, Alba, Roberto, Arthur, Malcom, Boateng, granny Iniesta, Paulinho, Gomes, Denis, Semedo, Paco, Digne, Vermaelen, Mina, Deulofeu.

The only difference was playable Messi.

Don't tell me that you are now crying for Suarez, Raki, Arthur, Busi, Roberto, Pique and co from those days.
Each of them was called as the biggest cancer in our history.
Some of them even during EV's days.

A guy almost went invincible with Raki-Busi-Paulinho-retired Iniesta midfield, lol.

Lol remember when people were saying we had the best squad in the world and when Valverde is sacked we will go back to playing beautiful football

 

[Messigician]

🗣 ?Messi, Pique and Barcelona's other captains sent a non-Spanish speaking debutant Dest out to face the press after their Clasico loss instead of acting like leaders and today they sent out their new 17-year-old youngster Pedri in his first game vs Atletico after this loss.?

Embarrassing. There are NO leaders in this Barcelona team 😤

 

[JerseyAddict]

yet Enrique couldn't be carried by them to a title in 16-17 even with Neymar as well

That Real Madrid title was a pure robbery... That was some refs at their best "papa Flo" sucking in... Just when needed they disaloved goals or handed cards...

 

[Morten]

The messi thing wasn't predictable, but it was hilarious people thinking he could play until his late 30s simply because he's talented lol. Remember the days of he can just move deeper into midfield and play Xavi's role...?

The completely unbalanced, defensively weak team though - that was completely predictable and avoidable. Now that they finally realise we need new players, we're too broke and bloated to invest in that anyways. Yeah we won't be able to bounce back for at least another 2 years.

Always found the comparison weird, as Messi was never a midfielder, even though many said that he essentially was.
Yes, Messi drops deep, but he doesnt do what a midfielder typically do, he is a creative force but he doesnt do anything without the ball, Xavi would run more than 10 km a game all the time, Messi was never going to do that.

People just dont change out of the blue, if you are used to play a certain way for 10-15 years, you aren`t suddenly going to change your entire game.

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

The biggest problem is not his decline but his disinterest, not only him nearly the whole team didnt look like they want to win even after the 0-1. The only two players who had passion to win were Dembele and De Jong.

 

[JerseyAddict]

The biggest problem is not his decline but his disinterest, not only him nearly the whole team didnt look like they want to win even after the 0-1. The only two players who had passion to win were Dembele and De Jong.

4.2km after 50 or so minutes.

 

[Blackened]

He is a big baby. We are a sinking ship. No coach can help this old, lazy, entitled team. Messi has a Napoleon syndrome.

 

[Rory]

He was bad yesterday no doubt about it. What did anyone else actually do though? Griezmann was even worse, Dembele had a couple of dribbles but was mostly ineffective. Pedri was poor. Coutinho did nothing as did Trincao.

 

[JohnN]

Everyone was bad yesterday. International breaks do us no favours.
Pedri looked out of his depth ( he is 17 though ).

 

[serghei]

2 weeks ago people laughed at me when I said that a current Ibra is a better player than a current Messi.

Not only that he is better, but it is not even debatable or a close contest anymore.

About Messi's decline, I thought that he will sink like a Titanic.

But he is declining way faster than Titanic.

Btw, is it now 15 matches in a row without a goal from an open play against 11 men?

** It is not even funny anymore.
I used to joke, but at this rate we will end outside of top4.

This is Gaspart's era of bad.
Except that our team is 10 times more richer than back then.
And the opponents are shittier than ever.

** Btw, remember when people said: it can't get worse than under Valverde.
The bigger cancer in our history.
He is using a team in wrong way.
It is like giving a Ferrari to a guy who can't drive.
A team will fly after him.

I said a few times that there is a huge chance that in the future we will be so shit that soon we will look to Valverde's days and results with nostalgia.
It sounded impossible.

When we'll finish 4th or 5th this season, Valverde's three season won't look like the worst Barca in a history, which they never were, of course.

The sad thing is: we haven't reached the bottom yet.

Lol, how can you not see that today is also the result of not rebuilding in EV era when humiliations in CL started to happen on a constant basis, 4-0 vs PSG, 3-0 vs Juve. It's a typical progression of a problem that was not corrected and was let to grow bigger and bigger, to the point of disaster.

EV didn't change anything. He was thinking short term, about himself and his term only. That's why when he was sacked he left behind a declined team with finished legs and hugely overpaid veterans.

You think the problems we have lol, are a just some of months old, since Setien and Koeman? We're talking about years of shit and mismanagement reaching a culminating point. For a couple of league wins, we crippled the team for 2-3 more years in the future.

Every fucked up signing was done in EV era. That's when we spent huge money on transfers and extended the veterans even more. We invested money to rebuild the team signing a lot of young players when the intention was the opposite, to hand the team to the veterans and milk some short-term results. The result was obvious since every transfer didn't fit. How can you fit a team where the veterans decide everything and every tactic is done to suit them at the expense of others. And the manager goes along.

No players should have been signed during the EV era. That was a fatal error. The guy played a conservative 4-4-2 with the same players from Lucho's days. He never intended to rebuild the side, so all of those hundreds of millions spent on transfers was water under the bridge.

We spent 300+ million on transfers during a manager who had no intention of rebuilding the side. And now, when we really need to rebuild, we have no money.

 

[mladenq]

To be honest, Lucho had a ton of shit transfers as well and never really created a sustainable system. He just took advantage of an even younger squad than it was at Valverde's, while having MSN in their prime. I always argued that the 14/15 treble did more harm to us than good, because it gave credibility to a more or less clueless coach to mismanage the team in the following years. Same as league wins gave credibility to that utter imbecile Valverde. And, that kinda seems to be the pattern, we bring in a clueless coach with no vision and he just take advantage of the resources left to him, the legacy of smarter people, and he does literally nothing in terms of creating a sustainable system of play or investing into players that should be Barca's future.

 

[serghei]

To be honest, Lucho had a ton of shit transfers as well and never really created a sustainable system. He just took advantage of an even younger squad than it was at Valverde's, while having MSN in their prime. I always argued that the 14/15 treble did more harm to us than good, because it gave credibility to a more or less clueless coach to mismanage the team in the following years. Same as league wins gave credibility to that utter imbecile Valverde. And, that kinda seems to be the pattern, we bring in a clueless coach with no vision and he just take advantage of the resources left to him, the legacy of smarter people, and he does literally nothing in terms of creating a sustainable system of play or investing into players that should be Barca's future.

Galactico policy never brings any good in the medium-term. Never did for Madrid, didn't do for us. We're now in the post-Galactico Madrid era. This is where giving full power to past it big names brings you.

It took Madrid 6 years to build a really solid side that could compete in the CL hard again. From 2004 to 2010. Let's hope it takes us fewer years.

 

[Raketa10]

To be fair there is only one thing left for him to do in Barca shirt. He needs to score 4 more goals to surpass Pele and that's it. Unfortunately he can't play on his usual level anymore. He is unmotivated as it gets and he has undoubtedly declined. He is probably fully aware this is his last season here.

He will be gone in summer and I suppose he will sign a 2y contract with City and finish his magnificent career in 2023. I am grateful that I have watched him play for Barca for so many years but I suppose his time is over. Thank you GOAT for all the joy you have borough us but it's time to move on.