What exactly are Barcelona doing?

They go after Bellerín. Deal done, matter of hours… Bellerín doesn’t sign for Barcelona. Instead they sign Semedo (not a bad start, to be honest).

They go after Verrati. Deal done, matter of hours… Verrati doesn’t sign for Barcelona

They go after Theo Hernández. He signs for R. Madrid

They go after Ceballos. They offer a higher salary and more playing time than R. Madrid… Ceballos signs for R. Madrid.

Al-Khelaïfi puts his crosshairs on the future of Barcelona: Neymar Jr.

Piqué tweets the infamous “Se queda” and everyone in Barcelona rejoices and mocks PSG. 10 days later Neymar signs for PSG.

Neymar not only leaves but he’s asking for the €26M signing bonus from his last contract with FCB.

They reach an agreement with Real Sociedad for the transfer of Íñigo Martínez paying the amount of the release clause (€32M) to avoid having to pay VAT, when it's all ready to be signed they try to lowball Real Sociedad and they break all negotiations with Barça.

They go after Coutinho. Deal done, matter of hours… FSG publicly tells Barça to stop pursuing Coutinho and Liverpool’s Spanish twitter account mocks the “Se queda”.

Coutinho hands in transfer request.

They go after Dembélé. Deal done, matter of hours… BVB asks for €130M. Barça representative says it’s a done deal. Watzke says it’s not a done deal, not even close.

R. Madrid dances around Barça on the Spanish SuperCup beating them 5-1 on aggregate.

A member of the FC Barcelona board criticizes Piqué in public for his own goal.

Revealed that Barça didn’t sign Asensio because they wanted to pay the €4M transfer over several payments and R. Madrid paid the 4M upfront and swooped in Asensio.

Camp Nou filled up with madridistas on the 1st leg of the SuperCup, it doesn’t happen the opposite on the 2nd leg.

Barcelona signs Paulinho for €40M, a 29 y.o. that plays in the Chinese SuperLeague. Everyone is livid.

During the presentation of Paulinho, vice-president Jordi Mestre admits that Messi hasn't signed the contract extension yet. A month prior to this, Bartomeu lied and said that yes, it was all signed and the only thing left was to make a ceremony.

Dembélé goes missing from training first and then trashes his house. Everyone points at FC Barcelona for this behavior.

Barcelona gives Liverpool an ultimatum to accept their offer. Liverpool’s reaction: “K…”

Barcelona-based newspapers tell that Seri is a matter of hours and that the release clause is €40M, which will be paid. Barça offers €35M. Nice says that release clause is expired and the asking price is €40M + players.

Barcelona wants to sue Neymar for €9.3M + the signing bonus they already paid to Neymar.

Neymar shit-talks Barça’s board.

Now Seri is not wanted by the coaches at FCB. The player had already bid farewell to his teammates. They tell this to him by phone.

They go after Di Maria. PSG rejects the offer and deems Di Maria as “not for sale”.

Messi, Neymar, and Rakitic post on social media about a a few players attending Neymar’s son b-day party and banter about the “Se queda”.

FCBarcelona twitter account gets hacked.

FC Barcelona handball legend Enric Masip states that the board is incapable and if they had any idea of how to re-direct the situation they would "open internal proceedings against" Leo Messi for his instagram post about Neymar’s son b-day party.
to be continued

The management

I'm not sure where to even begin here. They have done shady deals, put the clubs name into disrepute, destroyed relationships with other top clubs like never before. Foreign fans may not know this but the socios do not think like most people. They are hardcore conservatives that are fine with keeping the status quo and it has always been this way.

Nunez was in power for 22 years because he maintained the status quo. Johan was seen as a troublemaker and wasn't the norm. The only reason Laporta managed to win despite being seen as an upstart is because of the awful state of the Barcelona finances and the melancholy that surrounded the club.

Guardiola is still attacked regularly by paid journalists under 'their' control despite starting off as a ball boy and rising up to a captain and leading them to their most successful era. If they can do that to him, how do you think they hold the opinions of the general fans? In contempt. They do not care. It became so bad that Guardiola responded that the Nunistas should leave him alone when he was at Bayern because they kept attacking him.

They board brought the ultras back to the stadium, they pushed several great coaches out of La Masia such as Oscar Garcia and hired people that had no experience. They did this in order to rid the club of Cruijffistas even though the bedrock of La Masia is built on Johan's philosphy (and King Louis, one must not forget).

They promised to renew Abidals contract and he was let go, they sold the gem of La Masia, Thiago Alcantara simply to fund their deceitful Neymar deal. They sold him for peanuts. They fired the legendary kit man Txema Corbella who has been at the club for 32 years. They signed Douglas in some sort off shady scheme.

They got the club involved with Qatar, who ironically have now come to take away Neymar from them. They destroyed the 80 year old Barcelona basketball team.

They tried to frame Laporta by misrepresenting the accounts he left in a surplus. This was already proven by a judge in court. They dragged his name thought the mud. Laporta is by no means an angel as he used Barcelona to advance his political inclinations but he actually improved Barcelonas standing on the world stage.

They have mismanaged the finances so badly. Average players in the squad are on astronomical wages. Compare it to Real Madrid's finances where a player like Marcelo is on 80 000 a week despite being arguably the most decisive player in his position.

Bringing players through the ranks helps to lower the wage bill. Ironically this has been Madrids most successful era in modern football and they are using the philosphy of bringing through academy players whilst Barcelona have resorted to the failed Galacticos model of the 2000s era. That in itself is unforgivable.

It took Pique meeting the cro of Rakuten for Barcelona to find sponsorship. The board are so incompetent. The only positive note on that Barcelona will start receiving 140 million are year from Nike sponsorship so this will alleviate the current wage bill issue.

I can go on in far more detail but I will stop here.

La Masia

The directors of La Masia were changed as previously mentioned and this disrupted the organisation of the teams of all levels. Players began to be mismanaged, the focus became more on winning than improving technique and the style of play was changed from more positinal play schemes to counter attacking. A lot of youths have become disenfranchised as they see no route to the first team.

Puyol recently acting as an agent for Eric Garcia, allowed him to move to Manchester City. Now what does that tell you when one of the greatest captain in the clubs history thinks the player will do better in another club than in the club he played in for years.

Despite all the problems throughout the post Cruijff era, La Masia endured and became even more convicted in the ideal. This is arguably the worst presidency period in Barcelonas history and that is saying something because this club has been the most mismanaged top club in the history of football.

They have had Maradona at his peak, thy had Johan at his peak, they had Kubala at his peak, yet won only one European Cup after Johan became manager. I mean, the club tured don't he opportunity to sign Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard to sign Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes. Let that sink in for how badly run this club has been.

People keep talking about not having Xavi and Iniesta's but they miss the whole point. Busquets wasn't seen as a prospect until Pep came and took positinal play into the modern era. Busquets is the ideal La Masia example here. He is the perfect player for the system but would struggle when he has too much space as he has done under Enrique. His skillset never changed, he was asked to do things he simply can't.

La Masia players have all the basic knowledge of positinal play but the first team hasn't utilised since at least 2013 so the skill set that these players have honed all their lives in the academy cannot be used for the first team so they are left in a limbo. As Johan said, either you are fully committed 100% or don't bother.

People talk about Cruijffs philosphy but it has not been used since Tito sadly left the club. Tata deviated from it and Enrique is the emboidment of the boards decision to steer the club in another direction.

Watching the ex Barcelona presidents clapping in the Classico after Johan's death made me sick and reminded me of Mafia family members going to the funeral of a rival they had just had put down.

The First Team

The team is essentially the most one man reliant team in Europe. Messi is the judge, jury and executioner on the pitch and affects the club on the board room level. This is something that does not happen at other bug clubs.

With the sale of Neymar the board had an opportunity to restore some sanity and sign a coach that actually knows how to execute positinal attacks such as Sarri, Laudrup, Quique Setien, Eusabio Sacristan,Tuchel, Paco Jemez, Oscar Garcia and a few more but the board are cowards and hired Valverde as a safe option. I still have my doubts about him and his supposed wanting of Paulinho raised my suspicion.

I would have Gotten rid of players like Rakitic, Arda Turan, Paco Alcacer, Mascherano and I would have signed Roque Mesa, Jorghinho from Napoli and Sergej Milinkovic. Players that fit the profile not world class signings hyped by the media. Players who have specific strengths that can be utilised in the game of position.

If Sarri can coach Jorghinho/Diawara, Hamsik and Zielinski to have the best build up in the first 2/3rds of the pitch in the whole of Europe there is no excuse that a club that has been doing this for over 20+ years cannot execute it to an optimal level. Coaching is the biggest issue.

I would put Deulofeu on the left wing and then try and buy Dembele if a statement signing is required. Possibly sell Vermalen and try for another centre back such as Laporte or Inigo Martinez or Switch to a back 3 because Messi's runs into the centre means that an effective position game can't be utilised as there is always an overlap or a gap either in the flank or in the centre when the opposing team beats the first line of pressure from Barcelona.

This means that Barcelona cannot control the centre which is a must to dominate games effectively and not just circulate the ball in the sacrilegious U shape round the back and pass horizontally without any purpose or tactical forethought and then have the illusion of 'control' becaue you have 60%+ possession.

The board looking at Dybala baffles me as both him and Messi occupy the same Zones. Who would make the off the ball runs? Suarez cannot do it on his own and you need wingers to stretch the pitch horizontally to create space in the middle.

A basic football concept that has eluded Barcelona for the best part of 2 seasons. Neymar usually just ignored width provided by Albas overlapping run and just held on to the ball for far too long, attempted a dribble that made no sense or looked for Messi to pass to when teammates are in better positions. In fact I suspect Jordi Alba will be the happiest Neymar has left.

All in all I don't think things will get better. Messi is 30 and at the tail end of his career and there is no plan in place. The club is approaching the point that required a revolution in the 2000s. La Masia is being misuse because the head doesn't work with the body anymore.

CBarca wrote:The current board has destroyed everything that made Barca beautiful

Casciavit wrote:Uhhh... he was 21 years old when he left Inter.

He's 25 now.

He's improved every season, and he will take the next step at Barca. I said he could be Iniesta successor 3 years ago, so I'm glad it may come true.

Myesyats wrote:

Casciavit wrote:Uhhh... he was 21 years old when he left Inter.

He's 25 now.

He's improved every season, and he will take the next step at Barca. I said he could be Iniesta successor 3 years ago, so I'm glad it may come true.

finally someone understands that players improve and develop. lmao

Myesyats wrote:Who do you think would be a better option for Barca's midfield then?

Hapless_Hans wrote:

Myesyats wrote:Who do you think would be a better option for Barca's midfield then?

That I do not know. How is your coach planning to play, at all? I have no idea what profile you're looking for.

Myesyats wrote:Now that I think about it I completely fail to understand why we were chasing Coutinho for 150M all summer when we probably could have had Mesut Ozil for half of that money and more quality.

But we have Paulinho. Yaaay.

danyjr wrote:Disastrous transfer campaign would be putting it mildly

These guys went from signing Verratti to losing Neymar, overpaying for Dembélé and not being able to sign their month-long target in Coutinho

Congratulations to Real Madrid for winning La Liga 2017-18