Pre-season: International Champions Cup

[Blaugrana Bull]

People expecting us to do the Sextuple need a reality check, that would obviously mean doing the Treble again, back to back seasons.I seriously doubt that will happen.

The Treble has only been done twice, and never back to back plus no team has ever successfully defended the CL.

Am not saying we're in for a shit season, but we won't win everything.

Sextuple would mean winning both Spanish and European Super Cup and the Club World Cup and add them to the three titles we won last season because you have to win those to qualify for the super Cups.
Like we did with Pep.

 

[BerkeleyBernie]

We dominated possession, at least 70% of the ball. We missed quite a lot of clear cut chances (one on ones from Rakitic and Suarez come to mind). All in all, we were by far the better team - we had double their shots on goal! Why are people freaking out???
Fiorentina are comfortably top 4 team in Italy and are real quality.

I enjoyed the first half a lot. Defensively leaky as hell, but it wasn't the same "give the ball to MSN" that is used when the trio is on the pitch in a real contest. Midfield involved in attack, many more overlapping runs, give and goes, and multifaceted, with Pedro, Rafinha, Iniesta, Rakitic all making runs. The regular tactics are far more conservative. And Fiorentina's goals were excellently created as well.

Same reason Munir and Sandro didn't shoot on one of the last counters. Easy enough to take a bash at goal, but far more fun to try to combine and create an entertaining goal. Kudos to them for not being as wound up as some of the folks here.

 

[Flavia]

People expecting us to do the Sextuple need a reality check, that would obviously mean doing the Treble again, back to back seasons.I seriously doubt that will happen.

The Treble has only been done twice, and never back to back plus no team has ever successfully defended the CL.

Am not saying we're in for a shit season, but we won't win everything.

Sextuple is adding the supercup, supercopa and club World Cup to the treble, not winning the treble again. Like it was done in the 2008/2009 season.

 

[Bran the Greenseer]

Thats what i ment. People here are fast to forget. Hes had many many games last year where we were invicible and everyone calling for him to get subbed or shouldnt have started the game at all.
He cant controll games, cant play next to Iniesta and arent to good next to Rakitic either. Hes way to much like Cesc, that didnt fit us either.
The only one he played decently next to isnt in the team anymore.

He's nothing like Cesc, he hung on to the ball too long a couple of times in a pre season game. As I said he got played next to Iniesta maybe twice something like half a year ago in which time all his qualities have drastically improved and whether or not they play good together or him being able to control tempo is irrelevant because he's not the next xavi and he's never been the next xavi. He's an attacking midfielder so his type of play will always be on the iniesta side of the xaviniesta scale meaning there would be no need to play them together unless Rafinha is on the RW or Iniesta on the LW.

And its not about "forgetting too fast" Rafinha is a young improving player who has showed drastic improvement over the start of last season. Maybe you're forgetting that he was rated the best young player in la liga? Young players improve or stagnate, its not very often that they regress much less so when given the proper playing time. So i'll forget Rafinha's poorer performances from last season like i'll forget Neymar's poor finishing from the season before.

 

[Darko]

It's like some of you became Barca fans yesterday, we always suck when we have nothing to play for because our playing style requires 100% focus and fitness, we lose/draw all friendlies against slightly better opposition in pre-season and when we have the league wrapped up we basically gift points to the likes of Deportivo and Levante.
As Rakitic said, we'll win when it matters, I have no doubt that we will play amazing football in the Supercups and hit the ground running in the league.
The only worrying thing is youngsters underperforming but it might be different when only one or two of them play a match with our best 11 and not with the Verminator and Pedro.

 

[neo_wolf]

We always suck in pre season.

 

[Catalan Fan]

Sextuple is adding the supercup, supercopa and club World Cup to the treble, not winning the treble again. Like it was done in the 2008/2009 season.

Yep, I was typing bolloxs.Wrongly thinking people were expecting a Sextuple this coming season, not just adding the other 3 trophies to the Treble.

Cheers to Blaugrana Bull too, for pointing that out.

 

[Vlom]

I'm expecting the back-to-back trebble of course