Xavi Hernández

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BBZ8800

Senior Member
Kimmich (1,77m) and Gnabry (1,76m) are probably physically better than pretty much our entire squad as well though, while our two tallest starters Busi and Pique are equally useless for headers and duels :lol: Dembele is also 1,78m and he would play exactly the same if he was 2cm taller or smaller.

I get the point about physicality but the height obsession is a bit silly.

Extremes are silly, like tall Busi and short Kante.

At Barca, though, we have tall players who can't win a header.

On the other hand, can you name one player from Bayern:
1. who is physically fragile?
2. who is extremely short?
3. who is slow as a snail?
4. who can't win a header?

Height is silly and unimportant in Barcaworld where the goal of the game is to have 90% of possession and walk with the ball into the net.
In those circumstances, you don't need height but technique to move the ball around.

The problem is:
1. majority of La Liga teams are latino-teams who are filled with Spanish and South American players who on average have lower height than Northern Europeans
2. also, a footballing culture in Spain and South America is to play on the ground and use mostly feet and technique. Teams in La Liga rarely cross and play long balls, and thus Barca don't need much height and headers against Spanish teams
3. but the problem is when we move to Europe, where the average height of German or English teams is way higher than at Rayo Vallecano and Getafe. Also, their footballing culture/DNA is different and crosses, longballs and headers are way more common.
Then Barca gets into problems.
So, when talking about height and muscles, you can't look at it from Barca/La Liga perspective. Football and requirements are quite different in other parts of Europe.

For example, look at how majority of teams played against us even when we were better than today:
Roma vs Barca from 2018, look how many long balls, crosses and headers Roma used in that match.
More or less, we lost EVERY SINGLE aerieal duel and every cross into the box was a potential goalscoring opportunity. We don't play that way and Rayo Vallecano don't play that way. But Europeans do play that way:
 

jairzinho

Senior Member
Ridiculous, I questioned whether he understands if football has moved on. Of course he understands football. I also said the current state of the players was no fault of his. Do keep up.


You really have to wonder if he is willing to adapt to the intensity of clubs like Bayern or if he will stick to his purist ideas. If it's true that he still sees Busquets as an important part of the team then that might answer that question.
 

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
You really have to wonder if he is willing to adapt to the intensity of clubs like Bayern or if he will stick to his purist ideas. If it's true that he still sees Busquets as an important part of the team then that might answer that question.

His purist ideas demands intensity and a lot of pressing.

But yeah he need to ditch Busquets. Impossible to do anything if he's still starting. Cannot cary him.
 

Barcilliant

Senior Member
When Muller referred to intensity he referred to hunger. This team is full of soy boys. Look at the first Muller goal. Mingueza and Pique rooted to the ground, not even challenging Muller in the air. Ter Stegen half asleep in no man's land. That header had no power or direction and STILL three players didn't do anything. Noone closed or tried to close Sane down for the shot. Again Ter Stegen asleep and flapping away like a drunk at 3am in the club.
Leaving aside the quality of the players the attitude of this team and club as a whole is SHOCKING. A team like Shrerif went to Real Madrid and got a result. Yes, we are going through a bad time but you have to be competitive. Even small teams give big clubs a hard time. We don't give anyone a hard time. We just roll over. Look how casual Dembele was with that shot. Look at that cunt Lenglet laughing. He thought it was a training session obviously.
I don't know if Xavi can fix this. The players attitude sucks, the quality is not there. Everyone seems to be injured. I am sure we won't qualify for EL next season for get CL. Thank God Messi moved to PSG.
 

CatalinR10

Senior Member
I see that a lot of guys here now talk about our training regimes, but Malvolio for example, gets the problem.

The thing is, better training regimes won't be enough.
I'll try to dumb it down and use a language from random football manager and football games.
Let's say that a player can have pace from 1 to 100.
And stamina from 1 to 100.

Now, the problem is that pace is consisted of two things:
1. natural skill
2. training

For the sake of an argument, let's make it simple and say that 70% of your physical skill will be from your natural genes and 30% will come from training.
Now, that means that you can only get +30 in pace or stamina, even if you are coached by the best coach in the world.

A few examples:
If Mbappe has a natural pace 65, then even with average training he will get +15 skills in pace and his total pace will be = 65 (natural skill) + 15 (trainings) = 80.
On the other hand, someone who is slow like Busi, who have a natural pace let's say 20: no matter how he trains, he won't be able to improve his pace too much.
So, Busi would have 20 (natural pace) plus 30 from the best training regimes in the world = total pace = 50.

So, my point is = training regimes don't matter AS MUCH as a natural fitness skill.
Busi or Nico will never be able to compete with guys who are naturally fast.

So, if you want to have physically good players = you need to buy/sign kids who naturally have good pace, stamina, height or strength.
We can hire Pep and Klopp, but Busi, Demir, Nico, Eric won't get faster. They are just players with low natural pace.
On the other hand, guys like Dembele have a natural pace. Frenkie and Gavi have a natural stamina etc.

But here is the problem = I have a feeling that big clubs like Bayern are making these tests when they are scouting kids.
And they will never buy a kid unless he has a natural pace, stamina and some level of strength.
Can you imagine Bayern signing a snail like Demir?
Can you imagine Bayern signing short and weak players like Denis or Puig?

I posted numbers yesterday, half of our team is slow and with height around 175.
While the shortest starter for Bayern yesterday was 180cm.

So, my point is, I have a feeling that when we are signing players, all we look for is = technique.
But when Bayern is signing players, they look at:
1. is he at least 178cm tall
2. does he have at least average natural pace?
3. does he have at least average to good natural stamina?
4. does he have at least average to good body mass (unlike Puig, Pedri, Busi, Denis)
5. does he possess technique?

So, Bayern is scouting for TECHNIQUE and 4 other skills, while we scout ONLY for TECHNIQUE.

Imo, that problem comes from winning too much.
You know that case (Halilovic for example), when a player has a talent, but then people start to hype him, he buys his own hype and stops trying and ruins his career? (Like when Halil said when coming to Bundesliga: I didn't come here to defend, I came here to score goals, lol).
Imo, the same happened to Barca.
On a collective level from: newspapers, social media, fans, forums, players, sponsors, neutral fans, Messi's Ballon D ors, too many titles under Pep
= we fell into a trap and started to believe that Barca and our football is the best thing since sliced bread.
While our football was awesome, but we created a bubble after 2011 with skewed views on football.
Everyone fell into a parallel universe and started to believe in ideas like:
1. we are more than a club
2. we are different
3. we are unique
4. we don't play only to win, we play to entartain
5. we don't buy superstars, we create them
6. La Masia is magical
7. if executed properly, nothing can stop our type of football
8. technique always triumphs over physique

And today we are like some 50 year old woman, who was a top model 30 years ago and everyone loved her.
Her time has passed 20 years ago but she acts as if she is still on top of the world and can't understand why nobody calls her for covers of the magazines anymore.

I have a feeling that a timeline goes like this:
1. pre Pep, under Rijkaard, we played an attacking possession football, with a mix of technique and physique
2. then Pep traded some physique and pushed us more towards Iniestas, David Silvas, Puigs and similar. But it worked for him because he had the best team and his ideas worked
3. but after Pep, imo, it seems as if we moved even further from physique and went full retard with midfielders turned into wingers, false 9s, short and technical players, goalkeepers who are good with the ball etc.

We took one idea from Pep which was already highly questionable and moved even more into a full retard zone relying only on technique and nothing else in the world.

All in all, I think that we will sink even more.
Not only that:
1. we are broke
2. we have shit players
3. La Masia is meh
4. La Liga is dying
5. good players don't want to come
6. oil clubs emerged
7. EPL is filthy rich
8. opponents took the best parts of our football and upgraded it with physique
9. we don't have leaders or any mental strength
10. our presidents are criminals or clueless
11. our sporting directors are all former players

On top of that, I would add this new theory where the whole media, fans and players around Barca have built this bubble where we are the best thing since sliced bread and where technique and TikiTaka will solve any problem and will always beat physique.

If we want to get out of this hole, we will need to break that bubble.
But then, I don't think that our granny socios can understand this.
And also, our whole club is built around technique and those ideas.
I mean, we have Jordi Cruijff and former players who are all about technique.
Then we hired Xavi, who comes from Pep's era and who is all about grass height and technique.

So, yeah, things look extremely grey and we are in the infinite loophole.
Too many people still believe in = there is nothing wrong with our DNA and if executed properly, nothing can beat our system.

I can't even explain in words on how many levels everything is broken and fucked up around this club.
I can't think of any top team who has a worse future than us.
EPL teams are rich.
Bayern is rich and smart.
Milan and Juve are recovering.
Psg is oil rich.
Real is richer and smarter than us.
Atletico is in a better position than us.
I mean, even Arsenal and Tottenham have a brighter future than us. They don't live in a bubble and they are rich. And they know a thing or two about pace, stamina and physique.

27302.jpg




we have sank like the Titanic but at least we did so together



game-of-thrones-creepy.gif
 

Devils

Senior Member
FGNNxxkVIAIoeWu


Xavi explodes

Monumental anger from the manager before the resignation of some players before the Bayern thrashing [md]

There were strong words, it was expected that they would compete harder and there is a lot of work to be done [md]


:wow:
 

Messigician

Senior Member
FGNNxxkVIAIoeWu


Xavi explodes

Monumental anger from the manager before the resignation of some players before the Bayern thrashing [md]

There were strong words, it was expected that they would compete harder and there is a lot of work to be done [md]


:wow:

In Xavi mind we are still the best team in the world
 

FCBfan22

Senior Member
Considering Depay's current form... Does it even matter.

After Fati is ready to start (in 14 days or so), we should play 4-4-2 diamond with Ansu and Ousmane up top IMO. That's the way to go
 

MTL_Barca

Well-known member
When Muller referred to intensity he referred to hunger. This team is full of soy boys. Look at the first Muller goal. Mingueza and Pique rooted to the ground, not even challenging Muller in the air. Ter Stegen half asleep in no man's land. That header had no power or direction and STILL three players didn't do anything. Noone closed or tried to close Sane down for the shot. Again Ter Stegen asleep and flapping away like a drunk at 3am in the club.
Leaving aside the quality of the players the attitude of this team and club as a whole is SHOCKING. A team like Shrerif went to Real Madrid and got a result. Yes, we are going through a bad time but you have to be competitive. Even small teams give big clubs a hard time. We don't give anyone a hard time. We just roll over. Look how casual Dembele was with that shot. Look at that cunt Lenglet laughing. He thought it was a training session obviously.
I don't know if Xavi can fix this. The players attitude sucks, the quality is not there. Everyone seems to be injured. I am sure we won't qualify for EL next season for get CL. Thank God Messi moved to PSG.

Mentality has been shit for years. Old veterans still thinking it's 2011 and they are on top of the football world and apparently every signing feels the same once they made it to Barca. And then as soon as thing's aren't going our way they crumble. We had the comeback vs PSG, but apart from that there is nothing but disaster every year since the treble.

Doesn't help we pretty much have no leaders whatsoever, you know it's bad when your captains are Busquets, Pique, Roberto and Alba :lol: Non of these are captain material and even worse non of them should even be in the starting lineup going forward.

That's hard to fix though, it's about cutting off all the old underperforming bums and then hope a fresh young team can form team spirit and a new hierarchy over time.
 
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