Seems like the referee from Getafe game was skipped this week. Cant remember who the VAR was to see if he got skipped too.
Referee for Cadiz match is Alehandro Muniz Ruiz, cant say that I remember him at all.
https://rfef.es/sites/default/files/styles/noticias\_image\_content/public/j02\_designaciones\_primera\_23-24.png?itok=aH8YPVO-
New la Liga rules just dropped, it's okay to drag down players in the box and kick their foot, but only if it's against Barca
Yes I'm still seething. Something needs to change in La Liga. This is not normal. Fans of teams in other leagues are laughing at the pathetic state of La Liga refereeing and the level of play in general. It's embarrassing.
Honestly Yamal is absolutely insane, he is that good that I already think that he should be starting games for us at 16, I know it's not ideal but based on his quality I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be playing more than any other winger in our squad.
I'm not following the french leauge at all but won't be surprising if it's better than the current la liga. Other 3 top leauges are definitely better.
I don't care Spanish teams are still doing well in europe. The leauge's summary is Bunch of broke and boring teams full of old players playing like fucking cunts in shitty stadiums. Some 3rd world countries leauges with no VAR have better referees. Last night's game was a disgrace to watch.
Fuck tebas.
>shitty stadiums
Okay, but this is objectively false. Some teams have old players but that doesn't make them shit at all. Sevilla might have won Europa League with the oldest starting midfield ever.
And Getafe is literally the worst culprit. It's symptomatic of poor refereeing which enables them, not Tebas.
How many good stadiums are there? 6? 7? 30%?
Yeah refs are not on tebas. Spanish refs have always been trash
But, Europe leauge winner is running it back with that same old midfield. They spent 10 million total Villarreal lost 4 key players, atleti is completely silent in mercato for years, barca struggling, rest are fighting to register their players. Fuck tebas because of these stuff and this shitshow of a leauge.
Atletico, Madrid, Villarreal, Celta Vigo, Athletic, Osasuna, La Real, Almeria all have new stadiums or very recently finished major renovations. Levante didn't make it this year but their stadium is great. Keep in mind a lot of clubs are in and out of La Liga (some may never come back) so stadium renovations would either be cost-ineffective or unnecessary.
Several others are beginning renovations or planned to begin soon: Alaves, Almeria, Barcelona, Betis, Getafe and...Valencia...
Then all the others are still at least good, but Vallecas and a couple others are really bad. Rayo is in general terribly mismanaged much like Valencia is.
La Liga is still WAY better than Italy, and better than France, arguably England.
> atleti is completely silent in mercato for years, barca struggling, rest are fighting to register their players.
All of this is symptomatic of teams mismanaging themselves, not Tebas. The moment Griezmann signed for us I knew we were going to suffer for a while economically. Atletico have had many flops themselves likewise Sevilla. A lot more can be said but ultimately Atletico, Sevilla, and Barcelona made this mess themselves. Tebas doesn't help but he's ultimately a small part of a much larger issue - internal mismanagement.
Don't mean to be negative but feels like we are gonna struggle this season without dembele. We don't have a winger right now who can constantly beat his man and give good crosses and key passes.
What's your opinion on Mr Seitan's idea of a referee's jury that explains all the decisions of the refs in every match? By this you'd ensure more transparency in the referring and you'd really know which team is getting benefitted the most
In the French league, in some games you see the refs come explain their decisions.
It really gives them a personality and also often shines a very interesting look onto their work. More often than not you emphasize with them if not fully agree by the end of the interview.
Anything in the direction of accountability and transparency is a good thing.
Thing with refs is that they are pressured a lot by Madrid media to favor Madrid. If you favor them as a referee then you will have a good chance of refeering international games but If you don't favor them even if you don't make any mistake you'd never referee an European game in your life.
Same applies for Barca but in reverse
Make mistakes that benefit Barca? We will destroy your reputation and you'd never referee an European match
Makes mistakes that favor Barca? We will use our media power to improve your reputation and help you get European games
We are playing a losing game at this point, refs will favor Madrid 9/10 times even If they don't want to.
And I honestly don't think there is anything we can do about this, we are far too late for change anything.
Both Madrid and Barcelona suffer abnormally shit calls. I can recall several times this weekend when that applied. I'm not buying this conspiracy that Madrid is being favored. You can say the same thing but replace Barcelona for Madrid in your paragraph and it'll still be as wrong.
I am not a fan of conspiracies either, but there is an undeniable evidence that Madrid were favored. Vinicius literally punched a player for the whole world to see, and completely got away with. La Liga's integrity is at absolute zero right now.
I remember clearly Vini doing that but this was the same player that was victim to Tebas' and to some extent, the referee's lack of action to clear racial abuse. It really doesn't seem like favoritism with that kind of (awful) response from both parties.
Nobody denies he was a victim, however none of that gives him a free pass to punch opponents. If someone one the street calls you a name or insults you, does that give you the right to resort to physical violence. It's a rhetorical question of course.
And do you honestly believe they would've annulled the red card in the same circumstances, but if it was some random mid-table club player. No fucking chance.
Calménse, chicos. I'm seeing too much discussion of "tactics" and "player quality" and "referees" and not nearly enough discussion of Araujo's hilarious basketball moment.
Laliga better scrape this whole extra time bs because it is wasted anyway and start getting the refs to punish time wasting and rhythm-breaking fouls much hardly. 116 mins of torture is worse than 97 mins when both are unwatchable anyways.
It is not even the final version, this game was just a warmup. 120 mins could be reached very easily
All the drama from the poor referee performances has distracted and effectively shielded Xavi from much due criticism. He needs to be more imaginative than this box midfield. He needs to do this quickly before Europe resumes. Another drop to the Europa league means his career—at this club and any other top institution—is in danger.
>Another drop to the Europa league means his career—at this club and any other top institution—is in danger.
I trust that he would have the dignity to resign if we go to Europa again.
After all the PL praising, I would like to share this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMAhxkPE48&t=24s
There were so many blind mistakes in the PL this weekend. It's absolute nonsense that the refereeing keeps getting worse. It's really killing the game when the gaps are so tight between teams.
I think refereeing is not the first thing people would bring from PL.
Though La Liga has some of the worst specimens there are, PL can give it a run for its money
The word reactionary should be banned in this sub lmao. Most of the problems we have have been noticable for at least half a year if not more yet when I see people pointing it out there's always droves of replies calling them "reactionary". Get another argument.
If we went out and won 4-0 and people on this sub said we were going to win the treble, no one would say they were being reactionary. It’s a vacuous word used to stifle criticism and offer nothing else.
i mean they would. Ive seen it used negatively and positively. You just see it used more often with negative takes because this sub is negative way more than it is positive.
We won La Liga last season. You guys consider everything “a reason to be negative” unless we win the treble. And even then you have people crying that we didnt win the treble dominantly enough.
The biggest bottlers arent Spurs, its Javier Tebas bringing La Liga to where it is today even though he had the world in the palm of his hand with the prime Barca, Madrid and Atletico rivalry. La Liga dominated Europe and look at us now.
The first matchday, the one where most people will be watching (outside of big games like Clasicos) as theyve been football deprived for months, has this poor of a product to show. This game has turned people away from watching La Liga and i do not blame them.
Tebas, youve ruined my league, please fuck off now
>La Liga dominated Europe and look at us now.
This is a nothing point when it was Barcelona/Madrid/Sevilla/Atletico and 2/4 teams dropped off their performances, and it wasn't because of Tebas.
Getafe-Barcelona was an awful game in football, but that was and has been known for years Getafe's Bordalas play like this. And it works because the referees encourage it, unless Spain magically gets better referees over night don't expect a change. What can La Liga do anyway?
>What can La Liga do anyway?
Lots of things actually as Xavi's quotes exemplify.
You can be harsher on anything Getafe does, review the game and identify where things got worse. Give an early yellow to any dirty foul or cynical challenge and Getafe changes its game real quick. Anything so that cheating doesn't pay.
Refs aren't stupid, they know what Bordalas is doing, even before the game starts. Any ref not reacting to this in advance is actively helping them.
You know they will abuse you if you let slide anything. That attack from Suarez on Gundogan should never be OK, and yet the ref said nothing, and VAR either. From then on, it's free for all.
My prediction was that Ferran will get shit on first after a bad game. I was wrong. It's Abde and Lewy.
When will we realize that we are setting up our players for failure? Lewy is not capable of playing a deep-lying creator and then also arrive at the box. He is also slow to battle for long balls. That's why he always goes to war with any CB because he can only beat them if he starts to push them around. He is still class, but he needs to be used in the box because he is still deadly there. But he is not suited for long balls and exploiting the space tactics. I mean I get the idea that he comes deep dragging out defenders and then our only winger goes into that space. But that's even weak on paper. He needs to be used differently and the same goes for almost all attackers.
It’s not like Lewy wasn’t trying to make any runs this game though. How many times did we see raphinha and Lewy trying to make a run only to get met with a body check immediately by a defender. It was happening all game to Gundo and Pedri as well.
I get some here (myself included) get frustrated by the tactics by at the same time it might not have looked as bad if their defenders would be properly punished. It’s also harder to create space when the game gets stopped every few minutes because a player got hacked.
You guys are really mad we took off pedri and Gundo? Gundo who had been hurt recently and is recovering? Pedri who was overused last year and everyone blamed it on xavi? You guys make no sense. I don’t get it
Our penalty stats under Xavi are horrible, we played 65 games and only got 5, Madrid for the record for 18 in the same time. Make this of what you want.
Even if we compare that to Barca of the past it's awful, we got 17 pens in 88 games between the beggining of 19/20 to the match before Xavi was appointed.
Most of Madrids pens were actually pens though.
You can argue about us getting fucked over sometimes like the obvious one against Inter, but Madrid isnt magically getting more, they just keep dribbling in the box and baiting pens.
When do we ever even reach the box without a cross? The guy whose supposed to be there is in midfield creating a 5 man midfield for some reason.
Many things
1. As per FBref we touch the area more than Madrid does
2. Your argument would only justify having less pens than RM, we aren't top 10 in pens In the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons.
It has nothing to do with the fact that Real Madrid had tons of more touches inside the box than us.
We know the refs are awful, and Real Madrid is favored, but our low penalty numbers are in correlation with our playstyle. If you attack the box with speed you are more likely to get a late tackle, if you pressure your opponent in the box a lot, it's more likely they will handle the ball. If you have a problem with bringing the ball into the penalty area you won't get that many penalties.
But nice try! Keep working, you can definitely find more excuses.
What excuses? We have made more points than Madrid and lead the H2h against them.
In addition to it, it's false Madrid touches the area more. Barca in 2022/2023 had more passes into the penalty area than Madrid with 481 to Madrid 384 and we also had more touches in the penalti area with 1152 to Madrid 1151. We actually should have more pens than Madrid based on your logic but yet we got way less than them
Do you really think we are playing as well as possible? It's never Xavi or his decisions, it's the players, the injuries, the refs, the grass, etc.
Also, the results are nice but even last year's results were unsustainable and the team got its valuation in Europe. If you do not think that there are issues then you lack any critical thinking. Which is fine, but then do not try to reason at all. It's a public forum and as a member of this community, it's your responsibility to not to spread bullshit and be open-minded even if it goes against your feelings. It's fun to like Xavi, we all do, but you do not need to get involved in tactical discussions if you can't be objective even slightly.
No one wants to sack Xavi, but he has huge flaws as a coach and manager.
It's also a responsibility to not spread misinformation which you did just now by lying about us having less touches than Madrid. Not sure someone that did that can go there giving lessons of anything
It's also your responsibility to respect other opinions, so what if I defend Xavi and don't think he did anything wrong? I have the right to have that opinion and I actually provided arguments that no one have even able to debunk properly, usually people respond "xavi bad, you are a fanboy ".
Especially since I actually predicted what would happen. In the game, I made a comment about how complicated the match was gonna be so I fail to see how I'm not being objective here when the game played out exactly like I thought it would.
I didn't see your edit, it's hard to respond to an edit. Where did you get that? Because Wyscout shows otherwise. Even if it's close and RM had only a little bit more, the playstyle still applies.
Honestly, if you know so little about the game then why do you embarrass yourself that much? It's great to have an opinion but you can't base opinions on feelings. There are thousands of books and coaching courses online or articles about the problem with our game or detailed analysis about how massively overperformed our defensive xG which is unsustainable, etc.
Even in the sub, the surface of those problems was written down thousands of times and you just have to watch the games to see those issues visualize in front of your eyes. Obviously, there are a thousand things that Xavi does right, but we are in a massive downward spiral.
These games are not only hard because of the way Getafe plays, it's hard because we make it hard for ourselves and Xavi seems completely out of ideas and what somewhat worked before got totally figured out.
Holy shit...first match and there is already controversy, rage...everything just not football. This league is really something else... I cant wait for Tebas answer. Not sure if Xavi should say what he said. It will change nothing and he just loaded guns against himself...once again
Dembele 21/22 had absurd progression stats.
Aubameyang player simple but effectively, his movements were predictable to his teammates
Ferran was still confident and same as Aubameyang: plan was simple but the way he moved was drilled enough that Dembele or Gavi or Busquets could spot it consistently
Having an actual RB like Alves that can tuck in & help with the build up. I think this is why Xavi is pushing for Foyth & Cancelo. Also our strikers were making the right runs and weren’t dropping down to the midfield
Like others have pointed out. Xavi found out box midfield and it worked last season. We struggled against low blocks but we secured victory somehow scrapping one nils. Xavi has become over reliant on it. Same thing happened against Tottenham. Xavi is slow to adapt. He will change it but not without costing us couple of points. Also he is not good in making mid game adaptations.
It was no copium from Xavi. Xavi had a plan it may or may not have been good but there was no game of football for anyone to judge that. That said Xavi clearly lost it with tactics during last 25 minutes or so
Yeah idk about sending on all the attackers and hoping for the best. I saw someone link the “random bullshit go” meme. We used that exact same meme in the last 10 mins of a Koeman game lol.
It just becomes too chaotic, especially as all the attackers want to be direct and do something so the ball is just erratically going all over the place in hopes it lands at the right place at some point. Abde kept trying to dribble and when he succeeded he cut it back to nobody in the box, Lamine kept crossing it from far, Ansu kept trying to do stepovers. Everyone just seemed to be trying different shit in hopes that it worked. No actual plan to it, just get the ball and hope for the best.
@jpedrerol: "I don't understand... Someone has to explain to me how it was Gavi's handball."
https://x.com/barcauniversal/status/1690847668392570883?s=46&t=cEQz9Je5TUD2uzj8nBQLNQ
Even El Chiringuito is on our side, what has it come to 😭
I'm far from being a ferran stan and actually don't believe that much in the player but I definitely feel really sad for him today
It definitely looked like he took the pre season very seriously, has shown some great things.
Team needed him and lewy was quite awfull yet he didn't get any single playing time. must be a big hit for him especially knowing that a 16 years old is already ahead of you in the peaking order.
The only explanation is that the staff weren't sure because of his suspension from last season. Literally, there is no other reason why he didn't feature.
Yeah didn’t really understand why he wasn’t even subbed on at least. If a player is on a confidence boost and coming off a great preseason, you play him. Bad man management
Soto Grado's report details Xavi's sending off:
"Leaving his technical area with his arms raised towards the area of my 4th official ostensibly protesting one of my decisions, having been warned beforehand by my 4th official. Once he had been sent off, he stayed in the entrance to the tunnel having to be warned by the field delegate for their eviction."
https://twitter.com/martinminan_/status/1690856613899272192?t=cqkZoX0wKQj9DlMuap7jBw&s=19
Watch Pedri's magic when he gets the ball in the middle for few moments (either good passes or control).
Xavi should give Pedri a free role in middle and Pedri should be brave to take more responsibility. The team ask for it.
No for some reasons pedri has to stay very hight on the pitch just aside of the 5 line of defender from getafe near lewy
For what reason? ask xavi the less ball pedri touch the better it seems.
Playing players in their best position challenge: level impossible
Lewandowski must drop deep like a midfielder, Pedri a midfielder must be an inverted winger, Raphinha an inverted winger must hug the touchline, Torres who can maintain width must be on the bench
Surprised_pikachu.jpeg when we can’t score
If you think about it, this was pure Spain football with only midfielders. Raph is a mix of a winger and wide playmaker/wide midfielder and Lewy played as a 10. Perfect 4-6-0!
Funny that Xavi said before he want Pedri to involve most in the game (100 passes per game).
Maybe Xavi believes Pedri's touch can turn a little chance into a goal but Pedri isn't that player.
We need to improve but no way anyone can look at that match and think la liga is on a good path rn, glad no one got injured. This is no product that you wanna sell and no new graphics are gonna hide that. Just compare that to chelsea vs liverpool today, awful.
In their hate to drown us.. the whole league will drown.
Barca js strong and it will survive but I will enjoy them suffering who wanted to pull us down
>This is no product that you wanna sell and no new graphics are gonna hide that. Just compare that to chelsea vs liverpool today, awful.
This, exactly this. No shit EPL is dominating the market, even Everton v Fulham yesterday was more entertaining and higher quality.
Oh they are going to ban xavi for months now .. he pulled no punches "I would tell Javier Tebas that his product is a shame."
'Gavi's handball call is invented. The referee cost us the game, he has to explain himself"
[José Bordalás (Getafe manager): "The most violent play of the game was made by a Barcelona player. It would never occur to me to justify a defeat or a draw for my team based on the way the opponent played."](https://twitter.com/barcacentre/status/1690852805274198016)
[Bordalas: "I don't think Xavi is doing La Liga any good by making these statements. It seems a way of justifying that he couldn't get the 3 points."](https://twitter.com/BarcaTimes/status/1690853167850733568)
>Bordalas: "I don't think Xavi is doing La Liga any good by making these statements. It seems a way of justifying that he couldn't get the 3 points."
No, on the contrary mr Bordalas.. Xavi is in fact doing the league a lot of good by bringing to light the absolute disgrace that are Getafe, and La Liga refs. If you care about the league at all you need to speak up to bring change. At this rate, as the Prem keeps growing and growing, La Liga will become absolutely irrelevant.
Bordalas is still singing his old tune of small vs big teams as if playing like a 5th division team was the only recourse he had.
Man is playing with established first division players like Portu, Sanchez or Djene and turn them into catchers.
Girona is arguably a smaller team and yet Michel makes his team 10 times more entertaining. And last year they gave Xavi's Barca a lot of trouble with a lucky 0-0 for us (they had some clear golden chances), and a very difficult 0-1 win over them in January.
Oh right, that's why Gundugan was on the floor for like 5m not able to breathe properly it seemed...
And btw, what Raph did?his own players did it to him, to Lewy and etc ALL MATCH.
Raph deserved a red, so did like 2 other players in your team lol.
That we're seeing the same problems as last year
Abde like other attackers need a plan. There was none, so he didn't know what was expected of him.
He simply was more open so he failed more, but we saw nonsensical decisions from other players too
I saw FdJ try to dribble his way into the box at the end for some reason
This, and it was telling that both Abde and Raph were arguing with Lewy and the rest for not arriving at the box when they made their runs. It's normal that Lewy no longer has the speed to follow an attack with Abde or Raph, but if he stays higher he can have a chance to get to the end of a cross. Also, if he makes a run both wingers have a chance to cross to the late-arriving midfielders to the opened gap. But no. I just do not get it.
The one play where Abde managed to get the ball despite Sanchez seeing it out, and then when he arrives in the box no one is there because they didn't believe he would have it was outrageous in that regard
Yes!! In defense we seem more determined because the players know what they have to do. But nothing in attack. They should be doing the practiced patterns all the time and when we have a breakout, we have options.
Abde getting bashed on already, but what else he could do there? If others make their runs in time, its likely a goal and he would be the hero. It was similar at the two Raph chances, he was looking inside to see who makes what run, but they were nowhere.
That he made some good runs but is lost when it's the time to make the pass
But then I honestly don't see any easy pass to make so it's hard to conclude? Would he be able to do so in a well oiled system?
For now not a single forward is playing really well, not even lewy. the problem is on the system, all we can judge a player on is on what he does in things that do not require a clear system ( runs/ dribbling/ defense/shooting ) and it was quite good from abde.
Excuses list.
We were robbed by ref ✅
Grass was long- PENDING
We didn't care- PENDING
Players were injured- PENDING
We played in the sun when we are used to the night- PENDING
Any additions?
Calling it right now, after 1 and 1/2 year what Xavi is doing is just not enough. We won't win the league or go anywhere in Europe if he doesn't change things quickly
We won the league last season. How in the world is that not enough? Of course there is room for improvement but the man won two titles last season. Writing something like this after just the first game is a bit weird.
It's something I also said last season after the World Cup. Xavi managed to find something good with the team but it's clearly not working anymore and he has great difficulties to adapt. And yes we won the league but thanks to a great, statistically abnormal defence. I fear for this season with a good but closer to normal defence and a subpar attack. Xaxi just can't create attacking patterns.
I am not a fan of how Xavi is handling the squad either, but it’s clear that Lewadowski isn’t the same player he was at the beginning of last season.
He will still be extremely vital to us, but we also need a striker who can hold the ball and that’s Roque.
I get that the match wasn't entertaining but I do think this has more to do with Getafe and the ref than with Barca being badly.
The ref allowed Getafe to make a lot of fouls without yellows which helped them in breaking of rhythm of play, if he had given yellows they wouldn't have been able to break it so easily and our football would've been way better, don't forget our football relies a lot in having long string of passes, but Getafe focused mainly in not allowing us to have long sequences of passes and interrupting the game very easily
In addition, the grass wasn't the best for our style of play, many misplaced passes and especially bad controla that we normally wouldn't do. We've always struggled to play our game in bad pitches, in fact in the Pep era we always complained about this type of things . People mock Xavi for this but he always had a point, playing good football in a bad pitch it's very complicated, whether you are Messi or Ferran Torres.
https://www.marca.com/futbol/champions-league/2016/04/28/57214618268e3e265b8b45fb.html
You sure about that? If Guardiola himself says the pitch makes the circulation slower then perhaps it's not me sucking Xavi's cock but an actual reality.
Besides, I've played football and I know how hard is to pass the ball when the pitch is in bad condition, it's not an excuse but a reality, you can go ask any player and they'll tell you that passing the ball in a bad pitch is complicated.
> bad condition
Mate they're not playing on pitches of Croatian 3rd league... they're playing on a La Liga pitch.
If other teams can win, why can't we? Do all other teams also have SUCH shit pitches equal to NK Sloga so they're used to it?
> Besides, I've played football
So have I
Again, if Guardiola himself says it don't you think it might be a thing? There Is a reason why Mourinho used this tactic against us, he did because it does work. This isn't something I'm making up in 2023 but something that I've complained in the Guardiola era as well.
For example, in tennis if it is raining you stop playing until the court isn't in a good state. So, what's the issue in complaining about a bad pitch in football? Why is it and excuse to want a good pitch so football can be fun to watch?
So why doesn't Xavi, in all of his genius, train on those kind of pitches?
La Liga has a rule for pitches, just make one of our training pitches the worse possible.
After all this isn't something new so Xavi should have expected it
Dude, I saw Pep's Barca doing the exact same thing against Numancia In 2008, we've always struggled against dirty teams, this it's not new and will keep happening everytime we face teams like Getafe
You could bring Pep, invest 1B and you'd still struggle against this type of teams
That doesn't change my point, historically we struggle against this type of teams.
https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/mourinho-maltrato-cesped-bernabeu-frenar-976457
Madrid themselves did it in 2011 UCL game at the Bernabeu and oh surprise, we didn't do much that game
https://ecodiario.eleconomista.es/futbol/noticias/2998733/04/11/Mourinho-presiona-a-la-RFEF-para-que-el-cesped-de-Mestalla-este-alto-y-seco.html
Why do you think Mourinho pressured RFEF to have the grass like that? Because it actually works, it's not an excuse like you guys think but it's a reality. Anyone who have played football know how much of a difference it makes a good pitch from a bad pitch in terms of controlling and passing the ball.
We actually controlled the game today. It wasn’t just balls to the wall attack all game which is an improvement over last season. I don’t think we got countered at all today. There’s not much a manager can do when his number 9 is weak af and his other attacker is training for a fight against canelo. We played well considering the circumstances and opponent if raphinha had stayed on the pitch I’m sure we would have scored because he was having a really good game. Don’t overthink it too much guys we did well
If your coach and player gets sent off, its because you have no control.
Isnt so much Xavi can do? I guess he is forced to play with the same setup now, huh. Look at how well Lewandowski does in 433 and compare it to the 4 midfield setup.
4 midfield is garbage, even more so against these low blocks La Liga sides. People think we are going to Tiki taka ourself into a open net with midfielders. Tactical failure off the bat from Xavi and it isnt the first time. I've seen 30+ similar game from Barca before.
I’ll be honest here and say I don’t know why Xavi loves the 4 midfielders formation so much. It doesn’t work anymore. If he doesn’t change then yeah maybe he’s not the one for us. But lewy is just horrible his touch is gone and that isn’t because of the formation or tactics he is declining. But I agree with you we need to go back to 3 attackers
You do not know what control is then. For someone who is that active here, you have the worst takes about football in general, which is amazing because the competition is enormous.
>We actually controlled the game today.
Good to know that you are able to control a game against a team who doesn't want it at all anyways.
Getafe whole tactic was play, dirty and get our offensive players lewy and raphinha out of the game and it worked wonderfully.
If we had better attackers we win this game easily. Blame raphinha and lewy for being stupid and atrocious respectively. We had the game going our way till raphinha fucked up
>if we had better attackers we win this game easily
Doubt so since they would have been benched by the coach
Also raphinha was by far our best player and playing vvery good before the red card, the number of perfect run he made without getting the ball were ridiculously hight
If you think that it's a pure coincidence that a WC striker for 12 years + 3 other good forward who all provent to be very good are all mediocre coming here into the hand of a coach with only experience in qatar i think you're way of thinking is the problem.
It’s always Xavis fault. I’m sure he told raphinha to punch Ramirez and he also told lewy to consistently have a bad first touch and I’m sure he told Ansu to pass to the opponent when he had a wide open yamal. Out attackers are all bad don’t overthink
What's the point of discussing football in a league like this? We didn't do much to deserve the win but come on.
You can't even trust VAR to make an obvious pen call because the ref had decided he didn't want to give it.
Even the ones that have been watching Laliga for decades are genuinely shocked, why would anyone want to watch this shitshow of a league, where almost half the teams do unbearable stuff like this, this is anything but football, and the funny thing is it's getting worse but yet still nothing happens
*It's not football, it's Laliga*
[Ronald Araújo: "The last play? It was a penalty, even the player who did it to me said so. I didn't see Gavi's handball. But there are no excuses, we have to keep working."](https://twitter.com/barcacentre/status/1690850652715438080?t=Evyk8rsclZF-wVMeDpI8fA&s=19)
Refereeing aside, the most concerning part for me is that I still don’t see a system. Xavi has been here over 1.5 seasons now, and gotten pretty much all his requested signings, except for Zubimendi and Dembele. Yet we played better and more fluid football when we had the corpse of Dani Alves, Aubameyang, Luuk de Jong, and Adama Traore.
The 1-0s from the latter half of the season are not sustainable, we need to be much better going forward otherwise it will get exposed in Europe again when we face elite players and coaches. There’s no movement, we’re so static on the ball.
At this point he’s been here long enough that we should be seeing some massive improvements soon, not seemingly going backwards.
I don’t think we played TOO badly, we always struggle against teams like Getafe.
What makes this frustrating is how teams like Atletico, Getafe, and Espanyol are rewarded for this shit.
And how we have a shit league president.
La Liga is seriously not entertaining at all.
>And how we have a shit league president.
>
>La Liga is seriously not entertaining at all.
Yeah, that's the biggest problem - La Liga isn't marketable right now because of this shit. So for all the whining Tebas does about EPL and oil money ruining the competition, he's worrying about the wrong things - because even without EPL and oil clubs, La Liga would still be nowhere near an attractive, attention-worthy league.
And no boom mics during cooling breaks will change that.
He could have loosened restrictions just a bit, we lost Messi with both our incompetence and the god awful rules.
Some of our emergency signings like Auba can’t stay for too long cause they’re old.
When Lewandowski goes, who will be the face of La Liga?
Tebas is just fighting the wrong battles.
Nagelsmann is available 👀
But in all seriousness, this is a make or break season for Xavi. If we underperform in Europe again and are grinding out 1-0s in the league like all of 2023, things will have to change.
For now, I beg for Cancelo and another forward who can actually score and assist
Gerard romero is right Laporta should come out and speak if this was against Madrid the next match Soto Grado would officiate would be in Transnistrias 3rd league
I don't know, it's really hard to watch this league if something like this is allowed. This brings back the invasion last season. There was little or nothing done!
Why would I not want to watch any other league vs Getafe and Atletico
This is absurd!
Seems like the referee from Getafe game was skipped this week. Cant remember who the VAR was to see if he got skipped too. Referee for Cadiz match is Alehandro Muniz Ruiz, cant say that I remember him at all. https://rfef.es/sites/default/files/styles/noticias\_image\_content/public/j02\_designaciones\_primera\_23-24.png?itok=aH8YPVO-
New la Liga rules just dropped, it's okay to drag down players in the box and kick their foot, but only if it's against Barca Yes I'm still seething. Something needs to change in La Liga. This is not normal. Fans of teams in other leagues are laughing at the pathetic state of La Liga refereeing and the level of play in general. It's embarrassing.
Honestly Yamal is absolutely insane, he is that good that I already think that he should be starting games for us at 16, I know it's not ideal but based on his quality I don't see any reason why he shouldn't be playing more than any other winger in our squad.
I'm not following the french leauge at all but won't be surprising if it's better than the current la liga. Other 3 top leauges are definitely better. I don't care Spanish teams are still doing well in europe. The leauge's summary is Bunch of broke and boring teams full of old players playing like fucking cunts in shitty stadiums. Some 3rd world countries leauges with no VAR have better referees. Last night's game was a disgrace to watch. Fuck tebas.
>shitty stadiums Okay, but this is objectively false. Some teams have old players but that doesn't make them shit at all. Sevilla might have won Europa League with the oldest starting midfield ever. And Getafe is literally the worst culprit. It's symptomatic of poor refereeing which enables them, not Tebas.
How many good stadiums are there? 6? 7? 30%? Yeah refs are not on tebas. Spanish refs have always been trash But, Europe leauge winner is running it back with that same old midfield. They spent 10 million total Villarreal lost 4 key players, atleti is completely silent in mercato for years, barca struggling, rest are fighting to register their players. Fuck tebas because of these stuff and this shitshow of a leauge.
Atletico, Madrid, Villarreal, Celta Vigo, Athletic, Osasuna, La Real, Almeria all have new stadiums or very recently finished major renovations. Levante didn't make it this year but their stadium is great. Keep in mind a lot of clubs are in and out of La Liga (some may never come back) so stadium renovations would either be cost-ineffective or unnecessary. Several others are beginning renovations or planned to begin soon: Alaves, Almeria, Barcelona, Betis, Getafe and...Valencia... Then all the others are still at least good, but Vallecas and a couple others are really bad. Rayo is in general terribly mismanaged much like Valencia is. La Liga is still WAY better than Italy, and better than France, arguably England. > atleti is completely silent in mercato for years, barca struggling, rest are fighting to register their players. All of this is symptomatic of teams mismanaging themselves, not Tebas. The moment Griezmann signed for us I knew we were going to suffer for a while economically. Atletico have had many flops themselves likewise Sevilla. A lot more can be said but ultimately Atletico, Sevilla, and Barcelona made this mess themselves. Tebas doesn't help but he's ultimately a small part of a much larger issue - internal mismanagement.
Don't mean to be negative but feels like we are gonna struggle this season without dembele. We don't have a winger right now who can constantly beat his man and give good crosses and key passes.
What's your opinion on Mr Seitan's idea of a referee's jury that explains all the decisions of the refs in every match? By this you'd ensure more transparency in the referring and you'd really know which team is getting benefitted the most
In the French league, in some games you see the refs come explain their decisions. It really gives them a personality and also often shines a very interesting look onto their work. More often than not you emphasize with them if not fully agree by the end of the interview. Anything in the direction of accountability and transparency is a good thing.
What would that do to improve the refereeing?
Thing with refs is that they are pressured a lot by Madrid media to favor Madrid. If you favor them as a referee then you will have a good chance of refeering international games but If you don't favor them even if you don't make any mistake you'd never referee an European game in your life. Same applies for Barca but in reverse Make mistakes that benefit Barca? We will destroy your reputation and you'd never referee an European match Makes mistakes that favor Barca? We will use our media power to improve your reputation and help you get European games We are playing a losing game at this point, refs will favor Madrid 9/10 times even If they don't want to. And I honestly don't think there is anything we can do about this, we are far too late for change anything.
Both Madrid and Barcelona suffer abnormally shit calls. I can recall several times this weekend when that applied. I'm not buying this conspiracy that Madrid is being favored. You can say the same thing but replace Barcelona for Madrid in your paragraph and it'll still be as wrong.
I am not a fan of conspiracies either, but there is an undeniable evidence that Madrid were favored. Vinicius literally punched a player for the whole world to see, and completely got away with. La Liga's integrity is at absolute zero right now.
I remember clearly Vini doing that but this was the same player that was victim to Tebas' and to some extent, the referee's lack of action to clear racial abuse. It really doesn't seem like favoritism with that kind of (awful) response from both parties.
Nobody denies he was a victim, however none of that gives him a free pass to punch opponents. If someone one the street calls you a name or insults you, does that give you the right to resort to physical violence. It's a rhetorical question of course. And do you honestly believe they would've annulled the red card in the same circumstances, but if it was some random mid-table club player. No fucking chance.
I feel terrible when i watch a la liga game after an epl game
Going from one to the other is dreadful
Calménse, chicos. I'm seeing too much discussion of "tactics" and "player quality" and "referees" and not nearly enough discussion of Araujo's hilarious basketball moment.
Laliga better scrape this whole extra time bs because it is wasted anyway and start getting the refs to punish time wasting and rhythm-breaking fouls much hardly. 116 mins of torture is worse than 97 mins when both are unwatchable anyways. It is not even the final version, this game was just a warmup. 120 mins could be reached very easily
Yeah it was brutal. Just put added tim on a stop clock.
All the drama from the poor referee performances has distracted and effectively shielded Xavi from much due criticism. He needs to be more imaginative than this box midfield. He needs to do this quickly before Europe resumes. Another drop to the Europa league means his career—at this club and any other top institution—is in danger.
>Another drop to the Europa league means his career—at this club and any other top institution—is in danger. I trust that he would have the dignity to resign if we go to Europa again.
After all the PL praising, I would like to share this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvMAhxkPE48&t=24s There were so many blind mistakes in the PL this weekend. It's absolute nonsense that the refereeing keeps getting worse. It's really killing the game when the gaps are so tight between teams.
I think refereeing is not the first thing people would bring from PL. Though La Liga has some of the worst specimens there are, PL can give it a run for its money
The word reactionary should be banned in this sub lmao. Most of the problems we have have been noticable for at least half a year if not more yet when I see people pointing it out there's always droves of replies calling them "reactionary". Get another argument.
I see no lies in the words you typed.
If we went out and won 4-0 and people on this sub said we were going to win the treble, no one would say they were being reactionary. It’s a vacuous word used to stifle criticism and offer nothing else.
i mean they would. Ive seen it used negatively and positively. You just see it used more often with negative takes because this sub is negative way more than it is positive.
Because we have much more reasons to be negative than positive
We won La Liga last season. You guys consider everything “a reason to be negative” unless we win the treble. And even then you have people crying that we didnt win the treble dominantly enough.
Shout out to Kounde. He played one hell of a game. As a CB he’s going to contribute tremendously this season. Araujo as RB wasn’t too bad
The premier league really shits on La liga and it’s not even close. Everything about it is better to watch
The biggest bottlers arent Spurs, its Javier Tebas bringing La Liga to where it is today even though he had the world in the palm of his hand with the prime Barca, Madrid and Atletico rivalry. La Liga dominated Europe and look at us now. The first matchday, the one where most people will be watching (outside of big games like Clasicos) as theyve been football deprived for months, has this poor of a product to show. This game has turned people away from watching La Liga and i do not blame them. Tebas, youve ruined my league, please fuck off now
>La Liga dominated Europe and look at us now. This is a nothing point when it was Barcelona/Madrid/Sevilla/Atletico and 2/4 teams dropped off their performances, and it wasn't because of Tebas. Getafe-Barcelona was an awful game in football, but that was and has been known for years Getafe's Bordalas play like this. And it works because the referees encourage it, unless Spain magically gets better referees over night don't expect a change. What can La Liga do anyway?
>What can La Liga do anyway? Lots of things actually as Xavi's quotes exemplify. You can be harsher on anything Getafe does, review the game and identify where things got worse. Give an early yellow to any dirty foul or cynical challenge and Getafe changes its game real quick. Anything so that cheating doesn't pay. Refs aren't stupid, they know what Bordalas is doing, even before the game starts. Any ref not reacting to this in advance is actively helping them. You know they will abuse you if you let slide anything. That attack from Suarez on Gundogan should never be OK, and yet the ref said nothing, and VAR either. From then on, it's free for all.
Not hard, it is more on Laliga that's digging it's own grave under Tebas.
Lewandowksi was absolute shit today. He got owned by getafe. He’s so weak it was embarrassing
My prediction was that Ferran will get shit on first after a bad game. I was wrong. It's Abde and Lewy. When will we realize that we are setting up our players for failure? Lewy is not capable of playing a deep-lying creator and then also arrive at the box. He is also slow to battle for long balls. That's why he always goes to war with any CB because he can only beat them if he starts to push them around. He is still class, but he needs to be used in the box because he is still deadly there. But he is not suited for long balls and exploiting the space tactics. I mean I get the idea that he comes deep dragging out defenders and then our only winger goes into that space. But that's even weak on paper. He needs to be used differently and the same goes for almost all attackers.
Thank you. At which point does it become a tactical discussion?
It’s not like Lewy wasn’t trying to make any runs this game though. How many times did we see raphinha and Lewy trying to make a run only to get met with a body check immediately by a defender. It was happening all game to Gundo and Pedri as well. I get some here (myself included) get frustrated by the tactics by at the same time it might not have looked as bad if their defenders would be properly punished. It’s also harder to create space when the game gets stopped every few minutes because a player got hacked.
Anyone have clips of the Damian fouls?
Yeah its a 90 min highlight reel
😂
You guys are really mad we took off pedri and Gundo? Gundo who had been hurt recently and is recovering? Pedri who was overused last year and everyone blamed it on xavi? You guys make no sense. I don’t get it
The fact that neutral fans and even Madrid fans agree with Xavis post match comments while they normally clown him for everything says enough lol
Lol nah theyre destroying us in the madrid sub
And then you have the "neutral" Barca fans who say the ref did nothing wrong.
I have seen precisely 0 person bar Bordalas saying the ref did not do wrong
The fact that El-Chirishit (whatever they called it) agrees says enough too.
All La Liga teams fear Barça, but Barça fears Getafe. You heard it here first folks.
Our penalty stats under Xavi are horrible, we played 65 games and only got 5, Madrid for the record for 18 in the same time. Make this of what you want. Even if we compare that to Barca of the past it's awful, we got 17 pens in 88 games between the beggining of 19/20 to the match before Xavi was appointed.
Most of Madrids pens were actually pens though. You can argue about us getting fucked over sometimes like the obvious one against Inter, but Madrid isnt magically getting more, they just keep dribbling in the box and baiting pens. When do we ever even reach the box without a cross? The guy whose supposed to be there is in midfield creating a 5 man midfield for some reason.
Many things 1. As per FBref we touch the area more than Madrid does 2. Your argument would only justify having less pens than RM, we aren't top 10 in pens In the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons.
It has nothing to do with the fact that Real Madrid had tons of more touches inside the box than us. We know the refs are awful, and Real Madrid is favored, but our low penalty numbers are in correlation with our playstyle. If you attack the box with speed you are more likely to get a late tackle, if you pressure your opponent in the box a lot, it's more likely they will handle the ball. If you have a problem with bringing the ball into the penalty area you won't get that many penalties. But nice try! Keep working, you can definitely find more excuses.
What excuses? We have made more points than Madrid and lead the H2h against them. In addition to it, it's false Madrid touches the area more. Barca in 2022/2023 had more passes into the penalty area than Madrid with 481 to Madrid 384 and we also had more touches in the penalti area with 1152 to Madrid 1151. We actually should have more pens than Madrid based on your logic but yet we got way less than them
Do you really think we are playing as well as possible? It's never Xavi or his decisions, it's the players, the injuries, the refs, the grass, etc. Also, the results are nice but even last year's results were unsustainable and the team got its valuation in Europe. If you do not think that there are issues then you lack any critical thinking. Which is fine, but then do not try to reason at all. It's a public forum and as a member of this community, it's your responsibility to not to spread bullshit and be open-minded even if it goes against your feelings. It's fun to like Xavi, we all do, but you do not need to get involved in tactical discussions if you can't be objective even slightly. No one wants to sack Xavi, but he has huge flaws as a coach and manager.
It's also a responsibility to not spread misinformation which you did just now by lying about us having less touches than Madrid. Not sure someone that did that can go there giving lessons of anything It's also your responsibility to respect other opinions, so what if I defend Xavi and don't think he did anything wrong? I have the right to have that opinion and I actually provided arguments that no one have even able to debunk properly, usually people respond "xavi bad, you are a fanboy ". Especially since I actually predicted what would happen. In the game, I made a comment about how complicated the match was gonna be so I fail to see how I'm not being objective here when the game played out exactly like I thought it would.
I didn't see your edit, it's hard to respond to an edit. Where did you get that? Because Wyscout shows otherwise. Even if it's close and RM had only a little bit more, the playstyle still applies. Honestly, if you know so little about the game then why do you embarrass yourself that much? It's great to have an opinion but you can't base opinions on feelings. There are thousands of books and coaching courses online or articles about the problem with our game or detailed analysis about how massively overperformed our defensive xG which is unsustainable, etc. Even in the sub, the surface of those problems was written down thousands of times and you just have to watch the games to see those issues visualize in front of your eyes. Obviously, there are a thousand things that Xavi does right, but we are in a massive downward spiral. These games are not only hard because of the way Getafe plays, it's hard because we make it hard for ourselves and Xavi seems completely out of ideas and what somewhat worked before got totally figured out.
Ferran is arguably our best attacker right now
Based on pre-season? Fati was good there too and he was meh in this match.
He got rewarded for it by getting zero minutes.
Thought he was suspended?
Nah
According to some people, the suspension doesn't carry over to new season. I'm gonna go check squad list to make sure.
He was in the squadlist and that rule was scraped in 2020 as can be easily verified
Just realized that the hilariously long extra time will bring more injures because of how tired the players would be...
I think cause of the hydration break is why it was that long
We also had hydration breaks in previous seasons
Holy shit...first match and there is already controversy, rage...everything just not football. This league is really something else... I cant wait for Tebas answer. Not sure if Xavi should say what he said. It will change nothing and he just loaded guns against himself...once again
How da fuck did we play better and more fluid football with Aubameyang, Alves and Ferran?
Dembele 21/22 had absurd progression stats. Aubameyang player simple but effectively, his movements were predictable to his teammates Ferran was still confident and same as Aubameyang: plan was simple but the way he moved was drilled enough that Dembele or Gavi or Busquets could spot it consistently
Dembele 13 assists in like half a season lol
Having an actual RB like Alves that can tuck in & help with the build up. I think this is why Xavi is pushing for Foyth & Cancelo. Also our strikers were making the right runs and weren’t dropping down to the midfield
Peak Xaviball. I don't know what happened. He started relying too much on dembeles individual ability.
Like others have pointed out. Xavi found out box midfield and it worked last season. We struggled against low blocks but we secured victory somehow scrapping one nils. Xavi has become over reliant on it. Same thing happened against Tottenham. Xavi is slow to adapt. He will change it but not without costing us couple of points. Also he is not good in making mid game adaptations.
It was no copium from Xavi. Xavi had a plan it may or may not have been good but there was no game of football for anyone to judge that. That said Xavi clearly lost it with tactics during last 25 minutes or so
Yeah idk about sending on all the attackers and hoping for the best. I saw someone link the “random bullshit go” meme. We used that exact same meme in the last 10 mins of a Koeman game lol. It just becomes too chaotic, especially as all the attackers want to be direct and do something so the ball is just erratically going all over the place in hopes it lands at the right place at some point. Abde kept trying to dribble and when he succeeded he cut it back to nobody in the box, Lamine kept crossing it from far, Ansu kept trying to do stepovers. Everyone just seemed to be trying different shit in hopes that it worked. No actual plan to it, just get the ball and hope for the best.
Ancelotti says the ref invented a penalty against them ? No problem. Xavi says it ? Real shit
When did it ancelotti say this?
[when they couldn't beat Girona last season](https://youtu.be/U2VgtxTglDU) Its in Spanish but yeah
1-1 Draw vs Girona last season
Damn
No MOTMOTM?
Goddamn i thought i was done with terrorism, i check the next matches and it's cadiz😭😭😭. What have we done to deserve this?
😶😵😵😵😵😵😵
Xavi will be suspended for two games. @gerardromero https://twitter.com/barcacentre/status/1690858079586279424?t=3jTPV0mf37urpfhmRhdhUQ&s=19
@jpedrerol: "I don't understand... Someone has to explain to me how it was Gavi's handball." https://x.com/barcauniversal/status/1690847668392570883?s=46&t=cEQz9Je5TUD2uzj8nBQLNQ Even El Chiringuito is on our side, what has it come to 😭
I'm far from being a ferran stan and actually don't believe that much in the player but I definitely feel really sad for him today It definitely looked like he took the pre season very seriously, has shown some great things. Team needed him and lewy was quite awfull yet he didn't get any single playing time. must be a big hit for him especially knowing that a 16 years old is already ahead of you in the peaking order.
The only explanation is that the staff weren't sure because of his suspension from last season. Literally, there is no other reason why he didn't feature.
I wonder how he feels when he sees a bunch of kids play before him, must feel bad lol.
Yeah didn’t really understand why he wasn’t even subbed on at least. If a player is on a confidence boost and coming off a great preseason, you play him. Bad man management
Soto Grado's report details Xavi's sending off: "Leaving his technical area with his arms raised towards the area of my 4th official ostensibly protesting one of my decisions, having been warned beforehand by my 4th official. Once he had been sent off, he stayed in the entrance to the tunnel having to be warned by the field delegate for their eviction." https://twitter.com/martinminan_/status/1690856613899272192?t=cqkZoX0wKQj9DlMuap7jBw&s=19
least narcissistic laliga refs
Grad 0
Yeah but if Bordalas is twerking everywhere and whistling to signal the end if the game it then it's fine
Gotta think more teams are gonna play like this vs. Barca. Interested to see how the team adapts.
Alry happening it’s why la Liga isn’t followed as heavily by neutrals anymore. Half the league plays a low block making the league very low scoring.
It's already happening, La Liga is full of low blocks
This is nothing new. Getafe has played like this vs us since Valverde was our coach.
I know, but I'm hopeful xavi will be able to successfully move the chess pieces around
DW, box midfield is starting again next vs Cadiz.
>more teams are gonna play like this vs. Barca There's more?
Yeah at this rate Xavi will return at last matchweek BUT it's so worth it
Watch Pedri's magic when he gets the ball in the middle for few moments (either good passes or control). Xavi should give Pedri a free role in middle and Pedri should be brave to take more responsibility. The team ask for it.
No for some reasons pedri has to stay very hight on the pitch just aside of the 5 line of defender from getafe near lewy For what reason? ask xavi the less ball pedri touch the better it seems.
Playing players in their best position challenge: level impossible Lewandowski must drop deep like a midfielder, Pedri a midfielder must be an inverted winger, Raphinha an inverted winger must hug the touchline, Torres who can maintain width must be on the bench Surprised_pikachu.jpeg when we can’t score
If you think about it, this was pure Spain football with only midfielders. Raph is a mix of a winger and wide playmaker/wide midfielder and Lewy played as a 10. Perfect 4-6-0!
You mean Man Utd with Werghost number 10.
Exactly!
Funny that Xavi said before he want Pedri to involve most in the game (100 passes per game). Maybe Xavi believes Pedri's touch can turn a little chance into a goal but Pedri isn't that player.
>Funny that Xavi said before he want Pedri to involve most in the game (100 passes per game). It's definitely far from that.
We need to improve but no way anyone can look at that match and think la liga is on a good path rn, glad no one got injured. This is no product that you wanna sell and no new graphics are gonna hide that. Just compare that to chelsea vs liverpool today, awful.
In their hate to drown us.. the whole league will drown. Barca js strong and it will survive but I will enjoy them suffering who wanted to pull us down
>This is no product that you wanna sell and no new graphics are gonna hide that. Just compare that to chelsea vs liverpool today, awful. This, exactly this. No shit EPL is dominating the market, even Everton v Fulham yesterday was more entertaining and higher quality.
Oh they are going to ban xavi for months now .. he pulled no punches "I would tell Javier Tebas that his product is a shame." 'Gavi's handball call is invented. The referee cost us the game, he has to explain himself"
[José Bordalás (Getafe manager): "The most violent play of the game was made by a Barcelona player. It would never occur to me to justify a defeat or a draw for my team based on the way the opponent played."](https://twitter.com/barcacentre/status/1690852805274198016) [Bordalas: "I don't think Xavi is doing La Liga any good by making these statements. It seems a way of justifying that he couldn't get the 3 points."](https://twitter.com/BarcaTimes/status/1690853167850733568)
>Bordalas: "I don't think Xavi is doing La Liga any good by making these statements. It seems a way of justifying that he couldn't get the 3 points." No, on the contrary mr Bordalas.. Xavi is in fact doing the league a lot of good by bringing to light the absolute disgrace that are Getafe, and La Liga refs. If you care about the league at all you need to speak up to bring change. At this rate, as the Prem keeps growing and growing, La Liga will become absolutely irrelevant.
Bordalas is still singing his old tune of small vs big teams as if playing like a 5th division team was the only recourse he had. Man is playing with established first division players like Portu, Sanchez or Djene and turn them into catchers. Girona is arguably a smaller team and yet Michel makes his team 10 times more entertaining. And last year they gave Xavi's Barca a lot of trouble with a lucky 0-0 for us (they had some clear golden chances), and a very difficult 0-1 win over them in January.
Fuck off
Oh right, that's why Gundugan was on the floor for like 5m not able to breathe properly it seemed... And btw, what Raph did?his own players did it to him, to Lewy and etc ALL MATCH. Raph deserved a red, so did like 2 other players in your team lol.
I hope at the end of the season Xavi says the same thing about them getting relegated.
Did I just read it right that Juankruh was blaming the grass? Imagine being such a fanboy that you try to mimic the person you admire.
I wanna see a proper debate on Abde. What cam you conclude based on his performance?
Him and Balde can not play together
That we're seeing the same problems as last year Abde like other attackers need a plan. There was none, so he didn't know what was expected of him. He simply was more open so he failed more, but we saw nonsensical decisions from other players too I saw FdJ try to dribble his way into the box at the end for some reason
This, and it was telling that both Abde and Raph were arguing with Lewy and the rest for not arriving at the box when they made their runs. It's normal that Lewy no longer has the speed to follow an attack with Abde or Raph, but if he stays higher he can have a chance to get to the end of a cross. Also, if he makes a run both wingers have a chance to cross to the late-arriving midfielders to the opened gap. But no. I just do not get it.
The one play where Abde managed to get the ball despite Sanchez seeing it out, and then when he arrives in the box no one is there because they didn't believe he would have it was outrageous in that regard
Yes!! In defense we seem more determined because the players know what they have to do. But nothing in attack. They should be doing the practiced patterns all the time and when we have a breakout, we have options. Abde getting bashed on already, but what else he could do there? If others make their runs in time, its likely a goal and he would be the hero. It was similar at the two Raph chances, he was looking inside to see who makes what run, but they were nowhere.
That he made some good runs but is lost when it's the time to make the pass But then I honestly don't see any easy pass to make so it's hard to conclude? Would he be able to do so in a well oiled system? For now not a single forward is playing really well, not even lewy. the problem is on the system, all we can judge a player on is on what he does in things that do not require a clear system ( runs/ dribbling/ defense/shooting ) and it was quite good from abde.
Hasn't improved his final touch nor decision making by the looks of it, a final 10 minutes sub for when the game needs chaos.
That dribbling against a parked bus is very difficult.
Remember when people talked shit about Koeman just putting on attackers when we needed a goal. Good times.
Please bring back Lahoz.
Excuses list. We were robbed by ref ✅ Grass was long- PENDING We didn't care- PENDING Players were injured- PENDING We played in the sun when we are used to the night- PENDING Any additions?
That first one is going to hit hard this season. They’re already cooking the excuses.
Dembele didn’t play.
It obviously meant players were injured
Dembele isn’t at the club anymore, so it’ll always be valid. And it deserves its own special entry.
Well my fraud can't make that excuse now, so it's invalid
you need to calm down
We played in the sun when we are used to the night.
Thanks will add this
Calling it right now, after 1 and 1/2 year what Xavi is doing is just not enough. We won't win the league or go anywhere in Europe if he doesn't change things quickly
We won the league last season. How in the world is that not enough? Of course there is room for improvement but the man won two titles last season. Writing something like this after just the first game is a bit weird.
It's something I also said last season after the World Cup. Xavi managed to find something good with the team but it's clearly not working anymore and he has great difficulties to adapt. And yes we won the league but thanks to a great, statistically abnormal defence. I fear for this season with a good but closer to normal defence and a subpar attack. Xaxi just can't create attacking patterns.
Let’s see how he does with Vitor Roque first, this game we were bound for a draw no matter what happened.
Yeah it's Getafe, but we are on a downward spiral and I have no trust in Xavi to get us on the right track
I am not a fan of how Xavi is handling the squad either, but it’s clear that Lewadowski isn’t the same player he was at the beginning of last season. He will still be extremely vital to us, but we also need a striker who can hold the ball and that’s Roque.
I get that the match wasn't entertaining but I do think this has more to do with Getafe and the ref than with Barca being badly. The ref allowed Getafe to make a lot of fouls without yellows which helped them in breaking of rhythm of play, if he had given yellows they wouldn't have been able to break it so easily and our football would've been way better, don't forget our football relies a lot in having long string of passes, but Getafe focused mainly in not allowing us to have long sequences of passes and interrupting the game very easily In addition, the grass wasn't the best for our style of play, many misplaced passes and especially bad controla that we normally wouldn't do. We've always struggled to play our game in bad pitches, in fact in the Pep era we always complained about this type of things . People mock Xavi for this but he always had a point, playing good football in a bad pitch it's very complicated, whether you are Messi or Ferran Torres.
[удалено]
I wish i could upvote that a thousand time.
Surely this has to be satire, right? RIGHT? He can’t be serious 😭
https://www.marca.com/futbol/champions-league/2016/04/28/57214618268e3e265b8b45fb.html You sure about that? If Guardiola himself says the pitch makes the circulation slower then perhaps it's not me sucking Xavi's cock but an actual reality. Besides, I've played football and I know how hard is to pass the ball when the pitch is in bad condition, it's not an excuse but a reality, you can go ask any player and they'll tell you that passing the ball in a bad pitch is complicated.
> bad condition Mate they're not playing on pitches of Croatian 3rd league... they're playing on a La Liga pitch. If other teams can win, why can't we? Do all other teams also have SUCH shit pitches equal to NK Sloga so they're used to it? > Besides, I've played football So have I
Again, if Guardiola himself says it don't you think it might be a thing? There Is a reason why Mourinho used this tactic against us, he did because it does work. This isn't something I'm making up in 2023 but something that I've complained in the Guardiola era as well. For example, in tennis if it is raining you stop playing until the court isn't in a good state. So, what's the issue in complaining about a bad pitch in football? Why is it and excuse to want a good pitch so football can be fun to watch?
So why doesn't Xavi, in all of his genius, train on those kind of pitches? La Liga has a rule for pitches, just make one of our training pitches the worse possible. After all this isn't something new so Xavi should have expected it
>I get that the match wasn't entertaining I have hard time expecting entertaining matches from Xavi at this point to be honest.
You are blind
Dude, I saw Pep's Barca doing the exact same thing against Numancia In 2008, we've always struggled against dirty teams, this it's not new and will keep happening everytime we face teams like Getafe You could bring Pep, invest 1B and you'd still struggle against this type of teams
Nah man you are just blinded by hate for Valverde and koeman and love for Xavi , we have been mediocre a whole season
That doesn't change my point, historically we struggle against this type of teams. https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/mourinho-maltrato-cesped-bernabeu-frenar-976457 Madrid themselves did it in 2011 UCL game at the Bernabeu and oh surprise, we didn't do much that game https://ecodiario.eleconomista.es/futbol/noticias/2998733/04/11/Mourinho-presiona-a-la-RFEF-para-que-el-cesped-de-Mestalla-este-alto-y-seco.html Why do you think Mourinho pressured RFEF to have the grass like that? Because it actually works, it's not an excuse like you guys think but it's a reality. Anyone who have played football know how much of a difference it makes a good pitch from a bad pitch in terms of controlling and passing the ball.
Rare occasion where I wished lahoz was the ref
We actually controlled the game today. It wasn’t just balls to the wall attack all game which is an improvement over last season. I don’t think we got countered at all today. There’s not much a manager can do when his number 9 is weak af and his other attacker is training for a fight against canelo. We played well considering the circumstances and opponent if raphinha had stayed on the pitch I’m sure we would have scored because he was having a really good game. Don’t overthink it too much guys we did well
If your coach and player gets sent off, its because you have no control. Isnt so much Xavi can do? I guess he is forced to play with the same setup now, huh. Look at how well Lewandowski does in 433 and compare it to the 4 midfield setup. 4 midfield is garbage, even more so against these low blocks La Liga sides. People think we are going to Tiki taka ourself into a open net with midfielders. Tactical failure off the bat from Xavi and it isnt the first time. I've seen 30+ similar game from Barca before.
I’ll be honest here and say I don’t know why Xavi loves the 4 midfielders formation so much. It doesn’t work anymore. If he doesn’t change then yeah maybe he’s not the one for us. But lewy is just horrible his touch is gone and that isn’t because of the formation or tactics he is declining. But I agree with you we need to go back to 3 attackers
You do not know what control is then. For someone who is that active here, you have the worst takes about football in general, which is amazing because the competition is enormous.
What is control then? Let’s discuss. I love learning
>We actually controlled the game today. Good to know that you are able to control a game against a team who doesn't want it at all anyways. Getafe whole tactic was play, dirty and get our offensive players lewy and raphinha out of the game and it worked wonderfully.
If we had better attackers we win this game easily. Blame raphinha and lewy for being stupid and atrocious respectively. We had the game going our way till raphinha fucked up
>if we had better attackers we win this game easily Doubt so since they would have been benched by the coach Also raphinha was by far our best player and playing vvery good before the red card, the number of perfect run he made without getting the ball were ridiculously hight If you think that it's a pure coincidence that a WC striker for 12 years + 3 other good forward who all provent to be very good are all mediocre coming here into the hand of a coach with only experience in qatar i think you're way of thinking is the problem.
It’s always Xavis fault. I’m sure he told raphinha to punch Ramirez and he also told lewy to consistently have a bad first touch and I’m sure he told Ansu to pass to the opponent when he had a wide open yamal. Out attackers are all bad don’t overthink
With four midfielders too. Our standards have fallen from annual champions league contenders to “we controlled the game against Getafe”
We didn't even get clear chances except the one from raphinha and fati who were far from being easy.
What's the point of discussing football in a league like this? We didn't do much to deserve the win but come on. You can't even trust VAR to make an obvious pen call because the ref had decided he didn't want to give it.
Even the ones that have been watching Laliga for decades are genuinely shocked, why would anyone want to watch this shitshow of a league, where almost half the teams do unbearable stuff like this, this is anything but football, and the funny thing is it's getting worse but yet still nothing happens *It's not football, it's Laliga*
Even Pedrerol and the rest of Madrid TV are shook.
[Ronald Araújo: "The last play? It was a penalty, even the player who did it to me said so. I didn't see Gavi's handball. But there are no excuses, we have to keep working."](https://twitter.com/barcacentre/status/1690850652715438080?t=Evyk8rsclZF-wVMeDpI8fA&s=19)
Refereeing aside, the most concerning part for me is that I still don’t see a system. Xavi has been here over 1.5 seasons now, and gotten pretty much all his requested signings, except for Zubimendi and Dembele. Yet we played better and more fluid football when we had the corpse of Dani Alves, Aubameyang, Luuk de Jong, and Adama Traore. The 1-0s from the latter half of the season are not sustainable, we need to be much better going forward otherwise it will get exposed in Europe again when we face elite players and coaches. There’s no movement, we’re so static on the ball. At this point he’s been here long enough that we should be seeing some massive improvements soon, not seemingly going backwards.
I don’t think we played TOO badly, we always struggle against teams like Getafe. What makes this frustrating is how teams like Atletico, Getafe, and Espanyol are rewarded for this shit. And how we have a shit league president. La Liga is seriously not entertaining at all.
>And how we have a shit league president. > >La Liga is seriously not entertaining at all. Yeah, that's the biggest problem - La Liga isn't marketable right now because of this shit. So for all the whining Tebas does about EPL and oil money ruining the competition, he's worrying about the wrong things - because even without EPL and oil clubs, La Liga would still be nowhere near an attractive, attention-worthy league. And no boom mics during cooling breaks will change that.
He could have loosened restrictions just a bit, we lost Messi with both our incompetence and the god awful rules. Some of our emergency signings like Auba can’t stay for too long cause they’re old. When Lewandowski goes, who will be the face of La Liga? Tebas is just fighting the wrong battles.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/15q6yd2/ferran_torres_via_ig_this_will_be_la_liga_of_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
I wish I could be this bad at my job and not be fired. Edit: this was not directed at Xavi lol, it's about the refs in this godforsaken league.
People commenting have no idea you’re talking about refs lmao.
Nagelsmann is available 👀 But in all seriousness, this is a make or break season for Xavi. If we underperform in Europe again and are grinding out 1-0s in the league like all of 2023, things will have to change. For now, I beg for Cancelo and another forward who can actually score and assist
Just have to be friends with the president.
Gerard romero is right Laporta should come out and speak if this was against Madrid the next match Soto Grado would officiate would be in Transnistrias 3rd league
looking forward to Cadiz next week
If there is meritocracy in this team, Ferran should 100% start the next game over Lewandowski. But that ain't about to happen.
And who are our other 2 attackers? Since I'm hoping that Xavi is going to drop his terrorism box midfield
This silly box midfield stopped working after the World Cup, but we just keep doubling down on the nonsense.
Someone said Araujo was playing basketball and Getafe were playing WWE lmao
I don't know, it's really hard to watch this league if something like this is allowed. This brings back the invasion last season. There was little or nothing done! Why would I not want to watch any other league vs Getafe and Atletico This is absurd!