La Liga: Real Sociedad vs Barcelona

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Do you guys think Pep was right to prioritize the Milan game over this one? Perhaps a tricky question given that we know the outcome of one and some could argue that we could've won against Milan with our B-ish team.

Are you implying that Sociedad should be taken more seriously than Milan?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Do you guys think Pep was right to prioritize the Milan game over this one? Perhaps a tricky question given that we know the outcome of one and some could argue that we could've won against Milan with our B-ish team.

you dont even need to win over milan btw, its the group stages

omarish wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Do you guys think Pep was right to prioritize the Milan game over this one? Perhaps a tricky question given that we know the outcome of one and some could argue that we could've won against Milan with our B-ish team.

you dont even need to win over milan btw, its the group stages

Yea I agree, but I think we should get sufficient points to progress first before considering resting our A team in the CL

Why Panic?

- We always suffered after international break, some players had to rest ( Guardiola knows better).. " just 7 wins of the last 22 La Liga matches after international break!!"

- Losing these points @ this stage is not bad, its a wakeup call, so our players won't get over-confident.. We has to lose @ some point, & this is the best time, where we can recover... ( remember Numancia 08/09 & Hercules 10/11, @ least this time we didn't lose..)

- We don't need a CB.. ( Pique, Puyol, Abidal & Mascherano out due to different reasons, its rare that this will happen again..) anyway, i think Fontas was fine.. ( considering this is his first match this season & play with Busquets..)

- This is a BAD news for ACMilan!!

Well I missed this game... I don't think I want to see it now.

Fifa virus strikes again...smh

No worries, its enough to win titles, let other guys taste it once. if there was no mourinho i'd give the liga title to r.madrid with pleasure. probably barca players also think like that

We always lose the trap games.

It is not FIFA virus, it is Guardiola.

Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

When you play for your country you play with/for pride, not to get paid.

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

I know you are an Argentine man.And that you care deeply about the Argentine NT.
But with all due respect I dont give a damn about NT football.
I just hate it when we lose points always after a stupid international break.
I mean friendlies.What the hell.
And its this bad with us because almost all our players are world class and all of them get called up to remote parts of the world.

alexjanosik wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

I know you are an Argentine man.And that you care deeply about the Argentine NT.
But with all due respect I dont give a damn about NT football.
I just hate it when we lose points always after a stupid international break.
I mean friendlies.What the hell.
And its this bad with us because almost all our players are world class and all of them get called up to remote parts of the world.

ALL THAT is true but what remote parts of the world? most of barca players play for the top countries , all powerhouses..

diptiman wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

I know you are an Argentine man.And that you care deeply about the Argentine NT.
But with all due respect I dont give a damn about NT football.
I just hate it when we lose points always after a stupid international break.
I mean friendlies.What the hell.
And its this bad with us because almost all our players are world class and all of them get called up to remote parts of the world.

ALL THAT is true but what remote parts of the world? most of barca players play for the top countries , all powerhouses..

He means their opponents and the length the players have to travel. Traveling from Barcelona to Sth America is a long, long trip regardless of whether you consider Chile or Argentina powerhouses.

alexjanosik wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

I know you are an Argentine man.And that you care deeply about the Argentine NT.
But with all due respect I dont give a damn about NT football.
I just hate it when we lose points always after a stupid international break.
I mean friendlies.What the hell.
And its this bad with us because almost all our players are world class and all of them get called up to remote parts of the world.

Man... I'm really surprised at this Alex. Not really sure what to say if you can't see the value of internationals. I don't personally care about any of their national teams either, but I think they should play for them if they want. If I was a footballer, I'd do anything to play for my country... even if I had to take ridiculously long flights and be jetlagged and tired.

You're saying players should retire that have a whole career ahead of them ...

I hate losing after the international break and I don't like international breaks normally because I can't watch as many games, but seriously come on. We've suffered for so many years we should be trying to find a way around this. Clearly we started this game reasonably strongly... if the team did the old Barca thing where they then switch off and draw the match I don't think we can blame it on the Fifa virus entirely. Pep knows they had that break and should have been proactive in avoiding what happened.

We should bring Botia back, he is definitely better than Fontas. Fontas is terrible and in pair with Busquets they make the worst possible CB pairing. I don't want to see Fontas on the pitch for long time. Maybe in 1/16 of Copa del Rey he should come back, now he can warm the seat in the stadium, cause he shouldn't even be on the bench.

BTW, what's the worst? Fontas in the line-up, Busquets as CB or Keita as DMF? I know it's tough to choose but try. IMO 1. Fontas, 2. Busquets, 3. Keita but they are all terrible, Pep must stop with this Keita love and not play him so often ffs.

ChollaVille wrote:It is not FIFA virus, it is Guardiola.

It's not Guardiola, it is the FIFA virus. 7 wins in the last 22 international break? I don't belive that stats are everything, but in this case imo the stats aint lying...

The Franchise wrote:Tempted to rant, but I will resist. What I wil however say is;

I guess lessons wasnt learnt from last season, taking your foot off the gas because your two goals up. Dissapointing.

Busquets owned in the air for the goal and Fontas looked pretty bad up against a relative nobody in Agirretxe. As I said, should of got a defender.

I dont understand how its okay for us to have like 8 midfielders for 3 positions but we have to make do with 2.5 centerbacks.

I dont think we really played well, not even in the first half. The goals came because Sociedad played a high line and obsurdly decieded not to close down the passers. About 7 times the same chipped ball over the top produced chances. But other then that ball, where was the other creation once they fixed the high line problem?

In the first half was at least was controlling in possession and bossed the game.

The second was poor, not enough control over the game.

I didnt mind the rotation, but was dropping Abidal and Messi really needed? Especially Messi. I like the rotation, just not involving him when it isnt actually needed.

I expect Madrid to win, its 1-1 right now, but Getafe will eventually roll over and die for them.

Nice comments dani. I am glad someone has said we weren't playing well even in the first half.

I wouldn't like to comment on any individual mistakes. Rather I want to bring up two points which I think lie at the crux of what was wrong with the team this time. BTW I couldn't see the second half and was greeted by the shocking final score once I came home.

1. Not playing even one of Puyol, Abidal and Mascherano is dangerous against any team. You need at least one last ditch defender with good tackling ability.

2. Playing without both Messi and Iniesta is difficult. Thiago is probably the only one who can be the ball carrier in their absence but his immaturity shows at times and there are times when he does not really blend into the game. When the composition around him is right and he blends into the game properly, it's then that we get to see what a special talent he is. Anyway coming back to what happened we used far too many chipped balls and there was a real lack of rhythm and tempo in our game. Now we do use chipped balls well and one chipped ball every ten minutes is quite acceptable but when it's one chipped ball every minute you do realize that this is not the Barcelona that you know. Where was our unparalleled movement on and off the ball? As I said before if neither Messi nor Iniesta are on the pitch we lose a lot in terms of on the ball movement and as a result off the ball movement also suffers leading to a major loss in our usual symphonic playing style. Alexis Sanchez was the one player who tried hard to make up for this and some of his movement with the ball was good but it was still not enough.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Do you guys think Pep was right to prioritize the Milan game over this one? Perhaps a tricky question given that we know the outcome of one and some could argue that we could've won against Milan with our B-ish team.

Considering our UCL group winning against Milan isn't crucial while considering La Liga at the moment even a single dropped point can hurt. I don't think it was that much a case of prioritizing but rather of giving some of the players who had been heavily involved with their national teams some rest.

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

alex, what are you saying???

Are you saying international football should stop completely?

Or what can be other ways of letting it exist? After all it has to be played in these once a month breaks only. If you say number of friendlies should be decreased or that qualifiers should have less matches then I can agree with that.

I am really surprised by this. So far you are one of the few people in these forums who gives world cups, Euros, etc. as much importance as I do. Hence I don't know why suddenly you are saying such things.

Besides remember that day we were discussing about what more Xavi could do to rise higher in say an all time top hundred. Both of us felt that one more international title could help a lot. It's commendable that Xavi and Villa still have the hunger to win more international titles in spite of having won everything in the game. Ultimately they are legends for the national team and it's up to them to decide when they want to call it quits.

In the last few seasons we have got through all these problems with a very small squad. This time we have greater strength in numbers which should make it even easier to deal with such things. I know defense is a problem but that's a matter of Pep's personal choice and I would like to give him more time to see how it goes. Pep could have played Abidal or Mascherano if he wanted even if they had been heavily involved with the national team but he thought Fontas and Busquets would be enough and eventually it didn't work out. Let's wait and see how Pep handles such situations in future.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Do you guys think Pep was right to prioritize the Milan game over this one? Perhaps a tricky question given that we know the outcome of one and some could argue that we could've won against Milan with our B-ish team.

Well I didnt have a problem with resting ay Iniesta, Mascherano and Villa. It wasnt a big deal.

But we are short at the back, did we really need to rest Abidal? People will say it was a chance to test Fontas, thats great, but wouldnt it make more sense to test him when he has a Puyol or a Pique by his side and not Busquets?

Also, Messi doesnt need rest, Pep is the one who says this. So did he really need to rest him for Milan? Last season, this wouldnt of happened, but now we have more depth, it seems its ok.

I am not sure. Rotating the squad is fine, but Messi isnt part of that in my opinion. He only gets rest, when he is actually tired. At least thats how I see it.

I agree, Messi should be starting all these early matches... we want early momentum. No time for experiments yet in my opinion. Rotating is fine, but only to an extent, and Messi should be playing.

I agree Fontas should not play with Busquets, but there is a simple reason and people need to stop with these knee-jerk reactions to his performances. Fontas is like Pique and Busquets... so he shouldn't ever really be paired with these guys ideally. He'd be best alongside Puyol, who could lend his experience, pace, tackling and positioning to the partnership. Mascherano would be a good partner as well. I don't really want to see Pique and Fontas together because they're similar players and we've seen evidence of Pique being lazy when he doesn't have someone like Puyol alongside him. With Fontas, I can see the odd mistake and player slipping through. Busquets is easily the worst to be partnered with, because he is even more of a ballplayer and is just as slow. He's not a CB, so should only really ever be playing there alongside someone like Puyol.

BarcaKizz wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

alexjanosik wrote:Stats dont lie.I hate the freaking international break.Ridiculous.
They should ban internationals.And why the hell dont our players retire from the NT?
Xavi and Villa should retire.Same with Abidal,Messi,Alves etc.
The club pays them,not the freaking NT.

Because winning the world cup is the ultimate dream of every footballer out there?

I know you are an Argentine man.And that you care deeply about the Argentine NT.
But with all due respect I dont give a damn about NT football.
I just hate it when we lose points always after a stupid international break.
I mean friendlies.What the hell.
And its this bad with us because almost all our players are world class and all of them get called up to remote parts of the world.

Man... I'm really surprised at this Alex. Not really sure what to say if you can't see the value of internationals. I don't personally care about any of their national teams either, but I think they should play for them if they want. If I was a footballer, I'd do anything to play for my country... even if I had to take ridiculously long flights and be jetlagged and tired.

You're saying players should retire that have a whole career ahead of them ...

I hate losing after the international break and I don't like international breaks normally because I can't watch as many games, but seriously come on. We've suffered for so many years we should be trying to find a way around this. Clearly we started this game reasonably strongly... if the team did the old Barca thing where they then switch off and draw the match I don't think we can blame it on the Fifa virus entirely. Pep knows they had that break and should have been proactive in avoiding what happened.

It was an overreaction after the result.
But still the numbers dont lie.
7 wins out of 22 after an international break.
Maybe they shouldnt retire(although the Barca fan still feels all our players should retire lol).But international friendlies are meaningless and none of our players should ever be sent for them.
I think all major clubs should get together and lobby with Uefa and FIFA.
Include something in players contracts that will empower the clubs to prevent players from playing friendlies.No more sending away important players for ridiculous frindlies.
The NT can call up under 23 players for friendlies if they want.
Also the qualification campaigns need to be shortened as you mentioned.

jd
I have explained my stance on the issue.The first rant was an overreaction.

alexjanosik wrote:
It was an overreaction after the result.
But still the numbers dont lie.
7 wins out of 22 after an international break.
Maybe they shouldnt retire(although the Barca fan still feels all our players should retire lol).But international friendlies are meaningless and none of our players should ever be sent for them.
I think all major clubs should get together and lobby with Uefa and FIFA.
Include something in players contracts that will empower the clubs to prevent players from playing friendlies.No more sending away important players for ridiculous frindlies.
The NT can call up under 23 players for friendlies if they want.
Also the qualification campaigns need to be shortened as you mentioned.

jd
I have explained my stance on the issue.The first rant was an overreaction.

I understand alex. In fact I kind of expected it. There is no way someone like you would post something like that after considerable thought. About the friendlies I say we need all parties to get together and work out a sensible number so that players are not stressed out but national teams can still work out their tactics. The qualifiers must be shortened no doubt. Make it happen in phases as happens for so many other zones. Why not for the European zone? What can possibly be gained by having Spain playing Liechenstein except for some stadium and TV revenue?

I can see why Alex was/is so upset, I am too.

I dont think friendlies should be scrapped per say, because NT's already play generally dull football because the players dont get enough time to play together.

However, playing 30 year old Xavi in a friendly is simply retarded.

I would have it so the players go into training camps when called up for NT duty but no matches are to be played. They go away for the same amount of time, but they will be stupid travel to far away lands for most players and they wont get fatigued in matches. Have those training camps, obviously not for fitness purporses, but for coaches to have plenty of time to work on trying to make a cohesive team.

So, no friendly matches, just training camps.

I submit, coaches ideally want to test new players in matches and brining them straight into major tournaments is quite risky. So, perhaps not all friendly matches should be scrapped, but they should either be drastically reduced or no player over a set number of caps (say 30?) can be used.

There could be cirmumstances such as Brazil wanting to bring back Ronaldinho who obviously has 30 caps already, so also I would add that the cap rule is excluded if the player hasnt played a game for the NT for 2 seasons or more.

I think that covers everything, players wont get fatigued by pointless games and coaches complain anymore then they arelady are about not getting enough time with the players.