Marco Verratti
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fergus90
Senior Member
Would love to hear [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION]'s take on Verratti. He's 1.65m ffs
Already dismissed him and named several others he thinks are better.
BBZ8800
Senior Member
Would love to hear [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION]'s take on Verratti. He's 1.65m ffs
He is among the best in the world at what he does.
The same as short Xavi or Kante.
If you are among the best, then physique or other flaws are not the problem.
On the other hand, if you are average at everything, can't shoot and defend and short and soft on top of that, then your only 2 clubs in your career will be:
1. dreamland in heads of Barca's La Masia hardcore lovers
2. bench of bottom table La Liga team or being a starter in segunda division after the age of 23-24 once when coaches and everyone figure out your ceiling
Why am I reading between the lines that you wanted to say something like: "If Verrratti has made it, so can our short & soft boys".
Well, we'll see.
What about Gavi?
FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
Verratti is very strong on his legs. World class I'd say.
What exactly is your point then? That not every La Masia player is a worldclass talent? Bravo.
You are SUCH A CONTRARIAN.
Seriously you're going to criticize Verratti for not being a goal scorer? Dude, MOST CENTRE MIDFIELDERS DON'T SCORE GOALS.
2 GOALS IN A SEASON IS A GOOD RETURN FOR A CENTRE MIDFIELDER.
Seriously, how has this narrative gained so much popularity on this forum? Seriously your own countryman was pulling 2-3 goals a season during his peak and he's an attacking midfielder. He's great at passing, he's great at providing balls to the final third, he's great at dictating play, he's got stamina, he presses, and he's press resistant. Why are you making him out to be a utility player like Kante or Jorginho? He's short but he's a physical player, always gets on tackles and is able to resist being shoved by much bigger players. He's a perfect midfielder.
This is such an odd line of criticism. "Yeah he's great but he's not great at literally everything so he's a limited player." You are delusional if you think Verratti wouldn't immediately slot in perfectly in literally every team in the world. He's not a system player, he's not limited, and he's great at defending too. Jesus fuck you just criticize because you are capable of it, not because there's merit in it.
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He got lucky though as the ref was useless and basically let him kick Grealish all night ..,
BBZ8800
Senior Member
Too early to say, but at least he is not a choir boy but a fighter.
So, quite different to 95% of La Masia products.
My point is:
1. in modern football not having a good physique is a flaw.
But you can still make it (in extremely rare cases, though) if you are world class in other areas.
2. also, in modern football, being a scared choir boy personality is a flaw.
But you can still make it if you are world class in other areas.
3. being a midfielder who is weak in the attacking third and in defending is a flaw, everywhere outside of Barca bubble.
The problem is that majority of La Masia young midfielders possess all 3 of these traits from the above and yet majority of those players are not the new Xavi in terms of passing and vision.
So, my point is that Barca's type of midfielders are outdated dinosuars in modern football who are easily physically and mentally bullied in high pressure big matches against dirtier opponents.
But then you have 5 players out of 1000 like Xavi and Iniesta, due to whom our fanbase think that their type is the way to go.
Yes, it is the way to go, but ONLY if they are absolute WORLD CLASS level.
In all other cases, they will be very, very meh.
There is a strong reason why Barca won only 1 CL in 100 years prior to a generation of Messi-Xavi-Iniesta.
I often raise a similar question:
1. is our style/system a divine system which will eternally work and we just lack a few good players to get on top?
2. or our style/system is mostly a looser's style which historically more or less never worked and it worked ONLY with the greatest generation of footballers ever and even then they neeeded an insane luck and ref's help in 2009, so they won 1 out of 4 Cls in a dominant way.
And even then, they struggled insanely on every single away KO match against dirty opponents in a chaotic circumstances.
Imo, majority of our fans are still leaning towards the idea that our style is divine, the greatest style ever and we should never change it.
And we just lack a few right players.
Also, they often reply: a player doesn't need to be the new Messi or Xavi to make us great.
But then, I will ask: name me one moment in our history when our style/weaker players managed to be a European force without absolute Goats in their prime like Messi and Xavi?
So, when you mention Verratti and quote me, please don't go that route.
Verratti won't make our vanilla midfielders good. Or our style without Messi and Xavi as the winning one.
Even Pep can't do that.
Just check his history after Messi and Xavi.
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I think you don't understand the numbers. As you say, >>95% of youth players are busts/not worldclass (by definition). If just one of Gavi or Pedri (I am counting him, because he's your very definition of a Spanish/La Masia midfielder) succeed, then that is a massive validation for our - or the Spanish - system. Without checking the numbers Spain has produced by far the highest amount of good to great midfielders in the last few decades, that's the one thing they are good at.
And then you say it yourself, guys like Verratti do have a place in modern football (just like about every top team has players of that mold, even Bayern), so why the heck do you still think small, technical players are outdated? Back to my initial point I guess, you just don't understand the numbers, because you think every La Masia midfielder is the same when they are not.
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