Xavi Hernández

[akaranzo]

When they talk about "Barca's way" they probably think of "Pep's way" as if Pep's way equals Barca's history and how we have always played.

So, once and for all, you guys who talk about Barca's way, can we please change the phrases and start to call it = Pep's way.
So, no need to pretending that we want some "Barca's way", just feel free to say: I want to see a carbon copy of Pep's way, this is when I grew up as a fan, that was my first love, this is why I fell in love with Barca, in my eyes that will always remain the best version of football.
So, bring me back my Barca aka = Pep's football.

The part of a reason why I hate Pep are also posts like this, where Barca, Barca's DNA more or less means fking Pep.

Okay, fair enough I have no problem calling it Pep's way. I love Pep's style and something akin to that is what I will always want to see from Barca. I will freely admit that.

 

[BBZ8800]

This is actually very true.
Even Pep style wasn't identical Crujif style, it was more of a pure form with Pep's ideas and finger prints on it.
Crujif loved the football played by coaches like Rijkaard and Hiddink and suggested them to Laporta, same with Koeman during his Ajax day, had full praise to EV during his time in Espanyol.
I honestly doubt that Crujif himself was a copycat of Rinus Michels, and he evolved his tactics.

I hope Xavi will evolve as a coach tbh, because a lot of things he is saying can make you worry, although in his defense he says the right things a lot of times.

People are creating urban myths and fairytales out of some things.

Cruijff won 4 La Ligas in a row, but out of those 4 La Ligas, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, he was 1 point ahead of the opponents.

1992:
Real was a leader before the last round.
They had a shocking defeat away to Tenerife 3:2 (even though they were leading 2:0, lol) and Barca won a title by 1 point.

1993:
Real was a leader before the last round.
Again, they had a shocking defeat to the same opponent, Tenerife, 2:0.
Barca again won a title in the last round by 1 point due to the main opponent's shocking defeat.

1994:
Deportivo had 1 point advantage befoer the last round.
Again, they played 0:0 vs Valencia, and EVEN WORSE, they missed a penalty in the 90th minute (Djukic) for a title.
Barca won at home vs Sevilla and won a title tied on point due to a better goals ratio.

And then people write songs about our style and a mixture of eye pleasing football and a domination in results.
While in reality, the only era when Barca played nice and were winning things was:
1. 2008-2011 under Pep, with Pep's/Cruijff's style
2. Rijkaard 2004-2006, with a Dutch style, not exactly Cruijff's style
3. Lucho 6 Months from January 2015 to June 2015 with his weird skip-the-midfield and play counters for MSN style

Other coachs who won titles since 1990:
Van Gaal, 2 La Ligas 1998 and 1999 = hated Cruiff and played his version of Dutch football with lots of crosses, headers, physical players, without individual players
Tito 2013 = copy of Pep's style, his right hand
Lucho 2015, 2016 = his own weird style
EV 2018, 19 = far from Pep's style

So, when you sum it all, when you read posts from out fans, it sounds as if we played "Barca's way" for 30 years.
Yet, we only played that way successfully from 2008-2011 under Pep.
Cruijff's Barca was the luckiest team on Earth, and nothing else, except Tito in 2013 is exactly the type that warrants = I want my Barca back type of posts.

So, when you dig deeper:
1. Barca hasn't played Barca's way till 1990
2. even since 1990, only Cruijff, Pep, Tito and Setien played that way
3. and the only time when we played nice and successful in terms of results was during Pep

All in all, guys who talk about Barca's way and Barca DNA actually wants a carbon copy of Pep's days.
Which will never happen because it worked only because of out of this world individual talent of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta.

And then, this is why we will be in this never-ending loop for decades: I want my Barca, I want Barca DNA, this is who we are type of deluded and media/social media fabricated brainwashed fairytale ideas.

 

[Bobo32]

BBZ: when did Barcelona dominate the league four years in a row before Cruyff with a larger marginal, and how many CLs did the club win?

Barcelona dominated football for close to ten years after 2008. Less and less after Pep left, but they were still favourites to win CL most years, despite all the turbulence. Every club had to relate to Barcelona, and try to create antidotes for their football.

Xavi is Xavi and not Pep or Johan. He seems to have similar principles and - importantly - be as principled.

 

[Gari]

from Doha that Vice President Rafa Yuste has confirmed that Xavi will return to Barcelona with the Bar?a expedition. The signing of him is already taken for granted

 

[Messigician]

Bar?a are willing to pay Xavi's ?5m clause. [tv3]

Qatar owns this small club

 

[Jadentheman]

We shall see what happens. I want to know if Xavi is open in his tactics and way of thought. Hopefully he isn’t a style nazi and sticks to rigid fundamental ways. That’s also terrorism but not incompetent terrorism like the usual suspects

 

[gregorrin10]

Xavi and the sheikh of Al Sadd have agreed on the coach's exit. [sport]

 

[FCBarca]

Let's be honest, Xavi went to the Sheikh to get his passport released

 

[Horatio]

Xavi and the sheikh of Al Sadd have agreed on the coach's exit. [sport]

Which coach? That is the question.

 

[serghei]

People are creating urban myths and fairytales out of some things.

Cruijff won 4 La Ligas in a row, but out of those 4 La Ligas, in 1992, 1993 and 1994, he was 1 point ahead of the opponents.

1992:
Real was a leader before the last round.
They had a shocking defeat away to Tenerife 3:2 (even though they were leading 2:0, lol) and Barca won a title by 1 point.

1993:
Real was a leader before the last round.
Again, they had a shocking defeat to the same opponent, Tenerife, 2:0.
Barca again won a title in the last round by 1 point due to the main opponent's shocking defeat.

1994:
Deportivo had 1 point advantage befoer the last round.
Again, they played 0:0 vs Valencia, and EVEN WORSE, they missed a penalty in the 90th minute (Djukic) for a title.
Barca won at home vs Sevilla and won a title tied on point due to a better goals ratio.

And then people write songs about our style and a mixture of eye pleasing football and a domination in results.
While in reality, the only era when Barca played nice and were winning things was:
1. 2008-2011 under Pep, with Pep's/Cruijff's style
2. Rijkaard 2004-2006, with a Dutch style, not exactly Cruijff's style
3. Lucho 6 Months from January 2015 to June 2015 with his weird skip-the-midfield and play counters for MSN style

Other coachs who won titles since 1990:
Van Gaal, 2 La Ligas 1998 and 1999 = hated Cruiff and played his version of Dutch football with lots of crosses, headers, physical players, without individual players
Tito 2013 = copy of Pep's style, his right hand
Lucho 2015, 2016 = his own weird style
EV 2018, 19 = far from Pep's style

So, when you sum it all, when you read posts from out fans, it sounds as if we played "Barca's way" for 30 years.
Yet, we only played that way successfully from 2008-2011 under Pep.
Cruijff's Barca was the luckiest team on Earth, and nothing else, except Tito in 2013 is exactly the type that warrants = I want my Barca back type of posts.

So, when you dig deeper:
1. Barca hasn't played Barca's way till 1990
2. even since 1990, only Cruijff, Pep, Tito and Setien played that way
3. and the only time when we played nice and successful in terms of results was during Pep

All in all, guys who talk about Barca's way and Barca DNA actually wants a carbon copy of Pep's days.
Which will never happen because it worked only because of out of this world individual talent of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta.

And then, this is why we will be in this never-ending loop for decades: I want my Barca, I want Barca DNA, this is who we are type of deluded and media/social media fabricated brainwashed fairytale ideas.

OK, so now you're taking the piss. 90% of all successful sides win with luck.

Alex Ferguson, that overrated idiot, won 2 CLs in 3 decades or something thanks to some luck vs Bayern in 99 that hit the post like 2 times, and thanks to a slippy John Terry.

In the past days, titles were won on very narrow margins. Should I remind you that one of the best teams ever, late 80s early 90s Milan barely won a Serie A title in those years?

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Okay so this is almost done.

New era.

Time to give Real Madrid the work.

 

[vegitot]

OK, so now you're taking the piss. 90% of all successful sides win with luck.

Alex Ferguson, that overrated idiot, won 2 CLs in 3 decades or something thanks to some luck vs Bayern in 99 that hit the post like 2 times, and thanks to a slippy John Terry.

In the past days, titles were won on very narrow margins. Should I remind you that one of the best teams ever, late 80s early 90s Milan barely won a Serie A title in those years?

From 1988-1994, Milan won 4 serie a tittles, more than any team, one unbeaten season. How can you say they barely won Serie A?

Dream team were extremely lucky to win 3 Liga tittles as Real and Deportivo bottled in their last game.

 

[Andresito]

I'm skeptical. Don't think even Pep could save this team. Realistically we could start seeing results in minimum of 2 years.

It's a bit like United with all their recent coaching changes.

 

[BBZ8800]

From 1988-1994, Milan won 4 serie a tittles, more than any team, one unbeaten season. How can you say they barely won Serie A?

Dream team were extremely lucky to win 3 Liga tittles as Real and Deportivo bottled in their last game.

Ac Milan:
CL finals:
1989 4:0 Steaua
1990 1:0 Benfica
1993 0:1 Marseille
1994 4:0 Barcelona
1995 0:1 Ajax

Barca "the Dream Team":
1992 1:0 Sampdoria
1994 0:4 vs Milan

You need to understand that media and fans of each club have a need for overhype, creating legends and turning their club/legends/style of play into the best.
I mean, look at our forum.
Messi is always better than Cr7.
Iniesta is better than Zidane, lol.
Xavi and Iniesta are the two best midfielders ever.
We have the winning system which is dominating the world for 30 years, lol.
La Masia is better than the other youth academies.
We are more than a club (with Qatari logos here and there).
We don't buy a team, we create a team, lol.
You need to remove 50-70% of strength from each of those claims, because they are either a media-propaganda nonsense to sell shirts or an overhype nonsense from fans who always have a need for their club to be the best and the most special in every category.

For years, you can read about Cruijffism here and a reader who didn't dig deeper might think that we were always crashing teams like in the Pep's era.
While in fact, our only dominating era EVER was Pep's era.
During Rijkaard we only had a short 2 years spell of domination.
And during Cruijff in 4 winning years, we were the luckiest team on the planet in 1992, 1993 and 1994 where we shouldn't have won any of La Liga titles, as explained in previous posts where RM twice and Deportivo lost their games in the final rounds of a season.
And even worse, our first Champions league title in 1992 also had a Real Madrid/Chelsea amount of luck because:
1. we won 1:0 in a final with Koeman's free kick goal which went through 10 of player's legs and luckily didn't change a direction
2. in a round of 16 in our winning year of 1992, in the first leg we won 2:0 against German Kaiserslautern, yet in the 2nd leg we were 3:0 down and we were on the verge of a KO.
Luckily, we scored a somewhat fluke goal in the 90th minute of a 2nd leg for 3:1 and we went through on aggreggate.

So, what have we learned in the last 2 days?
1. when people say: I want my Barca back, they usually mean = I want a carbon copy of Pep's Barca, this is Barca
2. Barca didn't play Cruijff's/Pep's football since always, but only since 1990'.
3. and even after the 1990, only Cruijff, Pep, Tito and Setien played that type of football
4. out of 2 most hyped eras of our history: Cruijff's and Pep's, only Pep's was actually a domination.
Cruijff's era was eye pleasing, but results wise, he was always tied with other La Liga teams on top (who didn't play "Dream team football", but just a regular mortal football).
In a CL, results were less fancy:
1) a lucky win in 1992
2) in 1993, as a current champions, we lost to a mighty Cska Moscow in a round of 16. With 1:1 in Moscow and 2:3 defeat at Camp Nou.
3) in 1994, after playing eye pleasing, Dream team was heavily defeated by Ac Milan with 4:0 in a final.
4) in 1995, quarterfinals, 3:2 aggreggate defeat to Psg, who was a nobody back then (had 2 league titles in a history by then)

Also, take a note one pattern of Cruijff's Barca, we were conceding tons, tons, tons of goals.
4 against Milan, 4 against Cska, 3 against Psg etc.
That style of play was always the same: if it works against someone = it works like a charm.
But if it doesn't work well, there is no plan B and you will conceded 3-4 goals from counters and crosses.

So, on paper, if you don0't dig deeper, idea of Cruijff-Pep domination sounds way flashier than it actually was in a reality.
And then for the end, HOW MANY YEARS have we played like Cruijff-Pep in our history and how many years were trule successful both domination wise and results wise?
=> only Pep's years

For the end, here is a final from 1994, Milan:Barca 4:0.
** A fun fact: that is the largest defeat of any team in a CL final in the last 30 years
** in the whole CL's finals history, only 4 teams ever managed to lose by a 4 goals margin:
1960: Real:Eintracht 7:3
1974: Bayer:Atletico 4:0
1989: Milan:Steaua 4:0
1994: Milan:Barca 4:0

Barca:Cska 2:3 in 1993:

 

[Fati_Future_BallonDor]

Meh it takes time, when he will become offically barca coach.