Ask a guy that spent 2 hours listening to Guillem Balague, Sid Lowe and Graham Hunter at Lord's for 2 hours yesterday anything

free_cat wrote:Nothing really interesting to be honest. I have better exclusives about Messi than these guys.

Anyway, this sounds like a pile of crap:

jibers wrote:
He went to Catalonia at a time where Catalan separatism was being passed around so he was discriminated against in la masia (Iniesta had a similar thing). On the pitch people refused to pass the ball to him and his dad said that if he gets the ball he should dribble everybody and score, which he did. From then on they started passing the ball to him all the time.

La Masia is full of foreigners (when messi came too), and Catalan separatism was not really on the rise when he came. It started to increase a lot 5 years ago, not 10. There's no possible reason why an argentine would be discriminated because of catalan separatism, it would be more logical than a spaniard is discriminated.

I'll take Balagues word over yours thanks.

He was bullied in La Masia because he was so small. Other players didnt believe he could play as well as they did. Pique even made fun of Messi frequently saying his little brother was bigger then him. In Messi's first match for the first team he was the only player to actually create a chance.

Seems like some crucial information is missing as well. Did they mention the permit problems? At one point he had to choose between going back to his family in argentina or staying in Barça alone, wich is a BIG choice at 15/16. He was also very injury prone when he was so young wich made him not play that much as said in the interview lol he didnt switch that many teams

Collblanc wrote:Seems like some crucial information is missing as well. Did they mention the permit problems? At one point he had to choose between going back to his family in argentina or staying in Barça alone, wich is a BIG choice at 15/16. He was also very injury prone when he was so young wich made him not play that much as said in the interview lol he didnt switch that many teams

Yea the injury bit was when he was younger, but i think it was a year before he moved up he played in every single youth team at Barca in a year or something. Only player in barca history to do so iirc

jibers wrote:

free_cat wrote:Nothing really interesting to be honest. I have better exclusives about Messi than these guys.

Anyway, this sounds like a pile of crap:

jibers wrote:
He went to Catalonia at a time where Catalan separatism was being passed around so he was discriminated against in la masia (Iniesta had a similar thing). On the pitch people refused to pass the ball to him and his dad said that if he gets the ball he should dribble everybody and score, which he did. From then on they started passing the ball to him all the time.

La Masia is full of foreigners (when messi came too), and Catalan separatism was not really on the rise when he came. It started to increase a lot 5 years ago, not 10. There's no possible reason why an argentine would be discriminated because of catalan separatism, it would be more logical than a spaniard is discriminated.

I'll take Balagues word over yours thanks.

Well, his word is clearly wrong as Catalan separatism was very weak when Messi came to Catalonia 14 years ago and la Masia was already full of foreigners, several at every age team. It's not about taking his word over mine, both are facts.

And I repeat, nothing is really interesting.

free_cat wrote:

jibers wrote:

free_cat wrote:Nothing really interesting to be honest. I have better exclusives about Messi than these guys.

Anyway, this sounds like a pile of crap:

La Masia is full of foreigners (when messi came too), and Catalan separatism was not really on the rise when he came. It started to increase a lot 5 years ago, not 10. There's no possible reason why an argentine would be discriminated because of catalan separatism, it would be more logical than a spaniard is discriminated.

I'll take Balagues word over yours thanks.

Well, his word is clearly wrong as Catalan separatism was very weak when Messi came to Catalonia 14 years ago and la Masia was already full of foreigners, several at every age team. It's not about taking his word over mine, both are facts.

And I repeat, nothing is really interesting.

if it's not interesting then gtfo. You don't have to post. fml

jibers wrote:

free_cat wrote:

jibers wrote:I'll take Balagues word over yours thanks.

Well, his word is clearly wrong as Catalan separatism was very weak when Messi came to Catalonia 14 years ago and la Masia was already full of foreigners, several at every age team. It's not about taking his word over mine, both are facts.

And I repeat, nothing is really interesting.

if it's not interesting then gtfo. You don't have to post. fml

Indeed, it's not really interesting, but if some of the information is clearly false (Catalan separatism being widespread in La Masia 14 years ago, wtf!) I feel the need to explain the truth.
I'm a defender of the truth, anywhere and anytime.

free_cat wrote:

jibers wrote:

free_cat wrote:Well, his word is clearly wrong as Catalan separatism was very weak when Messi came to Catalonia 14 years ago and la Masia was already full of foreigners, several at every age team. It's not about taking his word over mine, both are facts.

And I repeat, nothing is really interesting.

if it's not interesting then gtfo. You don't have to post. fml

Indeed, it's not really interesting, but if some of the information is clearly false (Catalan separatism being widespread in La Masia 14 years ago, wtf!) I feel the need to explain the truth.
I'm a defender of the truth, anywhere and anytime.

Nope, you're a D-bag, theres other ways to say what you think is true without being disrespectful. You did none of those.

Thank you Jibers btw for writing all this up, the Messi stuff was particularly interesting to me since i dont know too much about him, its sad to see he has had so many problems in his life, it explains alot about him.

I read Graham Hunter's book on Barca and was thoroughly unimpressed with it. Good for someone who knows nothing about Barca, but read like a collection of online articles to a fan. Sid Lowe, on the other hand, I respect as someone who on the very least writes very well about football (a rarity in sports journalism) and does not always focus on the biggest story. I think these impressions are corroborated by Jibers' findings.

Messi being very untrustworthy is hardly surprising. He is a very low-profile person given his level of fame and only uses social media because of his contract with Baidu. But man if the Estiarte story is true to that level of detail (and the only way it would be true is if Estiarte told it, and I find that very hard to believe considering that would be betraying Messi) then Messi can hold a grudge

chinomaster182 wrote:

free_cat wrote:

jibers wrote:if it's not interesting then gtfo. You don't have to post. fml

Indeed, it's not really interesting, but if some of the information is clearly false (Catalan separatism being widespread in La Masia 14 years ago, wtf!) I feel the need to explain the truth.
I'm a defender of the truth, anywhere and anytime.

Nope, you're a D-bag, theres other ways to say what you think is true without being disrespectful. You did none of those.

Thank you Jibers btw for writing all this up, the Messi stuff was particularly interesting to me since i dont know too much about him, its sad to see he has had so many problems in his life, it explains alot about him.

How was I disrespectful? Says so the one who just called me D-bag. Hilarious.

Also, it's not "my view of what is true", it is the truth. Catalan independentism had a parliamentary representation of only 8,8% 14 years ago, compared to the 50% it now holds, and I've never heard of La Masia being some kind of "independentist factory". Actually, La Masia educates their kids away from politics.

free_cat wrote:

chinomaster182 wrote:

free_cat wrote:Indeed, it's not really interesting, but if some of the information is clearly false (Catalan separatism being widespread in La Masia 14 years ago, wtf!) I feel the need to explain the truth.
I'm a defender of the truth, anywhere and anytime.

Nope, you're a D-bag, theres other ways to say what you think is true without being disrespectful. You did none of those.

Thank you Jibers btw for writing all this up, the Messi stuff was particularly interesting to me since i dont know too much about him, its sad to see he has had so many problems in his life, it explains alot about him.

How was I disrespectful? Says so the one who just called me D-bag. Hilarious.

Also, it's not "my view of what is true", it is the truth. Catalan independentism had a parliamentary representation of only 8,8% 14 years ago, compared to the 50% it now holds, and I've never heard of La Masia being some kind of "independentist factory". Actually, La Masia educates their kids away from politics.

Next time try, "hey jibers, thanks for taking your time to write this all up, i disagree with Balague in xxxx because xxxxx".

Outright saying that someones retelling of an experience is uninteresting is being a D-bag, truth nonwithstanding.

chinomaster182 wrote:

free_cat wrote:

chinomaster182 wrote:Nope, you're a D-bag, theres other ways to say what you think is true without being disrespectful. You did none of those.

Thank you Jibers btw for writing all this up, the Messi stuff was particularly interesting to me since i dont know too much about him, its sad to see he has had so many problems in his life, it explains alot about him.

How was I disrespectful? Says so the one who just called me D-bag. Hilarious.

Also, it's not "my view of what is true", it is the truth. Catalan independentism had a parliamentary representation of only 8,8% 14 years ago, compared to the 50% it now holds, and I've never heard of La Masia being some kind of "independentist factory". Actually, La Masia educates their kids away from politics.

Next time try, "hey jibers, thanks for taking your time to write this all up, i disagree with Balague in xxxx because xxxxx".

Outright saying that someones retelling of an experience is uninteresting is being a D-bag, truth nonwithstanding.

You are very funny talking about respect and throwing an insult at each on of your posts.

I'm grateful to Jibers for taking the time writing this, however, most of what Hunter, Lowe or Balague said it's not really new or interesting. It's nothing against Jibers, but against Lowe, Hunter or Balague in any case.

My man Jib

That was very interesting, thanks for the write up. The politics of Spanish football always astound me.