1. We created chances back then, so did Brasil in 1970 with Pele and Koeman's Barca in 1992.
Can those two win today? No
Unfair to compare different eras. That Barca side is from 9 years ago, not 50.
2. Look at those physical beasts you mentioned.
You have a grand total of 2 attacking players: Etoo and Henry, both signed BEFORE Pep.
And what is funny, Pep traded Etoo after one season.
Henry retired after one season.
And he traded Zlatan after one season.
The only other player mentioned is Keita who was the 12th player.
Dani Alves was a physical beast. Pitbull in defense, aggressive, fast. Abidal, strong player, Puyol very strong. Zlatan was signed by Pep, just because he was a punk that caused problems in the team you shouldn't throw him out just to support your arguments.
Pedro, Villa, physical players, with speed, reflexes, work ethic, stamina to last 90 mins at a high pace. So you have to choose the words you're using. You can be physical without being very tall, and you can be 1.90 and soft as a daisy.
It's a fact that Pep traded versatility for GOATness in one skill.
He took Rijkaard's team which was good and versatile, but not perfect.
And created a team who was perfect in a pig-in-the-middle.
He took Rijkaard's team and made it better. Better pressing, better possession game, better passing, even better defense (although not having Oleguer helped). Even the counters were quicker, but we didn't get to play on the counter because teams were terrified to attack us. The team was less individualistic than Rijkaard, but that's a plus. Not a minus.
In terms of players, the same.
From strong and athletic pivots, he turned to Busi and Rodri.
He hates no9, invented a false 9 and lately plays with Jesus.
He killed corners and invented short corners.
He killed risky long-range shots.
During 2008-2012, he killed crosses and headers and invented a total possession.
For some time it worked.
He doesn't hate classic no9. You could say about Klopp that he hates no9 as well, because he uses Firmino who is basically like a better Jesus. Both Klopp and Guardiola have very very high demands in terms of tactics and work rate from their 9s. And it is a fact that a lot of forwards in Europe aren't used to giving that, and usually relax off the ball, doing very light defensive work. Especially big guys who lack mobility and stamina to do that stuff. Look at Lukaku. Great striker, but he'd never ever play for Klopp or Pep, who both ask their center forward to move constantly and block key passing channels (like the pass from CBs to DM). Any manager that values pressing a lot, will need a different "9" compared to conservative managers who defend differently, with little to no pressing involved.
What Pep wants from a 9 is similar to what Klopp wants from Firmino. The difference is Klopp has built a better team at Liverpool than Pep did at City. He's beating Pep at his own game.
Pep's football is like some sort of a bug in videogames where you have all skills around 70%, and then due to some mistake, you are allowed to transform all of your skillpoints into one, overpowered skill.
Pep basically turned an allrounder character with 70% in all skills into a character with 300% in one special skill and with 20% in everything else.
And since that character is so good at that one skill, no one was able to exploit his flaws because they would got killed as soon as they would come close to that overpowered character.
But over time, crazy opponents figured out how to neutralize that one overpowered skill of our character, they sent emails with tips and tricks to every single player in the world and that's Barca/Pep after 2012.
Teams who try to play on the same overpowered skill as in 2010, not realizing that literally ANYONE has codes how to kill us.
And since we ruined our other skills to get that one owerpowered skill (possession, passing, technique, movement) we traded everything else so we are quite easy to get beaten today (defending, heading, poor physique, predictable attacking patterns, no crosses, no corners, no long range attempts).
Pep brought 4 years of out of this world happiness, but now we will probably suffer for 20-30 years due to the ideological consequences of that success.
They don't have codes lol. And what are you even talking about? Pep's Barca is 2009-12. That's it. What followed is something else. It's just a fake imitation with major elements missing.
You seriously think that if we teleport the 2011 team right now we wouldn't beat everyone? It's illogical. That team would basically be performing at current Liverpool physical levels + all-time greats + a peak GOAT candidate + superior technique everywhere.
