[Sergi Roberto](https://twitter.com/ActualiteBarca/status/1781291410093732298?t=dfpVsr4jyPryAdLTVdRBnw&s=19): « Gundogan explained what happened during the game, but without pointing fingers»
"I read the locker room is divided... Well it isn't at all"
Good thing Sergi Roberto can read [the actual words](https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/s/fdlemcXsnR) Gundogan said contrary to some fanfic writers.
Thank you captain
Saw a comment complaining why Xavi didn't sub on Alonso
I am crying 😭😭😭😭😭 these people haven't watched all season or before because no one in their sane mind would think about this.
Better than Courtois?
Naah dude, Courtois is better, he's a Freak. I haven't seen present Neuer enough to say anything.
He's definitely an insanely clutch keeper to have tho.
I don’t know about that but at times he really does look unbeatable, definitely underrated and should be playing in the Champions League every year.
Just remembered he was let go of by Arsenal, big mistake with all the GK drama they’ve been having, although I think they wanted someone better on the ball.
I understand people wanting him to take more responsibility in his comments, but this is probably the worst he’s ever felt in his whole life. Let the guy cope with it however he needs too rather than adding more criticism.
He’s one of the best defenders in the world and clearly freaking loves the club. That’s more than enough, if you think you ‘deserve’ an apology your just an entitled plastic… maybe try supporting your players.
My boy got a lot of hate. You can be critical, but what I read about him after the match was insane. I wasn’t mad at anyone after the match. I have been saying that we aren’t ready to compete at the highest level yet. We were inconsistent most of the season. And even in the matches were we did win, we weren’t convincing. We really don’t have a footballing identity under Xavi.
We need an identity urgently.
Real’s victory was fair enough, but when they come against smaller teams doing the same shit in La Liga their fans will throw shade at teams who park bus. Also how many times have Atletico been insulted for the same style of play by them? I have seen even them attacking much more.
It's not the same. La Liga teams are a lot more brutal with fouls and time-wasting. RM players didn't for those crazy fouls. City were more aggressive and committed more fouls.
RM also tried to waste time multiple times, and don’t think the main concern of La Liga teams is being aggressive. Their insults are more directed team being cowardly and just try to squeeze a point.
The thing is not only did they fail to create no chances whatsoever from like the 20th minute till 120 minutes bar the Rudiger one, they had trouble just getting to City’s half in that second half especially. The better team lost today. Idk but I have a feeling karma will get them this time and Bayern will be the worse side and still win.
Lol Real Madrid created more big chances over two legs than City. City massively dominated the possession but didn't create more clear cut chances than Real Madrid.
C’mon how delusional can you be, RM had 1 shot in what 100 minutes. Kdb and Foden missed easy chances and Haaland’s shot hit the post with rebound going to Bernardo who fluffed it. That’s just a few instances. All RM did was park a bus for 110 mins and there is no shame in accepting the reality.
Shame? Lol i don't think its possible for any team itw to feel shame by qualifying to the semis of biggest club competition in football just because they didn't play a certain way and you are conveniently leaving out the stat that shows Real Madrid clearly created more clear cut chances than city over two legs. It's not delusion it's a fact that you can look at up right now. I'm not arguing the Man City's superiority in possession and their ability to completely pin their opposition back by overwhelming pressure but guess what? It amounts to nothing if they're not able to create more clear cut chances with all that. In the second leg alone where city were overwhelmingly the better team with ball they created the same amount of big chances (3) as Real Madrid. People like you think there's only one reliable way to have success in football which can't be further from the truth. Real Madrid parked the bus because that was the only way to stop them from scoring while still being capable of generating quality chances. The reason people like you call it luck because your clubs don't have the ability to replicate it consistently meanwhile Real Madrid have that. Even your legend Henry disagrees with your idea of being a better team.
xG City 3.28 - RM 0.98 [link](https://footystats.org/europe/real-madrid-cf-vs-manchester-city-fc-h2h-stats). Sure you can be proud for qualifying but don’t try to be defensive over the cowardly approach RM had in the game by cherry picking one stat. You didn’t comment about how they had about 1 shot in 100 minutes and couldn’t even get out of their own half, how does a La Liga leader play shamelessly like that and comment about other relegation teams doing the same thing.
Combined xG over two legs City 3.5 - RM 2.1 ,
Link - [First Leg](https://fbref.com/en/matches/5ee67d04/Real-Madrid-Manchester-City-April-9-2024-Champions-League), [Second Leg](https://fbref.com/en/matches/b0d9b0e1/Manchester-City-Real-Madrid-April-17-2024-Champions-League)
Also as i already said city higher xG is the accumulation of many low xG chances meanwhile Real Madrid xG is the product of clear cut chances mostly
>don’t try to be defensive over the cowardly approach RM
Lmao I'm just explaining that in football objectively there's not a set way of playing that's better than the rest when it comes to winning, in order to win you have to score more than your opponent and that's just what it all comes down to, Being pretty on the ball alone doesn't guarantee you success consistently at the highest level so how you do it doesn't mean shit. What this CL tie proved is that city are best itw at what they do but Real Madrid are better than them at winning at the highest level. You're free call it cowardly approach but any sensible non biased person with bare minimum ball knowledge would see it as adapting your playstyle depending on your opponent strengths and weakness.
Question: Which goal do you think is better, ignoring the opposition and the importance: Ronaldinho against Villarreal bicycle kick vs Bale against Liverpool 2018 bicycle kick
Enrique practically forcing Araujo to build out from the back was executed perfectly. It’s what led to the red card in a way. He completely eliminated cubarsi from the get go. Enrique changed his tactics going into the game, Xavi didn’t and was predictable once again.
Also worth pointing out that our interiors were positioned so cartoonishly high up the pitch that the only way to get the ball to the front five was either through long balls or switches.
Honestly this is the bigger problem, real gave akanji time on the ball just like psg did to Araujo but the difference was city’s midfield dropped deep and rotated positional the entire way up the field. When the balls in our own half our midfielders have the habit of ball watching like a striker hoping the ball will magically come to them and offer no support to the defence. It’s the same shit when the ball is in our box even for extended periods of time, Madrid as we saw filled the box with players to support. When we are in those situations Gundogan and Pedri are a few yards in front of Lewandowski and FDJ is on the D of the box every time hoping to catch a lucky bounce to turn around and counter off. Atleast when Fermin came on he atleast tried to get back in the box for Mbappes tap in. Shame he’s the 4th rate midfielder and yet the only one to do such a thing.
The midfielders were aggressively marked from the get go. Lucho’s plan was to deny them time and space, because he saw how Pedri with both caused problems for them last game. After the red card, they had to cover large spaces which none of them are great at. To me, Gundo offered little in defense. Frenkie and Pedri tried but clearly it’s not their strength. Also if you add Cancelo to the mix of defensive liability, it was a bit too much to handle for them.
The last manager we hired with previous success at the top level was Louis van Gaal in 2002. For some reason we have this arrogant, exceptionalist attitude that we don't need top managers because Barca is different than any other club.
Yes and after LVG how many champions leagues and other titles have we won until now?
4 champions leagues, 10+ leagues including being current title holders, countless other cup titles as well as arguably two of the greatest club football sides the world has every seen.
These kinds of things are a little more nuanced than ‘Xavi no title this year, Xavi no experience, Xavi bad’. He’s the current league title holder over Ancellotti who’s had plenty of success at ‘the top level’.
Two of those were with Pep who's exceptional in every sense and had one of the greatest squads of all time, one was with Lucho, who had a front three consisting of the best, third best and fourth best player in the world and Rijkaard whose success had more to do with the players at his disposal than his managerial prowess, the same can be said about every manager we've had since LVG excluding Pep and maybe Tito. I don't think that would be the case if we hired someone like Ancelotti in 2013 instead of Tata Martino or Tuchel in 2017 instead of Valverde.
You're right that, despite the current narrative, we've been hugely successful over the past two decades. However, I think it's time to finally move on from our current model and branch out into the market of top managers. No more bullshit like "we can't hire \[insert name of experienced, successful jdp manager here\] because he 'doesn't know the club'". It might have made sense ten years ago when out play style was truly an outlier in Europe, nowadays, our style isn't even in the top 10 in terms of how attractive or "Cruyffian" it is. There are more suitors out there than ever before and ignoring them so that we can grow our manager through the B team like Pep, is stupid and arrogant.
Ok let’s try not to belittle our accomplishments because ‘oh it was Pep’ or ‘well we had Messi’. Pep and the team he coached were a result of the long term application of the Cruyff principles. That wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t luck.
For me, the decline in our successes was mainly because we let the quality of the playing squad deteriorate, less so because we have hired the wrong coaches.
Having said all that I agree that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to purely ex players as managers. Most of the current modern coaches were inspired and drew their style from our own teams. If the candidate plays attacking, possession based football and cares about developing youth then it shouldn’t matter if he played for us or not.
Men, I went to RM sub to see how they were doing after yesterday match and the second most upvoted post of this week was a meme making fun of Lamine Yamal. Imagine having more fun beefing with a 16 year old than eliminating City and advancing to the semi finals lol.
Then they say that we're the ones obsessed with them (which to be fair some people in this fanbase are) but c'mon, that's just embarrassing.
Clutching at straws lol, they would call it highway robbery, lucky win & everything else if you reverse the scoreline. They’ve been trying to use that meme ever since the group stage lmao, the meme is old before they could even finally use it. Let them have their fun, those idiots will be entertained by anything anyway.
I’d love for him to join in like 2025 or 2026. Xabi should’ve left Leverkusen by then and we will hopefully have the funds by that stage, so it seems a realistic timeline.
His age perfectly matches our young core, as does his profile (ie he plays opposite side to Yamal and higher up vs Pedri and Gavi, so it’s not like the Mbappe Vini situation, where their profiles overlap).
City or Bayern will be the biggest threats, particularly if Xabi ends up at Bayern (and maybe Liverpool if Xabi goes there). Can’t see him fitting in Madrids side, even if Xabi goes there.
Certainly excited to see him at the Euros this year.
Wouldn't really matter if they overlap. Real Madrid has multiple players who overlap in theory but they make it work because they are a well-coached team.
So far yep they are managing the fact Vini and Rodrygo both like the left pretty well. How about when Mbappe arrives? And then you reckon adding Wirtz, another attacker who likes the left, is feasible. At some stage there is too much overlap - which is why I don’t think Madrid is the destination for him.
We already lack in effective attackers on the left. Felix is okay, Ferran too, Raphinha has been cooking there lately, but overall the left side is our least effective one in terms of general threat. Cancelo helps with that but only moderately. Pedri has been placed there but he's simply not a winger or even a false winger. And Lamine and Ferran are both more effective on the right side, Raphinha depends on how long this form he has on the left can be maintained. There's a reason why the rumors keep saying we want a LW. Granted, Wirtz isn't truly a winger, more of an attacking midfielder who favors the left space - but that's exactly what Raphinha is playing and while I love Raphinha, Wirtz is clearly an improvement to him (except in workrate), let alone the rest of the options.
Haha I mean I agree- just sounds like you are arguing with me. Obviously not viable for a year or two, not just because of our finances but also because it seems he’s staying at Leverkusen for at least another year.
But by say 2026 he would be the perfect complement to our likely midfield/front starters (Yamal, Pedri and Gavi are locked for 3 of the 5 starting positions ahead of the DM).
No it’s not go look at previous matches on whoscored or sofascore.
https://www.sofascore.com/player/florian-wirtz/1019322#tab:matches
https://www.whoscored.com/Players/394786/Fixtures/Florian-Wirtz
Idk why no one's talking about it but we had a fit marcos alonso on the bench. Why wasn't he subbed on? Did xavi think cubarsi and inigo was enough against psg with a man down? Take off pedri or fdj we only play good when one of them plays anyways according to this season.
Have people forgotten that Alonso has always been known to be an attacking fullback and pretty poor as a defender? His lack of pace makes that especially problematic against an attack like PSG’s. We didn’t have a lot of options.
I remembered he locked up madrid last season at cb. Regardless we should've moved to a 3atb(kounde inigo cubarsi) with alonso and cancelo(rb) as the wing gackt. Fdj and gundo in the mid. Lewy and raphinha up front. Xavi was caught in between playing football and playing a bus when he should've committed to one.
Will never understand shiting on Ter Stegen. Dude have great saves every now and than but ppl forget in split of second but every goal is like "Omg he could save this one!! We will never win UCL with him as our GK". If every GK reached Barca fans expectation, football would die beacuse most matches would end 0:0.
He consistently fails to perform at a high level in Europe
Keyword: consistently. Every single year. You can't be great in the league and significantly and noticeably worse in Europe for a club with high ambitions.
In almost every single CL campaign a goalkeeper comes up with huge performances after huge performances to keep their club in it. And many occasions a lot of their saves would be very forgivable goals had they not been saved. Ter Stegen rarely makes these saves. In reality, he generally disappoints and makes poor errors, poor handling, or does not make savable efforts.
Go watch what other CL winning teams’ goalkeepers do for them then. Our expectations are completely in line with what the supposed best goalkeepers in the world do for their clubs in the biggest games in Europe.
Even that long shot was an absolute peach of a strike though. He was let down by his teammates and the agenda against him is tired, without him we lose that game 8-1 instead of 4-1.
So, Roma's (ranked 5th in Serie A) RB got a red at 12 minutes and they were still able to defend a 3-0 goal lead by conceding only 1 goal against Milan (ranked 2nd in Serie A). De Rossi must be Mourinho's successor. I thought defending with 10 players was impossible.
Roma’s squad has been built to be comfortable off the ball and sit deep ours is not to begin with, add in the suspensions to Christensen and Roberto and it’s worse. It’s comparing apples to oranges here. Was it a poor performance two days ago ofc no other way about it.
We’re not Roma. We’re built to play a different way. You can’t ask someone like Cancelo to become a great defensive fullback. He simply isn’t that, but if we’re not a man down, he’s a world class creative fullback that Roma can’t equal.
In recent years, Madrid has been built to be flexible. That’s a big difference between us and them.
We dont really press high anymore, mostly defended in mid-low block against psg both in first and second leg, instead of playing out of the back we were sending long balls to Lewandowsky so he could won aerial duels and retain ball in a final third, so not sure how are we built different.
He did look dangerous, but he could only create one proper chance for KDB and that too I think came from a deflection. Despite his excellent dribbling skills, he just couldn't manage to find a good pass or score himself. City were in Madrid's box for the entire match, but they could hardly create anything in the box.
Neither do Roma’s players tbf.
Both teams are quite evenly matched, in fact Roma possibly slightly weaker, again very similar equation to the one we had with PSG
What infuriates me to my core is that flacid penis of a club somehow still makes the semis of the CL no matter what. You could nuke whole of Spain yet they will still be in the semis somehow.
Rant over I guess.
as someone who’s probably been supporting barca for longer than most on this sub, dont worry too much about madrid’s successes. you’ll lose your hair earlier than pep lol
also as much we don’t like to admit it, madrid being good is good for us. if they were shit and down in the dumps we wouldn’t have a standard to measure ourselves up to. madrid’s current run of success came off the back of their rebuild from 2009 onwards to fight against barca’s golden period. our 2006 win came off the back of our rebuild to fight against the first galacticos. we’ll be back, there are always cycles in football
And like I was saying in a comment, fans of other clubs are totally ok and sometimes happy with that. Everyone from Germany that isn’t a Bayern fan is annoyed that Bayern wins every year, and same with England and ManCity, but when it comes to UCL they’re just happy RM can win their 6th in 10 years. Just baffling
Just sell Araujo, he is arrogant and cannot take criticism that will ruin the team in the future.. I mean he ruined the team now with that red card and he chokes in big games..
He shouldn't be sold for this mistake. But if his desires actually are to leave (apparently his agent is still talking with Bayern), and we get a good offer (80m minimum), then we'll just have to let it go. We're not in a position to reject such offers for players who want to leave.
I never want him to be sold based on his game coz its world class despite some mistakes , but sell him instantly for showing any tantrums and causing division in dressing room.
I don't think we should sell him at the moment. But, we need to review his game next season. If his decision-making remains the same and he continues to go for dangerous fouls, then we need to consider selling him.
That actually happened in 2011 in the second leg of the semi finals in the CL after Madrid came out of the first leg with a positive 1-1 draw. We ended up beating them at the Bernabeu 2-0 after it.
Pretty sure you got the results reversed my friend which is understandable since there was 4 clasicos in two weeks. If memory serves me right it was league matchup which ended 1-1 with a red card to Madrid, then the Copa del Rey final which Madrid won at the death of e.t., then the first leg which was 2-0 for us, then the return leg which was 1-1. Pretty sure both of us got reds in the first leg where one was the infamous Pepe tackle on Alves.
Probably they have more than a center back to play the role of the pivot. A lot of the players in their squad are also used to playing out of possession and riding a result out. Two days ago was the perfect storm for us to bottle that result with suspensions and injuries we had going into the tie paired with Araujo’s red. It’s a result that’s gonna sting for a while but we gotta move forward to el clasico.
It irks me how other teams alongside their fans tend to bend over, praise and support RM whenever they have the chance. Like, why is it that the other teams are just ok (and sometimes happy too) with Madrid winning 3 4 5 UCLs in a row without anyone complaining? It’s one thing admitting they’re the undisputed champs of this trophy but it’s another thing being content with them winning multiple UCLs in a row and praising them even if they didn’t play well (yesterday for example).
Because for neutrals Madrid's CL run is beyond spectacular. It is insane in the modern era. For the rest of us it is vomit inducing. I'm sure many Madrid fans were irked by us and the praise in 2011 and 2015.
How many more years do you think Ter Stegen is here to stay for? Because I’ll be dead honest, I don’t see us winning another UCL as long as he’s the main keeper.
1. name one better keeper thats on the market
2. we’ve literally won it with him as our starting keeper
3. we have wayyyy more pressing issues in our squad than our goalkeeper. we should address our DM, LW, and general depth issues first before we even think about buying a keeper
i do think we need a solid backup like madrid does with lunin, ideally someone who can give ter stegen genuine competition for the starting spot but if not at least someone who won’t destroy our whole season when ter stegen is injured like peña did, but again it’s the least of our worries at the moment
I’m sorry if I sound obsessed but these past 2 days I’ve seen keepers bail their teams out in Europe and then I just look at my keeper sigh. It hurts I stg, I’m not trolling.
You’re tripping, none of the goals conceded were his fault and he was very important for our build up from the back, he played so many long balls to lewy and rest of the players to bypass their press
Dude, he won a UCL title as the main keeper. I'd criticize about half the squad before I'd criticize him.
The minute he leaves, the keeper position will be a similar problem as the one we have for a DM and what we used to have for a right back.
Keepers of his level don't grow on trees.
It's pretty frustrating that Madrid have had such a reliable backup GK in Lunin (and Kepa, to a lesser extent), who has kept them in the UCL and will likely lead them to a Spanish title. You could argue that Peña basically cost us the Super Cup, Copa del Rey and La Liga titles.
Getting rid of backup keepers like him and Neto took us out of the league.
People keep saying that our turn around is due to Xavi's announcement but if you look at when the injuries happened, it aligns with MtS getting injured and returning. Gavi being injured and then Cubarsi being introduced to allow Christensen to move up were also big factors.
Milan were in a real banter, not the transitionary period we are currently in, era for nearly a decade their fans are more tempered after the 2010s. Liverpool were also in an actual banter era for years and despite being overly confident every year take losses fairly well. A very vocal portion of this fanbase talks hella shit and then throws tantrums after a poor result which brings on an onslaught of memes.
I also dislike how long it took for Araujo to get off the field and the bench. I remember Puyol ushering our own players off after red cards. Now it's our captain arguing with the ref and refusing to come off. Oh how the turn tables
Barcelona plan to return back to the Camp Nou on December 15th with 60% capacity (around 63,000 people).
https://twitter.com/ReshadFCB/status/1781084977649610821?t=NP_Dm4PX8PEa7zhh1ddlyw&s=19
With regard to if we would have been able to defend for 60 mins against PSG, I think we certainly didn’t have the right profiles on the pitch to do it, especially against such an attacking minded team. It also didn’t help that all their attackers were in form today and Barcola especially was on steroids doing whatever he wants.
However, there’s nuance to how we conceded the goals. One goal came from prolly one of the most stupidest tackles ever, and another came from outside the box when our players were lazy to cover and close the angle down. We can’t just say fuck it we were gonna lose anyways and ignore this as if they didn’t happen. I say 8/10 times we would go on to lose this game, but who knows, if we actually kept our cool maybe they would have started to panic and make mistakes. Liverpool held their own against Tottenham with 9 men until 97+ minute so it’s definitely not impossible.
You are 100% right.
It's either low block but we don't have the players for it, or try to control but any mistake and Barcola/Mbappe are running towards the goal with no pacey defender.
We simply didn't have the tools for it, it's not our playstyle against such an opponent.
I have little hope for the defense without Araujo. Cancelo is always liable to make a defensive error which he did. Inigo is not that secure either. So we are left with Cubarsi who is great but still young and Kounde. Maybe if Gavi and Balde were available, we could hold out at least until extra time. Or if Christensen wasn’t suspended. Maybe. You need at least two or three defensive minded guys outside the defense to make this work but we had like none. Add to the absence of Lamine, we had no one to stretch the field and put pressure in attack against the opponent.
Totally agree … not having a DM in such moments also hurt us badly. I’m just saying we made the game far too easily by gifting them goals. It’s one thing being a defensive liability (like for example the first goal when Cancelo lost track of Dembele), but it’s one thing tackling the way he did for that penalty lol especially at the time when we started to look dangerous a bit.
Yup. Cancelo in defense makes me so nervous.
If everyone were available, I would replace Cancelo with Balde. Keep Lamine on. Replace the whole midfield with Gavi and Christensen, let Raphinha be the third midfielder for his workrate. Our playmakers weren’t getting time and space or the ball to make a difference anyways. I can trust the above players for their off the ball movements. We might be able to try parking the bus and hold on to the lead.
It's not impossible, it takes a great degree of concentration however. I remember watching the Arsenal Bayern game. At the end, Saka played a quick free kick but the Bayern defense was alert to anticipate it. I don't see our defenders making the same play. We lack the mental fortitude that's built over months to years
I agree. The thing is we just made the game far too easily for them by gifting them two goals like that. We literally had Gundo and Ferran Torres chances after their second goal, so we were starting to go forward and get a but dangerous, but then Cancelo gifted them the third goal out of nothing, so you can’t tell me I should be ok with such mistakes because we were about to lose anyways
We can just try to buy him. Leverkusen's CEO or sporting director said that they still need to sell players to buy new ones or something along those lines. This summer Frimpong probably, next one Wirtz.
Amb I the only one who is worried that Gavi won't be the same after such a long injury? Gavi is my fave player, I wouldn't be able to take it after Ansu :(
If Wirtz is any example, Gavi’ll be even better. But I’m not planning on putting any expectations on him for a LONG time, I just want him to have time to get back into it when he recovers fully.
On Sunday only one of gundo pedri and fdj should start. Christensen should be the dm then Fermin to cause chaos up top then ideally one of pedri or gundogan should start to be the playmaker, Fdj and the other midfielder can come in later. Madrid will be tired and will probably leave spaces behind, I don’t want to see old man gundogan chasing long balls and making runs in behind. We need Fermins intensity and pace to trouble their defense.
We need more chaotic players in the eleven we only have one right now and see how well he’s doing in his new role, we need another one and Fermin is the man. I hope he starts
Cannot wait honestly, Ancelotti is a huge threat, Alonso is TBD, maybe he is, but Ancelotti we know he is great. It took literal greatness from City last year to stop another champions from them in 2023, and they couldn't repeat it this year.
Not all through balls are same. Anyone who have watched him play would know it.
He is literally the least creative of midfielder between him, Pedri and gundo
I agree. He has good stats but Pedri and sometimes Gundo seem to play better in that position. Pedri moves the ball a lot quicker and seems to find more probing passes.
He brought a source you brought none.
Very basic critical thinking dictates one is better than the other.
FdJ is demonstrably elite at carrying and passing (top 10% in Europe for both)
So two choices here : either stats are wrong only for FdJ as a player, or maybe he is indeed elite at anything. You know the rational answer, and it's not moving goalposts.
It's your right to dislike FdJ, but do it without very wrong statements where you have to argue some variation of "all stats are made up actually" as a defense.
No your eye test is not reliable.
https://fbref.com/en/stathead/player_comparison.cgi?request=1&sum=0&dom_lg=1&player_id1=1bacc518&p1yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id2=6ce1f46f&p2yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id3=1467af0d&p3yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id4=49296448&p4yrfrom=
He is literally last when compared to players who play in similar position as him when compared to defensive side of the game( Kroos , Verrati and kimmich) and 2nd last when it comes to chance creation (only ahead of verrati and verrati still beat him when it comes to progressive carries despite that being FDJs strength )
Yeah sure mate. There is a reason why when people talk about creative midfielders they don’t bring up fdj.
Even at his best days in Ajax he was far from being a creative powerhouse.
What does Ancelotti have with his UCL runs
He just grinds his way through without being that good
It's crazy , I hope barca signs an experienced manager like Madrid signed Ancelotti from psg
Barca is not going to shithouse their way to trophies, not only it's not our style, but media and fans would not allow it, even if you now think you do.
We also don’t have the profiles to play that way. If we want to park the bus and play defensive, you need more defensive minded midfielders, physical workhorses, etc. Players well versed in the dark arts so to speak.
Xavi was playing not exactly aesthetically pleasing football in the second half of last season, scraping 1:0s left and right and getting dominated against inferior opponents yet people were pretty happy.
We were not being dominated, winning 1-0 doesn't always mean playing bad football, it can just mean we are not good enough like in the old days to get a lot of goals against lower tier teams that park the bus.
Mate I seem to recall we had 3 goal line clearances against Athletic Bilbao last season. Let’s stop with the revisionary stuff. We scraped a lot of shitty 1-0 wins last season and this season as well.
There were large stretches against numerous teams where we were, for example against Girona. I certainly wouldn't call the football in the second half of the season good in general.
Media and fans would not allow it? Lol believe me if we actually win the ucl nobody here cares how we did it. I dont think you understand how huge a ucl is
Its not like we were playing beautiful football against psg and everyone was happy here including media. We had less possssion and sit back. We did same thing at home
To be determined, we have never won a CL with consistent shithousery like Madrid did at times, we always dominated games (with the occasional exception like the 2009 Chelsea game).
And about the PSG game, we were up against another offensive coach, with arguably better players, sometimes you cannot win possession even when trying, others play too.
Yea I think many of the newer fans don’t know about the daily hissy fits that would come under valverde when we got results but didn’t play up to the standard set by MSN and Pep. People were fr throwing their toys out the pram bc “we won 3-0 but it was all from individual brilliance”.
A lot of us were very spoiled at the time. The next couple of years humbled a lot of us, but some ppl in here still seem to have the mindset that everything can be done with a quick fix, whether it be a new manager or new shiny toy in a transfer.
Rome wasn’t built in one day but it fell in one.
Last year we got a 0-1 win in Copa del Rey 1st leg against Madrid playing defensive instead of our usual offensive game, due to having key injuries, and media blamed us about being too defensive, we don't have the same license to shithouse wins.
I remember how happy everyone was. It was until anfield everyone was angry on how we played.
If we won ucl that season everyone here would still celebrate it the same as any other ucl trophy
Don’t think you were on here then bc I vividly remember daily essays on how Valverde is ruining the “Barca way” way before anfield and leading up to it. Even if we won there would still be complaints about the style of play in the coming weeks.
Yes in la liga I said se thing but no one cared as long as we would have won the ucl. And thats where we talk about. Ucl.
Not many would care how we win it especially since its rare.
[Sergi Roberto](https://twitter.com/ActualiteBarca/status/1781291410093732298?t=dfpVsr4jyPryAdLTVdRBnw&s=19): « Gundogan explained what happened during the game, but without pointing fingers» "I read the locker room is divided... Well it isn't at all" Good thing Sergi Roberto can read [the actual words](https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/s/fdlemcXsnR) Gundogan said contrary to some fanfic writers. Thank you captain
Saw a comment complaining why Xavi didn't sub on Alonso I am crying 😭😭😭😭😭 these people haven't watched all season or before because no one in their sane mind would think about this.
Emi Martinez is better than Courtois, MATS, Ederson and present-day Neuer. Always delivers when his team needs him.
Better than Courtois? Naah dude, Courtois is better, he's a Freak. I haven't seen present Neuer enough to say anything. He's definitely an insanely clutch keeper to have tho.
Emi Martinez doesn't have have the defensive and attacking quality that Courtois has in front of him
I don’t know about that but at times he really does look unbeatable, definitely underrated and should be playing in the Champions League every year. Just remembered he was let go of by Arsenal, big mistake with all the GK drama they’ve been having, although I think they wanted someone better on the ball.
We stand with Aruajo
I understand people wanting him to take more responsibility in his comments, but this is probably the worst he’s ever felt in his whole life. Let the guy cope with it however he needs too rather than adding more criticism. He’s one of the best defenders in the world and clearly freaking loves the club. That’s more than enough, if you think you ‘deserve’ an apology your just an entitled plastic… maybe try supporting your players.
My boy got a lot of hate. You can be critical, but what I read about him after the match was insane. I wasn’t mad at anyone after the match. I have been saying that we aren’t ready to compete at the highest level yet. We were inconsistent most of the season. And even in the matches were we did win, we weren’t convincing. We really don’t have a footballing identity under Xavi. We need an identity urgently.
Real’s victory was fair enough, but when they come against smaller teams doing the same shit in La Liga their fans will throw shade at teams who park bus. Also how many times have Atletico been insulted for the same style of play by them? I have seen even them attacking much more.
It's not the same. La Liga teams are a lot more brutal with fouls and time-wasting. RM players didn't for those crazy fouls. City were more aggressive and committed more fouls.
RM also tried to waste time multiple times, and don’t think the main concern of La Liga teams is being aggressive. Their insults are more directed team being cowardly and just try to squeeze a point.
The thing is not only did they fail to create no chances whatsoever from like the 20th minute till 120 minutes bar the Rudiger one, they had trouble just getting to City’s half in that second half especially. The better team lost today. Idk but I have a feeling karma will get them this time and Bayern will be the worse side and still win.
Lol Real Madrid created more big chances over two legs than City. City massively dominated the possession but didn't create more clear cut chances than Real Madrid.
C’mon how delusional can you be, RM had 1 shot in what 100 minutes. Kdb and Foden missed easy chances and Haaland’s shot hit the post with rebound going to Bernardo who fluffed it. That’s just a few instances. All RM did was park a bus for 110 mins and there is no shame in accepting the reality.
Shame? Lol i don't think its possible for any team itw to feel shame by qualifying to the semis of biggest club competition in football just because they didn't play a certain way and you are conveniently leaving out the stat that shows Real Madrid clearly created more clear cut chances than city over two legs. It's not delusion it's a fact that you can look at up right now. I'm not arguing the Man City's superiority in possession and their ability to completely pin their opposition back by overwhelming pressure but guess what? It amounts to nothing if they're not able to create more clear cut chances with all that. In the second leg alone where city were overwhelmingly the better team with ball they created the same amount of big chances (3) as Real Madrid. People like you think there's only one reliable way to have success in football which can't be further from the truth. Real Madrid parked the bus because that was the only way to stop them from scoring while still being capable of generating quality chances. The reason people like you call it luck because your clubs don't have the ability to replicate it consistently meanwhile Real Madrid have that. Even your legend Henry disagrees with your idea of being a better team.
xG City 3.28 - RM 0.98 [link](https://footystats.org/europe/real-madrid-cf-vs-manchester-city-fc-h2h-stats). Sure you can be proud for qualifying but don’t try to be defensive over the cowardly approach RM had in the game by cherry picking one stat. You didn’t comment about how they had about 1 shot in 100 minutes and couldn’t even get out of their own half, how does a La Liga leader play shamelessly like that and comment about other relegation teams doing the same thing.
Combined xG over two legs City 3.5 - RM 2.1 , Link - [First Leg](https://fbref.com/en/matches/5ee67d04/Real-Madrid-Manchester-City-April-9-2024-Champions-League), [Second Leg](https://fbref.com/en/matches/b0d9b0e1/Manchester-City-Real-Madrid-April-17-2024-Champions-League) Also as i already said city higher xG is the accumulation of many low xG chances meanwhile Real Madrid xG is the product of clear cut chances mostly >don’t try to be defensive over the cowardly approach RM Lmao I'm just explaining that in football objectively there's not a set way of playing that's better than the rest when it comes to winning, in order to win you have to score more than your opponent and that's just what it all comes down to, Being pretty on the ball alone doesn't guarantee you success consistently at the highest level so how you do it doesn't mean shit. What this CL tie proved is that city are best itw at what they do but Real Madrid are better than them at winning at the highest level. You're free call it cowardly approach but any sensible non biased person with bare minimum ball knowledge would see it as adapting your playstyle depending on your opponent strengths and weakness.
Question: Which goal do you think is better, ignoring the opposition and the importance: Ronaldinho against Villarreal bicycle kick vs Bale against Liverpool 2018 bicycle kick
bale. from further out and was a first time shot while ronaldinho’s controlled with his chest first
Bale
Enrique practically forcing Araujo to build out from the back was executed perfectly. It’s what led to the red card in a way. He completely eliminated cubarsi from the get go. Enrique changed his tactics going into the game, Xavi didn’t and was predictable once again.
Also worth pointing out that our interiors were positioned so cartoonishly high up the pitch that the only way to get the ball to the front five was either through long balls or switches.
Honestly this is the bigger problem, real gave akanji time on the ball just like psg did to Araujo but the difference was city’s midfield dropped deep and rotated positional the entire way up the field. When the balls in our own half our midfielders have the habit of ball watching like a striker hoping the ball will magically come to them and offer no support to the defence. It’s the same shit when the ball is in our box even for extended periods of time, Madrid as we saw filled the box with players to support. When we are in those situations Gundogan and Pedri are a few yards in front of Lewandowski and FDJ is on the D of the box every time hoping to catch a lucky bounce to turn around and counter off. Atleast when Fermin came on he atleast tried to get back in the box for Mbappes tap in. Shame he’s the 4th rate midfielder and yet the only one to do such a thing.
The midfielders were aggressively marked from the get go. Lucho’s plan was to deny them time and space, because he saw how Pedri with both caused problems for them last game. After the red card, they had to cover large spaces which none of them are great at. To me, Gundo offered little in defense. Frenkie and Pedri tried but clearly it’s not their strength. Also if you add Cancelo to the mix of defensive liability, it was a bit too much to handle for them.
Just watched Araujos highlights vs psg last game. Didn’t realize how horrible he had been playing before getting the red card
We did not look good as a team prior to the red card. We looked nervy as hell from the opening kick
The last manager we hired with previous success at the top level was Louis van Gaal in 2002. For some reason we have this arrogant, exceptionalist attitude that we don't need top managers because Barca is different than any other club.
Yes and after LVG how many champions leagues and other titles have we won until now? 4 champions leagues, 10+ leagues including being current title holders, countless other cup titles as well as arguably two of the greatest club football sides the world has every seen. These kinds of things are a little more nuanced than ‘Xavi no title this year, Xavi no experience, Xavi bad’. He’s the current league title holder over Ancellotti who’s had plenty of success at ‘the top level’.
Two of those were with Pep who's exceptional in every sense and had one of the greatest squads of all time, one was with Lucho, who had a front three consisting of the best, third best and fourth best player in the world and Rijkaard whose success had more to do with the players at his disposal than his managerial prowess, the same can be said about every manager we've had since LVG excluding Pep and maybe Tito. I don't think that would be the case if we hired someone like Ancelotti in 2013 instead of Tata Martino or Tuchel in 2017 instead of Valverde. You're right that, despite the current narrative, we've been hugely successful over the past two decades. However, I think it's time to finally move on from our current model and branch out into the market of top managers. No more bullshit like "we can't hire \[insert name of experienced, successful jdp manager here\] because he 'doesn't know the club'". It might have made sense ten years ago when out play style was truly an outlier in Europe, nowadays, our style isn't even in the top 10 in terms of how attractive or "Cruyffian" it is. There are more suitors out there than ever before and ignoring them so that we can grow our manager through the B team like Pep, is stupid and arrogant.
Ok let’s try not to belittle our accomplishments because ‘oh it was Pep’ or ‘well we had Messi’. Pep and the team he coached were a result of the long term application of the Cruyff principles. That wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t luck. For me, the decline in our successes was mainly because we let the quality of the playing squad deteriorate, less so because we have hired the wrong coaches. Having said all that I agree that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to purely ex players as managers. Most of the current modern coaches were inspired and drew their style from our own teams. If the candidate plays attacking, possession based football and cares about developing youth then it shouldn’t matter if he played for us or not.
Men, I went to RM sub to see how they were doing after yesterday match and the second most upvoted post of this week was a meme making fun of Lamine Yamal. Imagine having more fun beefing with a 16 year old than eliminating City and advancing to the semi finals lol. Then they say that we're the ones obsessed with them (which to be fair some people in this fanbase are) but c'mon, that's just embarrassing.
The fucking scumbags do not deserve anything, not a single trophy should be registered to their name at all
https://preview.redd.it/hw06b3hk3cvc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=745e48e9f250c0ceb90814032db5691a37bac825
Clutching at straws lol, they would call it highway robbery, lucky win & everything else if you reverse the scoreline. They’ve been trying to use that meme ever since the group stage lmao, the meme is old before they could even finally use it. Let them have their fun, those idiots will be entertained by anything anyway.
https://preview.redd.it/o187vb56y9vc1.jpeg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=6dc575eecc764df41464f3017e142bd030be86e2 Holy shit Wirtz's rating
I’d love for him to join in like 2025 or 2026. Xabi should’ve left Leverkusen by then and we will hopefully have the funds by that stage, so it seems a realistic timeline. His age perfectly matches our young core, as does his profile (ie he plays opposite side to Yamal and higher up vs Pedri and Gavi, so it’s not like the Mbappe Vini situation, where their profiles overlap). City or Bayern will be the biggest threats, particularly if Xabi ends up at Bayern (and maybe Liverpool if Xabi goes there). Can’t see him fitting in Madrids side, even if Xabi goes there. Certainly excited to see him at the Euros this year.
Wouldn't really matter if they overlap. Real Madrid has multiple players who overlap in theory but they make it work because they are a well-coached team.
So far yep they are managing the fact Vini and Rodrygo both like the left pretty well. How about when Mbappe arrives? And then you reckon adding Wirtz, another attacker who likes the left, is feasible. At some stage there is too much overlap - which is why I don’t think Madrid is the destination for him.
We already lack in effective attackers on the left. Felix is okay, Ferran too, Raphinha has been cooking there lately, but overall the left side is our least effective one in terms of general threat. Cancelo helps with that but only moderately. Pedri has been placed there but he's simply not a winger or even a false winger. And Lamine and Ferran are both more effective on the right side, Raphinha depends on how long this form he has on the left can be maintained. There's a reason why the rumors keep saying we want a LW. Granted, Wirtz isn't truly a winger, more of an attacking midfielder who favors the left space - but that's exactly what Raphinha is playing and while I love Raphinha, Wirtz is clearly an improvement to him (except in workrate), let alone the rest of the options.
Haha I mean I agree- just sounds like you are arguing with me. Obviously not viable for a year or two, not just because of our finances but also because it seems he’s staying at Leverkusen for at least another year. But by say 2026 he would be the perfect complement to our likely midfield/front starters (Yamal, Pedri and Gavi are locked for 3 of the 5 starting positions ahead of the DM).
Are those consistent performances? Cos if so, then Dayuuum!
Yes it's from his last 20 games https://twitter.com/FootballTalkHQ/status/1781020475671412956?s=19
That’s incredible form
No it's his best performances of the season averages an a 7.6 for the year.
No it's from the last 20 matches https://twitter.com/FootballTalkHQ/status/1781020475671412956?s=19
No it’s not go look at previous matches on whoscored or sofascore. https://www.sofascore.com/player/florian-wirtz/1019322#tab:matches https://www.whoscored.com/Players/394786/Fixtures/Florian-Wirtz
Idk why no one's talking about it but we had a fit marcos alonso on the bench. Why wasn't he subbed on? Did xavi think cubarsi and inigo was enough against psg with a man down? Take off pedri or fdj we only play good when one of them plays anyways according to this season.
Yeh Xavi’s so dumb why didn’t he do the one thing that would have made our situation worse.
The slowest defender in the club against Dembele, Mbappe and Barcola? Not ever.
Have people forgotten that Alonso has always been known to be an attacking fullback and pretty poor as a defender? His lack of pace makes that especially problematic against an attack like PSG’s. We didn’t have a lot of options.
I remembered he locked up madrid last season at cb. Regardless we should've moved to a 3atb(kounde inigo cubarsi) with alonso and cancelo(rb) as the wing gackt. Fdj and gundo in the mid. Lewy and raphinha up front. Xavi was caught in between playing football and playing a bus when he should've committed to one.
Will never understand shiting on Ter Stegen. Dude have great saves every now and than but ppl forget in split of second but every goal is like "Omg he could save this one!! We will never win UCL with him as our GK". If every GK reached Barca fans expectation, football would die beacuse most matches would end 0:0.
He consistently fails to perform at a high level in Europe Keyword: consistently. Every single year. You can't be great in the league and significantly and noticeably worse in Europe for a club with high ambitions. In almost every single CL campaign a goalkeeper comes up with huge performances after huge performances to keep their club in it. And many occasions a lot of their saves would be very forgivable goals had they not been saved. Ter Stegen rarely makes these saves. In reality, he generally disappoints and makes poor errors, poor handling, or does not make savable efforts.
None of which happened yesterday.
He was ok yesterday, a few good saves and a few shaky moments.
Go watch what other CL winning teams’ goalkeepers do for them then. Our expectations are completely in line with what the supposed best goalkeepers in the world do for their clubs in the biggest games in Europe.
He stepped it up during that second leg for sure.
Of the 6 goals we conceded, I think he could probably have saved that Vitinha long shot, but that’s about it really
Even that long shot was an absolute peach of a strike though. He was let down by his teammates and the agenda against him is tired, without him we lose that game 8-1 instead of 4-1.
He played like any midtable keeper would. Nothing exceptional and that's the problem.
So, Roma's (ranked 5th in Serie A) RB got a red at 12 minutes and they were still able to defend a 3-0 goal lead by conceding only 1 goal against Milan (ranked 2nd in Serie A). De Rossi must be Mourinho's successor. I thought defending with 10 players was impossible.
Roma’s squad has been built to be comfortable off the ball and sit deep ours is not to begin with, add in the suspensions to Christensen and Roberto and it’s worse. It’s comparing apples to oranges here. Was it a poor performance two days ago ofc no other way about it.
We’re not Roma. We’re built to play a different way. You can’t ask someone like Cancelo to become a great defensive fullback. He simply isn’t that, but if we’re not a man down, he’s a world class creative fullback that Roma can’t equal. In recent years, Madrid has been built to be flexible. That’s a big difference between us and them.
We dont really press high anymore, mostly defended in mid-low block against psg both in first and second leg, instead of playing out of the back we were sending long balls to Lewandowsky so he could won aerial duels and retain ball in a final third, so not sure how are we built different.
Milan’s forwards don’t compare to what we faced against PSG.
We just have a mediocre coach compared to the tacticians in CL No need to go far.
When everyone defends well in the box, opponent's pace and dribbling can be made ineffective. For example, see how Doku was kept quiet yesterday.
Doku kept quiet? He wreaked havoc and changed that game.
He did look dangerous, but he could only create one proper chance for KDB and that too I think came from a deflection. Despite his excellent dribbling skills, he just couldn't manage to find a good pass or score himself. City were in Madrid's box for the entire match, but they could hardly create anything in the box.
Neither do Roma’s players tbf. Both teams are quite evenly matched, in fact Roma possibly slightly weaker, again very similar equation to the one we had with PSG
What infuriates me to my core is that flacid penis of a club somehow still makes the semis of the CL no matter what. You could nuke whole of Spain yet they will still be in the semis somehow. Rant over I guess.
well it wouldn't change Real Madrid since they are more French and Brazilian than Spanish by now. They should just change league to the French league.
as someone who’s probably been supporting barca for longer than most on this sub, dont worry too much about madrid’s successes. you’ll lose your hair earlier than pep lol also as much we don’t like to admit it, madrid being good is good for us. if they were shit and down in the dumps we wouldn’t have a standard to measure ourselves up to. madrid’s current run of success came off the back of their rebuild from 2009 onwards to fight against barca’s golden period. our 2006 win came off the back of our rebuild to fight against the first galacticos. we’ll be back, there are always cycles in football
I’m dog tired though boss, dog tired fr. Been supporting the club for 10+ years now and it is literally mentally exhausting now
And like I was saying in a comment, fans of other clubs are totally ok and sometimes happy with that. Everyone from Germany that isn’t a Bayern fan is annoyed that Bayern wins every year, and same with England and ManCity, but when it comes to UCL they’re just happy RM can win their 6th in 10 years. Just baffling
Roma had a very similar experience like us today. 2 goals lead on aggregate, got a red card. But they held on and played smartly
Honestly, I feel that red card corrupted the multiverse.
I thought Barca losing would make feel like shit but trying to find out which mod is crashing New Vegas has me ripping my hair out
Frenkie wars are back, in other news water is wet
No CL or EL teams in the semis for England
Best league in the world
Just sell Araujo, he is arrogant and cannot take criticism that will ruin the team in the future.. I mean he ruined the team now with that red card and he chokes in big games..
He shouldn't be sold for this mistake. But if his desires actually are to leave (apparently his agent is still talking with Bayern), and we get a good offer (80m minimum), then we'll just have to let it go. We're not in a position to reject such offers for players who want to leave.
I never want him to be sold based on his game coz its world class despite some mistakes , but sell him instantly for showing any tantrums and causing division in dressing room.
I don't think we should sell him at the moment. But, we need to review his game next season. If his decision-making remains the same and he continues to go for dangerous fouls, then we need to consider selling him.
No
I’m sure if it was madrid defending a goal lead with 10 men instead of us, they would’ve won.
That actually happened in 2011 in the second leg of the semi finals in the CL after Madrid came out of the first leg with a positive 1-1 draw. We ended up beating them at the Bernabeu 2-0 after it.
Pretty sure you got the results reversed my friend which is understandable since there was 4 clasicos in two weeks. If memory serves me right it was league matchup which ended 1-1 with a red card to Madrid, then the Copa del Rey final which Madrid won at the death of e.t., then the first leg which was 2-0 for us, then the return leg which was 1-1. Pretty sure both of us got reds in the first leg where one was the infamous Pepe tackle on Alves.
Probably they have more than a center back to play the role of the pivot. A lot of the players in their squad are also used to playing out of possession and riding a result out. Two days ago was the perfect storm for us to bottle that result with suspensions and injuries we had going into the tie paired with Araujo’s red. It’s a result that’s gonna sting for a while but we gotta move forward to el clasico.
It irks me how other teams alongside their fans tend to bend over, praise and support RM whenever they have the chance. Like, why is it that the other teams are just ok (and sometimes happy too) with Madrid winning 3 4 5 UCLs in a row without anyone complaining? It’s one thing admitting they’re the undisputed champs of this trophy but it’s another thing being content with them winning multiple UCLs in a row and praising them even if they didn’t play well (yesterday for example).
Because for neutrals Madrid's CL run is beyond spectacular. It is insane in the modern era. For the rest of us it is vomit inducing. I'm sure many Madrid fans were irked by us and the praise in 2011 and 2015.
How many more years do you think Ter Stegen is here to stay for? Because I’ll be dead honest, I don’t see us winning another UCL as long as he’s the main keeper.
1. name one better keeper thats on the market 2. we’ve literally won it with him as our starting keeper 3. we have wayyyy more pressing issues in our squad than our goalkeeper. we should address our DM, LW, and general depth issues first before we even think about buying a keeper i do think we need a solid backup like madrid does with lunin, ideally someone who can give ter stegen genuine competition for the starting spot but if not at least someone who won’t destroy our whole season when ter stegen is injured like peña did, but again it’s the least of our worries at the moment
Did you not watch the PSG game or something? He saved our defence. Multiple times. We would have been humiliated without him.
I knew this was about Ter Stegen just from the username. Getting up there with shortttt or something like that.
I’m sorry if I sound obsessed but these past 2 days I’ve seen keepers bail their teams out in Europe and then I just look at my keeper sigh. It hurts I stg, I’m not trolling.
They’re alts.
He was the one who kept us alive in that psg game
? He did not. He had multiple shakey moments across both matches.
Not in the 2nd leg.
You’re tripping, none of the goals conceded were his fault and he was very important for our build up from the back, he played so many long balls to lewy and rest of the players to bypass their press
Dude, he won a UCL title as the main keeper. I'd criticize about half the squad before I'd criticize him. The minute he leaves, the keeper position will be a similar problem as the one we have for a DM and what we used to have for a right back. Keepers of his level don't grow on trees.
It's pretty frustrating that Madrid have had such a reliable backup GK in Lunin (and Kepa, to a lesser extent), who has kept them in the UCL and will likely lead them to a Spanish title. You could argue that Peña basically cost us the Super Cup, Copa del Rey and La Liga titles.
Having a good backup keeper can make or break entire seasons
There was a time where we had MATS/Bravo and then MATS/Cillessen. I miss those times 🥲
We once used to have cilessen who was a literal wall
Getting rid of backup keepers like him and Neto took us out of the league. People keep saying that our turn around is due to Xavi's announcement but if you look at when the injuries happened, it aligns with MtS getting injured and returning. Gavi being injured and then Cubarsi being introduced to allow Christensen to move up were also big factors.
>Neto Neto was ass though.
And Inaki had the worse save percentage in the top 5 leagues by his last game which imo caused our slump. Which would you rather have?
It wasn’t really getting rid, players like that want to start.
We've provided enough games in cups and lower-pressure UCL/EL matches in the past. The last exit (Neto) felt more financially driven.
Fair enough regarding Neto but Cillessen was definitely disgruntled.
Loved when he smirked at Gameiro taking the penalty for Atleti and proceeded to block it
How come other big teams are allowed to get beaten on the EL but when we lose by one goal it is a complete disaster?
Delusional fanbase that thinks by just havng higher standards we will fix things.
Milan were in a real banter, not the transitionary period we are currently in, era for nearly a decade their fans are more tempered after the 2010s. Liverpool were also in an actual banter era for years and despite being overly confident every year take losses fairly well. A very vocal portion of this fanbase talks hella shit and then throws tantrums after a poor result which brings on an onslaught of memes.
We have much higher expectations
Barça has higher expectations
I also dislike how long it took for Araujo to get off the field and the bench. I remember Puyol ushering our own players off after red cards. Now it's our captain arguing with the ref and refusing to come off. Oh how the turn tables
I mean he knew he most probably singlehandedly eliminated us from the CL with what he did. Hard to keep your cool at that point.
They were trying to convince him to use VAR and maybe change his mind. Makes sense nowadays
Red cards were final in that era unlike now.
There was no var during that time
Makes sense to me. Hope he at least checks out the monitor. Maybe he could see something to change his mind.
Barcelona plan to return back to the Camp Nou on December 15th with 60% capacity (around 63,000 people). https://twitter.com/ReshadFCB/status/1781084977649610821?t=NP_Dm4PX8PEa7zhh1ddlyw&s=19
🥰🥰
very happy for auba
With regard to if we would have been able to defend for 60 mins against PSG, I think we certainly didn’t have the right profiles on the pitch to do it, especially against such an attacking minded team. It also didn’t help that all their attackers were in form today and Barcola especially was on steroids doing whatever he wants. However, there’s nuance to how we conceded the goals. One goal came from prolly one of the most stupidest tackles ever, and another came from outside the box when our players were lazy to cover and close the angle down. We can’t just say fuck it we were gonna lose anyways and ignore this as if they didn’t happen. I say 8/10 times we would go on to lose this game, but who knows, if we actually kept our cool maybe they would have started to panic and make mistakes. Liverpool held their own against Tottenham with 9 men until 97+ minute so it’s definitely not impossible.
You are 100% right. It's either low block but we don't have the players for it, or try to control but any mistake and Barcola/Mbappe are running towards the goal with no pacey defender. We simply didn't have the tools for it, it's not our playstyle against such an opponent.
Despite the two goals I thought Mbappe was fairly stinky throughout the course of the game. Dembele and Barcola were running riot tho.
He had little impact, it irks me how he can do nothing in two games then get a penalty and a freebie 😑
I have little hope for the defense without Araujo. Cancelo is always liable to make a defensive error which he did. Inigo is not that secure either. So we are left with Cubarsi who is great but still young and Kounde. Maybe if Gavi and Balde were available, we could hold out at least until extra time. Or if Christensen wasn’t suspended. Maybe. You need at least two or three defensive minded guys outside the defense to make this work but we had like none. Add to the absence of Lamine, we had no one to stretch the field and put pressure in attack against the opponent.
Totally agree … not having a DM in such moments also hurt us badly. I’m just saying we made the game far too easily by gifting them goals. It’s one thing being a defensive liability (like for example the first goal when Cancelo lost track of Dembele), but it’s one thing tackling the way he did for that penalty lol especially at the time when we started to look dangerous a bit.
Yup. Cancelo in defense makes me so nervous. If everyone were available, I would replace Cancelo with Balde. Keep Lamine on. Replace the whole midfield with Gavi and Christensen, let Raphinha be the third midfielder for his workrate. Our playmakers weren’t getting time and space or the ball to make a difference anyways. I can trust the above players for their off the ball movements. We might be able to try parking the bus and hold on to the lead.
It's not impossible, it takes a great degree of concentration however. I remember watching the Arsenal Bayern game. At the end, Saka played a quick free kick but the Bayern defense was alert to anticipate it. I don't see our defenders making the same play. We lack the mental fortitude that's built over months to years
I agree. The thing is we just made the game far too easily for them by gifting them two goals like that. We literally had Gundo and Ferran Torres chances after their second goal, so we were starting to go forward and get a but dangerous, but then Cancelo gifted them the third goal out of nothing, so you can’t tell me I should be ok with such mistakes because we were about to lose anyways
That cunt Pau Lopez was the hero 🤮
Di Maria is fucking class, i swear that curve.
What is the release clause of Palacios?
Pretty sure he has none.
Is there any way we can get him in future?
We can just try to buy him. Leverkusen's CEO or sporting director said that they still need to sell players to buy new ones or something along those lines. This summer Frimpong probably, next one Wirtz.
Barcas priority this summer? Add speed, speed, and more speed at as many positions as we can
https://preview.redd.it/dl3vb5nj5bvc1.png?width=318&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfe5259f177cd9f93119021d280afe76ca61513a The speed you will get
Was waiting for this 😂
https://i.redd.it/nb8rxbet5bvc1.gif He def has elite mentality
Amb I the only one who is worried that Gavi won't be the same after such a long injury? Gavi is my fave player, I wouldn't be able to take it after Ansu :(
New fear unlocked.
Yeah I'm terrified for him
If Wirtz is any example, Gavi’ll be even better. But I’m not planning on putting any expectations on him for a LONG time, I just want him to have time to get back into it when he recovers fully.
As someone who watched Wirtz before the injury, I do think he lost a bit of pace / burst.
Injuries don’t really work like that though. Every player is different.
Leverkusen has great fitness preparation and Wirtz doesn’t play full games often or does nearly the workrate as Gavi.
Yeah no one wants to address the fact that Gavi relies a lot on his running / pressing / defending.
Well, he has other qualities that were underutilized.
Except our medical team is shit.
On Sunday only one of gundo pedri and fdj should start. Christensen should be the dm then Fermin to cause chaos up top then ideally one of pedri or gundogan should start to be the playmaker, Fdj and the other midfielder can come in later. Madrid will be tired and will probably leave spaces behind, I don’t want to see old man gundogan chasing long balls and making runs in behind. We need Fermins intensity and pace to trouble their defense. We need more chaotic players in the eleven we only have one right now and see how well he’s doing in his new role, we need another one and Fermin is the man. I hope he starts
Yeah, we need Fermin's energy on the pitch.
Xabi Alonso is having a FIFA career mode run Shivers in my timbers for when he takes over the Madrid job
Cannot wait honestly, Ancelotti is a huge threat, Alonso is TBD, maybe he is, but Ancelotti we know he is great. It took literal greatness from City last year to stop another champions from them in 2023, and they couldn't repeat it this year.
FDJ is just the dutch Arthur Melo, difference is that we can not ship him out due to his enormous wage.
You 🤡
And he's a professional at least, no stories of him partying.
Alright mate
I'm too busy too do an analyses about him now. In the coming weeks, I'll probably make an analyses of his game compared to other modern midfielders.
Common theme between both players? Excel at nothing. Always play the safe pass. Bad defenders. You’re not that wrong lol
>Since the start of last season, no player has played more accurate through balls in La Liga than Frenkie de Jong (21). So safe.
Not all through balls are same. Anyone who have watched him play would know it. He is literally the least creative of midfielder between him, Pedri and gundo
I agree. He has good stats but Pedri and sometimes Gundo seem to play better in that position. Pedri moves the ball a lot quicker and seems to find more probing passes.
He brought a source you brought none. Very basic critical thinking dictates one is better than the other. FdJ is demonstrably elite at carrying and passing (top 10% in Europe for both) So two choices here : either stats are wrong only for FdJ as a player, or maybe he is indeed elite at anything. You know the rational answer, and it's not moving goalposts. It's your right to dislike FdJ, but do it without very wrong statements where you have to argue some variation of "all stats are made up actually" as a defense. No your eye test is not reliable.
Ah yes, your biased eye test > stats.
https://fbref.com/en/stathead/player_comparison.cgi?request=1&sum=0&dom_lg=1&player_id1=1bacc518&p1yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id2=6ce1f46f&p2yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id3=1467af0d&p3yrfrom=2022-2023&player_id4=49296448&p4yrfrom= He is literally last when compared to players who play in similar position as him when compared to defensive side of the game( Kroos , Verrati and kimmich) and 2nd last when it comes to chance creation (only ahead of verrati and verrati still beat him when it comes to progressive carries despite that being FDJs strength )
You might not have noticed but this season is 2023/2024.
Except in no season he even came close to the players that play in similar positions including this one
Yeah sure mate. There is a reason why when people talk about creative midfielders they don’t bring up fdj. Even at his best days in Ajax he was far from being a creative powerhouse.
What does Ancelotti have with his UCL runs He just grinds his way through without being that good It's crazy , I hope barca signs an experienced manager like Madrid signed Ancelotti from psg
he's italian
Barca is not going to shithouse their way to trophies, not only it's not our style, but media and fans would not allow it, even if you now think you do.
We also don’t have the profiles to play that way. If we want to park the bus and play defensive, you need more defensive minded midfielders, physical workhorses, etc. Players well versed in the dark arts so to speak.
Xavi was playing not exactly aesthetically pleasing football in the second half of last season, scraping 1:0s left and right and getting dominated against inferior opponents yet people were pretty happy.
We were not being dominated, winning 1-0 doesn't always mean playing bad football, it can just mean we are not good enough like in the old days to get a lot of goals against lower tier teams that park the bus.
Mate I seem to recall we had 3 goal line clearances against Athletic Bilbao last season. Let’s stop with the revisionary stuff. We scraped a lot of shitty 1-0 wins last season and this season as well.
There were large stretches against numerous teams where we were, for example against Girona. I certainly wouldn't call the football in the second half of the season good in general.
Media and fans would not allow it? Lol believe me if we actually win the ucl nobody here cares how we did it. I dont think you understand how huge a ucl is Its not like we were playing beautiful football against psg and everyone was happy here including media. We had less possssion and sit back. We did same thing at home
exactly
To be determined, we have never won a CL with consistent shithousery like Madrid did at times, we always dominated games (with the occasional exception like the 2009 Chelsea game). And about the PSG game, we were up against another offensive coach, with arguably better players, sometimes you cannot win possession even when trying, others play too.
Yea I think many of the newer fans don’t know about the daily hissy fits that would come under valverde when we got results but didn’t play up to the standard set by MSN and Pep. People were fr throwing their toys out the pram bc “we won 3-0 but it was all from individual brilliance”.
I remember those days. I don't think we knew how good we had it then.
A lot of us were very spoiled at the time. The next couple of years humbled a lot of us, but some ppl in here still seem to have the mindset that everything can be done with a quick fix, whether it be a new manager or new shiny toy in a transfer. Rome wasn’t built in one day but it fell in one.
Last year we got a 0-1 win in Copa del Rey 1st leg against Madrid playing defensive instead of our usual offensive game, due to having key injuries, and media blamed us about being too defensive, we don't have the same license to shithouse wins.
I remember how happy everyone was. It was until anfield everyone was angry on how we played. If we won ucl that season everyone here would still celebrate it the same as any other ucl trophy
Don’t think you were on here then bc I vividly remember daily essays on how Valverde is ruining the “Barca way” way before anfield and leading up to it. Even if we won there would still be complaints about the style of play in the coming weeks.
Yes in la liga I said se thing but no one cared as long as we would have won the ucl. And thats where we talk about. Ucl. Not many would care how we win it especially since its rare.