Xavi Hernández

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

I never said we didn't have it. But for some reason, this "Barca way" at some point got corrupted as fuck to meaning "technically sound trumps everything".

We were the hardest working team in Europe under Pep and 14/15 Lucho and that was with the best players too.

Modern football has moved towards emphasizing the athletic, physical aspects more so than what was already important 10 years ago. And instead of keeping with the times, we regress and somehow every manager who comes in here seems to find that acceptable.

in 2015 we had raki our workhorse, we dont have such a player anymore..but an 6 years older busi

 

[Barcilliant]

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.

But which manager do you think would have us do better tonight? Nuno Espirito Santo?

Santo would be an upgrade on Xavi. Sad but true.

 

[serghei]

Barca DNA is the thing when a fkng clown like Riki Puig can get a shirt number in your team.
Could Riki get a number at Bayern or Liverpool?

I wrote 100s of times.
I didn't mind Barca DNA in 90s and under Rijkaard when our DNA was attacking football, possession, fun but when it was just a random attacking football with possession.
But when Pep came, he went into extremes.
We moved from pivots like Davids, Motta, Edmilson, Van Bommel to Busquets. And today some posters think that Pedri could be a good pivot. Like wtf? That can happen only at Barca.
So, Pep traded those few physical players who we had for even more technique and smart movement. (I know, I know, you'll know say that we had Keita. But he was a squad player. Among starters, Pep started that revolution of going full retard with 170cm midfielders).
And till the current day, we re following that shit. Riki, Gavi, Pedri. Liverpool, Chelsea or Bayern would take one short/weak midfielder and surround him 2-3 beasts to compensate for him.
Yet, we have the whole midfield built around the same type of players.
Then that thing with no shooting, introduced by Pep where we need to walk with the ball into the net.
Or Pep's hate for a No9 and his invention of a false 9, short false 9 and similar.

That's Barca DNA which I hate.
And now, don't reply: but City is winning EPLs. Well, Pep is apparently the only guy in the world who can make that tactics work.
But he is playing that style for 15 years and he mastered it. And even he can't do shit in Europe even though he is playing that style for 15 years and even though he has unlimited amount of money at Oil City.

So, my point:
1. Barca DNA can work ONLY if you have the best team ever like Barca in 2011 with Xavi, Iniesta + Messi, coached by Pep (the best coach + the best generation of players + GOAT himself)
2. or if you have the best coach + filthy rich team (Pep + City)

Then, go to Barca and compare it:
1. no money
2. no Pep
3. no good players

How to make it work?
You can't.
But we are sticking to it eternally.

And just look at guys here, everything else is guilty but Barca DNA.
1. we don't have money
2. Barto
3. Laporta
4. bad players

Ok, if everything sucks and we can't play Barca DNA from 2010, then why the fck do we want to replicate it?
Why don't we play something simpler, which might work better in current era?

But we won't change and play anything else, because:
1. the board, the media, fans, Xavi still believe that our tactics from 2011 are still the best thing in the world, and the same as you think: with a few right signings and the right coach, we could make it work again, lol.

I think you got some things confused. I've always said the 2011 team is not repeatable, and it's not what we try to do. Not unless Lucho is also recreating that 2011 team with Spain NT. Because what Barca should do is what Man City is doing, and what Spain is doing, and what other teams are doing as well.

Not even Pep is recreating that Barca 2011 team. That was a one-off and everyone is fully aware of that.

The problem with Barca was that of prolonged incompetence affecting every structure of the club. For too many years the club was run by incompetents. Leave idiots enough time in charge, and they will leave deep marks.

Tbf, any management structure that gets into conflict with the best manager in the world, Pep Guardiola, is proven to be incompetent on the spot.

You just refuse to blame people that actually handled the club, and go with some quasi-abstract notions as Barca DNA, as if Barca DNA tells you that training is not important, or that a gym is only for decor.

No, those to blame are actually the overpaid players who leveraged their legend status to secure a long and easy well-paid time and the presidents and club officials that, instead of putting them back in their place and shipping them out, raised their wages and extended their contracts.

 

[Barcilliant]

There is an obsession at Barca for these slow skillful players or number ten playmakers. Look at Coutinho, Griezmann, Pedri, Denis Suarez, Demir. Fuck. It's tragic.

 

[Barcilliant]

In 30 plus years of supporting this club never seen it in such bad shape. Barto is a terrorist. Laporta clueless. Shitverde a piece of shit that helped this process along. Amigos, fuck them. Hopefully they go now.

 

[Horatio]

There is an obsession at Barca for these slow skillful players or number ten playmakers. Look at Coutinho, Griezmann, Pedri, Denis Suarez, Demir. Fuck. It's tragic.

Very true but I think we will move away from this.

 

[serghei]

Pep's football has evolved while we have remained stagnant.i guess that's the simple way to look at it. He's found a way to adapt his football to a more physically demanding league while at the same time still retaining the technical principles. At Barca it seems we've never even gotten to grips with the physical and athletic shift in football over the years. That's why we crumble in high intensity moments.

No, Pep's football was always very physical, fast, and hard on the body. He had to adapt because the players he had at Barcelona were impossible to replicate elsewere.

 

[serghei]

Btw it isn't just about the lack of physicality that goes with the "cannot cope with intensity" quote, but also the lack of pace in the team. We've been one of the slowest teams in Europe for years now and we keep signing slow players.

We only have one properly quick player and he's totally useless and brain dead.

Physicality and pace are quite similar terms in football IMO. That's how I see it, it's not how high you jump that counts in football, but how fast you can move with the ball and without it. And not just sprints, but also reaction speed, balance, how quickly can you change direction and so on. That's what physicality is IMO, except for some positions where you also need stature, like CB mainly, and occasionally 9 (but not always, look at City and Pool in attack, Mahrez, Foden, Jesus, Mane, Jota, Salah don't scare anyone with their muscle and height, they do scare defenders when they move though).

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Physicality and pace are quite similar terms in football IMO.

Physicality = Rabiot pace = Rabiot ?

 

[KingLeo10]

Physicality = Rabiot pace = Rabiot ?

Tall and heavy doesn't mean physical.

Kante would make Rabiot his bitch in a football duel.

 

[serghei]

You can't just use physicality the way you want it, twisting the term, depending on the context to suit your argument. If speed counts a lot, then Pique is not a physical player. If the height is the most important, then Mane is not a physical player, and Salah is not a physical player. It means Liverpool has a very poor attack physically. Their most physical player would be Origi.

There is also the connection that usually, it's height OR speed, very rarely both, since speed and quickness are also associated with reduced mass, lower center of gravity, which leads to faster acceleration. The quick attackers tend to be on the shorter side. Athletes and physical specimens like Cristiano Ronaldo are very very rare.

Based on my ideas, it's rare in football that a very quick player will be suffering from a loss in height. Only if he plays goalkeeper maybe lol, or CB. Which almost never happens. You don't really see 1.70m central defenders.

But if you are slow and sluggish, you can be 1.95m you will suffer in this game. We see it with Busi, Pique every match. Quickness counts the most just as long as you're not featherlight like Puig and you can keep your balance when you bounce off opponents.

 

[mc_lovin]

Anyways, there is no conflict between physicality and Barca DNA.

We need to adapt to modern football, no two ways about it.

 

[BBZ8800]

I think you got some things confused. I've always said the 2011 team is not repeatable, and it's not what we try to do. Not unless Lucho is also recreating that 2011 team with Spain NT. Because what Barca should do is what Man City is doing, and what Spain is doing, and what other teams are doing as well.

Not even Pep is recreating that Barca 2011 team. That was a one-off and everyone is fully aware of that.

The problem with Barca was that of prolonged incompetence affecting every structure of the club. For too many years the club was run by incompetents. Leave idiots enough time in charge, and they will leave deep marks.

Tbf, any management structure that gets into conflict with the best manager in the world, Pep Guardiola, is proven to be incompetent on the spot.

You just refuse to blame people that actually handled the club, and go with some quasi-abstract notions as Barca DNA, as if Barca DNA tells you that training is not important, or that a gym is only for decor.

No, those to blame are actually the overpaid players who leveraged their legend status to secure a long and easy well-paid time and the presidents and club officials that, instead of putting them back in their place and shipping them out, raised their wages and extended their contracts.

Ok, let's say it this way:
1. we had Rijkaard's Barca = which I liked
2. we had Pep's Barca = where Pep ruined some things (introduced too many short players, ruined a No9, ruined crosses and headers, asked players to shoot only when they can score)
But Pep's Barca worked because Pep did make some things brilliantly and he had the best generation plus Messi.
3. also, pre-Pep = other teams didn't play like Barca in a technical way
4. and other teams weren't as physical as today
====================================
Now, fast forward to 2022:
1. even Pep evolved and he added physicality, crosses, fast counters to his possession-technical game
2. what is happening at Barca? It seems as if we are stuck at 2011's version. So, even Pep moved on, but we are stuck in time and we are trying to replicate things from 2011 from which even Pep has moved on.
Further, imo, the same as with Xavi vs Arthur. Let's say that Xavi had 10 things which made him great. And then Arthur copied 3 out of 10 skills. And on surface he looked good and resembled Xavi. But when you dig deeper, he is shit and lacks too many skills which made Xavi good.
In that sense, I see the same with Pep and our coaches who copied him like Tito, Setien, Pep.
All these guys got some things right, but none of them is Pep. Only Pep understands his football. Other guys can understand some things (the same as how Arthur copied SOME of Xavi's traits) but deep down, they are nowhere near Pep.
So, imo, we can't replicate any version of Pep's football without Pep. Not to mention that he had Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, and money, lol.
But also, another problem is = over the last 10 years, after Pep, we started to invent history. And out of 10 things which Pep's team possessed, as KingLeo said = we started to put too much emphasis on technique.
My point is = Pep's team had the best players + technique + stamina.
But media and fans started to invent stories which fit "more than a club" narrative how we are different. We play nice, we entertain, technique over physique etc.
And now the whole Barca world has created a bubble in which technique is even more important than it really is.
And every player like Raki or Paulinho is ridiculed for not being technical enough. EV was ridiculed for not playing technical enough etc.
And we came to a moment when we have players like Riki Puig and Demir, who have only technique and zero any sort of physique.
2. outside of Barca, other teams have took the best parts of our technical football (like Bayern, Liverpool, City, Chelsea) and evolved into technical+physical beasts.
Yet, as explained above, we have created some "mes que un club" bubble where physicality sucks and where technique is our DNA.

All in all, there are so many levels why I think that everything we are doing is soooo wrong and there is no way out.
1. we don't have money
2. others are richer
3. oil clubs
4. filthy rich EPL
5. covid-19
6. Pep's football can work only under Pep
7. but even Pep himself evolved to technique + physique (and still can't win a CL even though only he can successfully play Pep's football)
8. Barca's bubble where we hire coaches who should copy Pep's style, but none of them can copy it since Pep had too many tricks and every coach who tries to copy Pep's style will end as Arthur trying to copy Xavi the player
9. we have bad players, but as said before, even with better players, nothing will work because of everything mentioned above as long as we are trying to replicate Pep's football ideas from 2011, who are already abandoned by Pep + no one can replicate Pep's ideas + we don't have Xavi and Iniesta + we don't have Messi + we don't have money

In short:

 

[serghei]

Anyways, there is no conflict between physicality and Barca DNA.

We need to adapt to modern football, no two ways about it.

There's only the arrogance (more like ignorance in reality) that we're more technical than others, so this would be a reason why we could afford to slack off in doing the work in the gym to be as fit as possible. But that's not the DNA at display here, it's the idiots that handle stuff in the team.

Such a retarded idea can never be part of any working model, least of all a model that uses aggressive pressing as the main defending strategy.

No self-respecting manager or staff member can think that intensity and proper diet, training, etc. are not key aspects of professional sports. Everybody knows those are important (even EV, probably), it's just that some can get their teams to excel at those, and some can't.

 

[zanela]

Nothing against Xavi, but this challenge is beyond his managerial expertise. This job came a bit too early for him

In other news, I hate it how Buyern always devours everything good that comes out of Germany. Just read Nagelsmann's sympathetic comments about Barca, may be he fancies a move in the future (however unlikely)

For now, I wonder if a ruthless and tactful character like LVG/Hiddink would have been more useful in relegating the non-performers and steadying the ship.