Lliga | Round 18: RCD Espanyol - FC Barcelona 0-0

[khaled_a_d]

I know I'm in the minority, but I prefer to focus and win the CL then either the Copa or League.. Its the only thing Messi's Barca has left to acheive, back to back CL wins.

Since 2007 ,Barcelona (3 times) Bayern,Inter & Manu has won the CL while winning the League (3 trebles between them too) .only Chelsea in 2012 and RM in 2014 win the CL w/o winning the league .RM was 3pts or something from 1st place in Liga IIRC and A.Madrid was couple of minutes from actually winning the CL in 2014
So ,only Chelsea focused on winning the CL and actually won it . Needless to say that any neutral will know that this is the luckiest champion for any major competition in years .they have been totally outplayed in the 3 games of the SF & Final

 

[Luftstalag14]

The team deifnitely needs to step up.
Our next 6 la liga games are:
1: granada (h)
2: Bilbao (h)
3: Malaga (a)
4: Atletico (h)
5: Levante (a)
6: Celta (h)

Bar the Granada match all the matches are tricky where we could drop points.

Meanwhile Real face Valencia this round, then the next 6 after that:
1: Depor(h)
2: Gijon (h)
3: Betis (a)
4: espanyol(h)
5: granada (a)
6: Bilbao (h)

Way easier schedule than us, dont be surprised if we are trailing Real in february. Not even mentioning Atletico right now.

Exactly. On paper Atletico has a few more "tough" away games than us and Real Madrid, but they are not exactly the "road worriers" that we are, they are road warriors.

And let's not lose sight of Real Madrid. To your point, the 3-point difference that separates us could evaporate soon if we don't get our act together. We ridicule Benitez yet we are only 3+ ahead of them.

I'd think we have had enough wake-up calls after the dramatic outcomes against Deportivo and Valencia but apparently we are still in the rut quite a bit. I hope this is the last wake-up call we get.

 

[Ubermensch]

The refereeing in Spain, it's quite amazing how they have developed their underhand tactics so well. Screw us over again and again and again, but not in the more obvious way every time (like today) which would even get noticed by the ignorant world media.

You can turn around and say there wasn't any big decision that decided the outcome of the game; true, but the kind of shit we had to face from those thugs till they got yellows, it became almost impossible for us to do anything with the ball. When a referee keeps blowing for free kicks in the middle of the pitch, not showing yellows, the thug opponents couldn't care less, in fact, they are more than happy to wind down the clock.

This effectively negates anybody from playing football for a large portion of the game, before finally giving a yellow for some obvious challenge towards the end. There was one obvious pull on Neymar I think it was, early in the game, a standard yellow for the cynical pullback, which everybody just assumes is a yellow and moves on. He blew a foul and didn't brandish the yellow. At this point I knew this cunt was going to screw us.


Apart from that, why on earth did we not try shooting from outside the box? We didn't do it in the earlier years, but it IS something we have been doing under Enrique; think - Rakitic just a few games back scoring us the opener. There were plenty of opportunities, and when you haven't been able to score for 70 minutes, surely, someone should have had a go!


It's a weird thing, but Messi somehow can't shoot after he's come back from his injury. I mean, people come back with bad finishing, just sloppy play, he seems to be okay with other things (not yet at his best ofc) but for some reason he can't generate any more power than a 5th grade kid when he actually attempts to shoot! I held off on making this comment till now as I thought it could have bene a one off, but I've noticed in every game so far that his shot has been so tame and straight at the keeper. Can't really come up with an explanation for it, it's just odd! Suarez missing open goal from about a meter away - sums up the night.


I HATE ESPANOL. I FUCKING HATE THAT CLUB. /endrant

Nice rant.

For why they didn't shoot from outside the box, you know Rakitic, our best long range shooter, was subbed off exactly at minute 70. In this match, Rakitic was crucial for last 20 minutes for his strength and long shots. He should be pushed more forward but not subbed off. Since Roberto in our midfield became weaker and barely created anything. Actually I found it inexplicable that Enrique sometimes simply makes substitution for the sake of making substitution. If our bench is so short, it's better just to play that same best 11 throughout the match.

As for Messi, I have noticed the same thing as you do. Hopefully it's not the aftermath of the injury. A few months ago I posted on the thread of Messi analyzing his habit of hitting the ball. My conclusion is Messi never has been a natural powerful hitter of the ball but depends on his precision hitting the sweet spot of the ball, particularly when the ball is moving, to generate the power. So He may just need more time to pick up the cutting edge and sharpness on the ball. Let's see.

 

[ThwiX]

Exactly. On paper Atletico has a few more "tough" away games than us and Real Madrid, but they are not exactly the "road worriers" that we are, they are road warriors.

And let's not lose sight of Real Madrid. To your point, the 3-point difference that separates us could evaporate soon if we don't get our act together. We ridicule Benitez yet we are only 3+ ahead of them.

I'd think we have had enough wake-up calls after the dramatic outcomes against Deportivo and Valencia but apparently we are still in the rut quite a bit. I hope this is the last wake-up call we get.

I predict at least another another wake-up call. Malaga away is a likely candidate, I'm afraid. Just the kind of team that we usually struggle against. A loss there will really wake up the Catalan media and the critics, for better or worse.

 

[Ubermensch]

They would just find other ways to rob us.

I have been a Barca fan for more than 30 years and we have NEVER gotten fair treatment by the referees (especially in comparison to RM).

That's why we should be even more proud of our success in the last decade. Dominating for such a long period in this super-biased pro-Madrid league is an incredible feat.

Exactly. Then it's time to support Catalonian independence, I believe. Quit La Liga. You know I am so fxxking tired of delving into this refereeing conspiracy year after year. We and our football deserve much much more than this.

 

[hardyboy]

we also have Sociedad away left. Today's draw has made the league extremely tricky. Anybody can win it now...

 

[khaled_a_d]

we also have Sociedad away left. Today's draw has made the league extremely tricky. Anybody can win it now...

The league was always tricky ,people were seriously underrating both RM & atm when they thought we will win it easily few weeks ago

 

[George_Costanza]

1 win and 3 draws in the last 4 games is not good at all

the good news is we will have a quality subs from now onwards

 

[Luftstalag14]

I predict at least another another wake-up call. Malaga away is a likely candidate, I'm afraid. Just the kind of team that we usually struggle against. A loss there will really wake up the Catalan media and the critics, for better or worse.

Against Bilbao and Atletico at home is no easy feat either.

We need to win all the rest of the games, one game at a time.

 

[Obiaseti]

Espanyol went in for a draw and got it. This was a display that Mourinho would have been proud of. We have no choice but to accept that we will face a few teams like this every season and when this coincides with an unlucky day in the office we drop points. Arda and Aleix will be a welcome boost to our squad.

 

[serghei]

Come on guys, this is not Ligue 1 or Bundesliga where you win the title in late february - early march or so. I think we will win La Liga, and it's ours to lose, but if we do take a serious and crucial lead, it would probably be late april, early may, as it usually is in a league that now has 3 great teams and a few others that can cause you lots of trouble anytime (Villareal, Sevilla, Valencia etc.).

We're talking about the strongest league in the world, not some sort of simple, piece-of-cake, one horse race for the title.

 

[KingLeo10]

Come on guys, this is not Ligue 1 or Bundesliga where you win the title in late february - early march or so. I think we will win the title, and it's ours to lose, but if we do win it, it would be late april, early may, as it usually is in a league that now has 3 great teams and a few others that can cause you bring it on on their home ground anytime (Villareal, Sevilla, Valencia etc.).

this.

all this talk of wrapping up the title by march and/or being ahead of RM by 10 points at this stage is unrealistic. Its true, we dropped unnecessary points versus depor at home, but aside from that, I don't recall another league fixture where we "choked". This isn't the la liga of 9/10 or 10/11 anymore where we go an entire season with 1 or maybe 2 defeats.

 

[Ghostmaster]

Come on guys, this is not Ligue 1 or Bundesliga where you win the title in late february - early march or so. I think we will win La Liga, and it's ours to lose, but if we do take a serious and crucial lead, it would probably be late april, early may, as it usually is in a league that now has 3 great teams and a few others that can cause you lots of trouble anytime (Villareal, Sevilla, Valencia etc.).

We're talking about the strongest league in the world, not some sort of simple, piece-of-cake, one horse race for the title.

Yup and tbh it would be boring if we won the league in late February.

 

[vlad]

Yup and tbh it would be boring if we won the league in late February.

this, im just enjoying watching barca every time, if they lose, you must give credit to other team, la liga is the best league in the world.

 

[Barcaman]

True. League will be more interesting.