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Flavia
Guest
He rested Busi today. MSN, after the game is 4-0 or 5-0, is not really needed. They were resting in the pitch.
Luis Enrique
- Thread starter Barcaman
- Start date
BBZ8800
Senior Member
Ok, we'll see in March how much energy with 30 year old Messi (after 10+ years of 60+ matches per season, virtually without any rest) have.
Without Messi on fire, we are a totally different team.
One more question (one more time):
1. we played 9-10 starters against Celtic
2. we play against Leganes away on weekend
3. we play against Atletico next Wednesday and away at Gijon on weekend, than a CL away in Germany and Celta away
Do you think that Lucho will play strong lineup or poor lineup against Leganes, since we have 4 tough matches after that (or 5 matches in a row)?
What are people's predictions for a lineup against Leganes?
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Flavia
Guest
Messi will still be 29 in March. I doubt Lucho will do what he did vs Alaves again. He'll probably only rest 2 or 3 players.
The idea of rotation was spot on, it was the way it was executed that failed miserably.
First off you have to play a new keeper who is not in sync with the back line, this automatically means you need Pique in defense. Vidal-Masch-Mathieu-Digne, a backline that has never played together before with a new keeper, that's just asking for trouble. This is without mentioning Masche's long flight and intense games in the qualifiers compared to Pique's.
The midfield I feel was good enough for this match, but playing Paco was again a big mistake since he had like 1 session with the team? Playing any position at Barca is tough enough as is, Suarez should have played because you could all clearly see that Paco was completely lost as to what to do which is perfectly understandable.
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Flavia
Guest
Ouch
Barcelona boss Luis Enrique fell off his bike on his way to training
Lucho was seen wearing a dressing on his elbow in the Celtic game, but why?
It will be hard for Luis Enrique to forget last weekend. On Saturday Barcelona were beaten by a newly promoted side, Alaves, at Camp Nou and let three important points slip away. A day later, the team trained, and Luis Enrique took his usual cycle between Gava and the Ciutat Esportiva.
He usually uses one of two paths to go from his home to the Ciutat Esportiva. One short route, of 15 kilometers, which he uses the mountain bike for because it tends to go down an off-road path, crossing the Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat, Viladecans and following the course of the Llobregat river to Sant Joan Despi.
The second route is longer, almost 40 kilometers. For this one he takes the road bike, climbing the slopes of Begues to Villarana and then continuing on to Molins de Rei before arriving at the Ciutat Esportiva.
Luis Enrique himself revealed in an interview with Barça TV at the end of last season that going on the bike serves as therapy when he's got all sorts of football related things running through his head.
On Sunday, therefore, his mind must have been going at 100mph as he thought about the errors which needed correcting -- fluidity, pressing, ball circulation, presicion, efficiency, intensity. There were so many things that he wanted to explain to his players that he was distracted and ended up falling off his bike.
It wasn't too dramaitc, but it was enough for him to need to be seen to at the Ciutat Esportiva, where his right elbow was given a dressing, which is where the most damage was done. And a plaster could be seen throughout Tuesday's 7-0 win over Celtic, the reminder of his little accident.
Barcelona boss Luis Enrique fell off his bike on his way to training
Lucho was seen wearing a dressing on his elbow in the Celtic game, but why?
It will be hard for Luis Enrique to forget last weekend. On Saturday Barcelona were beaten by a newly promoted side, Alaves, at Camp Nou and let three important points slip away. A day later, the team trained, and Luis Enrique took his usual cycle between Gava and the Ciutat Esportiva.
He usually uses one of two paths to go from his home to the Ciutat Esportiva. One short route, of 15 kilometers, which he uses the mountain bike for because it tends to go down an off-road path, crossing the Parc Agrari del Baix Llobregat, Viladecans and following the course of the Llobregat river to Sant Joan Despi.
The second route is longer, almost 40 kilometers. For this one he takes the road bike, climbing the slopes of Begues to Villarana and then continuing on to Molins de Rei before arriving at the Ciutat Esportiva.
Luis Enrique himself revealed in an interview with Barça TV at the end of last season that going on the bike serves as therapy when he's got all sorts of football related things running through his head.
On Sunday, therefore, his mind must have been going at 100mph as he thought about the errors which needed correcting -- fluidity, pressing, ball circulation, presicion, efficiency, intensity. There were so many things that he wanted to explain to his players that he was distracted and ended up falling off his bike.
It wasn't too dramaitc, but it was enough for him to need to be seen to at the Ciutat Esportiva, where his right elbow was given a dressing, which is where the most damage was done. And a plaster could be seen throughout Tuesday's 7-0 win over Celtic, the reminder of his little accident.
Come off it, it was our first CL game of the season and coming off a defeat, it was important we won in order to not start a slippery slope.
We've struggled against Celtic in the past and some games when teams come to Camp Nou they play with 11 people behind the ball and it becomes really hard to break them down, as evidence with Alaves.
You don't take off players just as they are hitting into thier stride, MSN looked on fire out there and taking one of the them off could have affected that players confidence. Also, sometimes players need to play full games, it helps them better than if they get taken off with 15-20mins to go. Lucho made the right call in my opinion, and we won 7-0. We are still at the start of the season, there are no player fatigue right now and some of the players are still catching thier form. If we rested MSN against every easy opponent they would play around 20 games a season.
Messi983
Senior Member
As I said before I agree with your overall point about rotations. But looking just at Alaves game I think it was more than just resting/saving players for Celtic.
Player for player analysis for those who started over (projected) best XI...
- Cillessen had to play because MATS was injured, no rotation here. Would MATS play if this was El Clasico or CL final instead of Alaves? Maybe they would force him if they wouldn't trust Jasper enough, but in general you don't play injured players.
- Paco - Suarez had apparently come back from NT very tired so rest was understandable. Paco was the obvious choice to start in his place.
- Arda - Messi was coming back from an injury and it was smart not to risk him. Most of people here agreed with that before the game and they would get crazy had Lucho started him (in what they believe should be an easy game for us anyway) and he would get reinjured and miss a month or two. Also, Arda was in good form (yes, he played this time in Messi's position not Neymar's but still) so it was understandable that he started instead of Messi.
- Denis - Gomes was injured and Iniesta was still not fit enough to play more than 30 minutes and he also didn't start against Celtic so I think Lucho just wants to slowly integrate him back after injury. My guess is he won't start tomorrow either as Lucho wants him to go full 90 minutes (or at least 70) against Atletico if needed.
I can understand Lucho's decision not to start Suarez, Messi and/or Iniesta and MATS was injured. So that's 4 of our best XI that didn't start because of the reasons I can accept.
For others:
- Pique - didn't he also get back with some minor injury after NT break? Maybe that's why he was rested. There is a question for Lopetegui though. Why did Pique and Busquets play 90 minutes against Liechtenstein?
- Roberto - if we can't start Vidal in games like this what is the point to have him in team? Roberto will play a lot this season and he does need a rest here and there. Lucho probably thought Alaves was a good game for that and it could possibly be on another occasion but not this time when he also decided to rest Pique and Alba and was also without his first GK and two best attacking players.
- Alba - I think Lucho liked what Digne has done so far so he decided to start him. He wasn't great but was still one of our best players. Maybe Alba's better understanding with Neymar would help us more in attack so yes, he should probably play but then again, he played both games for Spain while Digne didn't play for France.
- Masche - that's the only individual choice that I didn't understand. He played two games for Argentina and was just overloaded I think. Umtiti should start over him but if Lucho decided to give rest to Pique he was the obviuos choice to start as I don't think Lucho would play Mathieu and Umtiti together.
Would it make a difference had Roberto, Pique and/or Umtiti started? Probably. But would that difference be big enough to compensate for Messi, Suarez and Iniesta not starting? We don't know that. The whole team just looked off like it's often after NT breaks.
So overall, I agree that rotating 6 or 7 players from one game to another is too much and I hope we won't see that again. Especially if two players are playing their first game after just 2-3 trainings with the team, other two are also newcomers and Neymar had returned after 4 months away. As already said in previous posts no chemistry between them was expected. But looking individually I think Lucho didn't rotate/rest players just for Celtic game like you said but was thinking longterm. He didn't want to risk important players that were injured/tired/not fit enough to start so he wouldn't lose them for longer period. I think we can agree it's better to lose 3 points than Messi or Suarez being out for 2 months.
Still, lineup he selected was good enough and should win against Alaves if they'd all perform like they can. They didn't and even impact subs like Messi or Suarez didn't have impact they could have on another day coming off the bench. It wasn't our day but bad days happen every season for every team. Better now than in April next year.
LordLichtenstein
New member
Cillessen should not have started over Masip, this early in the season. Masip played a fair amount during the pre-season and he knows our philosophy and playstyle. There were absolutely no reason to start yet another new player in that game, Alaves or not.
It is either Digne or Vidal. You can't play both. But seing as Vidal is the worst of the two, then Roberto needs the rest more than Alba. Alba should have started.
Mathieu has showed us way to many times, that he can not be trusted to put in a solid performance defensively. He is a hit and miss and usually when he has a bad performance, the team loses points. Knowing this, I would not have started him alongside two reserves and a tired Mascherano. Mathieu needs good players around him, in order for him to perform at a decent level.
Mascherano should not have started over Piqué. Mascherano travelled all the way back to South America and played two very tough games against; Uruguay and Venezuela. While Piqué played a friendly against Belgium and an easy (8-0) game against Liechtenstein, in Spain.
I agree with his decision to play Vidal.
I agree with his decision to play Busquets.
I agree with his decision to play Rakitic.
I agree with his decision to play Denis.
I agree with his decision to play Neymar.
I agree with his decision to play Arda.
Paco shouldn't have started over Suárez. Neymar had only trained 1-2 times with the team, after being away for 3 months and Arda only began playing good football last month.
This is the line-up I would have used.
Alaves
Masip
Alba
Umtiti
Piqué
Vidal
Busquets
Rakitic
Denis
Neymar
Suárez
Arda
Celtic
ter Stegen
Digne
Mascherano
Umtiti
Roberto
Busquets
Rakitic
Gomes
Neymar
Suárez
Messi
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LordLichtenstein
New member
Dude, it's Masip.
Not Matip. Matip plays for Liverpool.
I know this. I can't explain how that just happend
KingMessi
SiempreBlaugrana
I know this. I can't explain how that just happend
Thought I was seeing things, which is why I deleted my post.
LordLichtenstein
New member
Thought I was seeing things, which is why I deleted my post.
LordLichtenstein
New member
These should be the rules for Lucho going forward.
- ter Stegen plays La Liga and Champions League, while Cillessen plays Copa del Rey
- Alba and Roberto must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
- Piqué and Umtiti must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
-- When rotating, Mascherano is always the first choice.
- Busquets can only be rotated when Iniesta and Rakitic plays.
-- When rotating, Gomes is always the first choice.
- Iniesta and Rakitic must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
-- When rotating, Gomes is always the first choice.
- Messi, Neymar and Suárez must never be rotated at the same time. Two must play, but one can be subbed if we lead by 3 in the 60th minute.
-- When rotating, Arda is always the first choice.
- ter Stegen plays La Liga and Champions League, while Cillessen plays Copa del Rey
- Alba and Roberto must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
- Piqué and Umtiti must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
-- When rotating, Mascherano is always the first choice.
- Busquets can only be rotated when Iniesta and Rakitic plays.
-- When rotating, Gomes is always the first choice.
- Iniesta and Rakitic must never be rotated at the same time. One must play.
-- When rotating, Gomes is always the first choice.
- Messi, Neymar and Suárez must never be rotated at the same time. Two must play, but one can be subbed if we lead by 3 in the 60th minute.
-- When rotating, Arda is always the first choice.
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