FC Barcelona Thread

Barça scored from 2 chances , Atletí stood strong and were impressive ( you're right) . I felt Barça might conserve Energy? We know the next 2mts are congested fixtures. They could of easily drawn ...
 
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Neymar - Suarez - Messi

best attack in club football history.
 
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I can't wait to see Arsenal's giraffe Per in the mix . I can see them finally using their modified stretcher specially design for BFG! As for Gary its easy from the studios eh?! The only ppl you want to look at , is your family actually.
 
I'm sure Liverpool are getting extra for his performance. He`s clearly going to be the best striker in La Liga. He`s proving himself in every league ,he`s played.
 
He doesn't need to prove himself anywhere. He's already done that at Liverpool and was obvious he's a world class footballer.
 
in fact it was harder for him in EPL, where he didn't have the likes of Messi and Neymar and co as teammates. Also in la Liga, we know that games in Camp Nou are goal fests.
 
he was the best player in 2013-2014 season, and don´t start with CR... he almost won PL by himself....almost. Suarez was so stupid to get himself banned all the time, but even with the bans his football was unreal...now at Barcelona he is doing the same..

not being nominated for Golden Ball is telling a lot about the whole competition.

he is the best striker in world for years now.
 
Barca hardly has Spanish in their squad they`re like RM in that manner. Pep had a Spanish core ,but this Barca is elite from attacking perspective. A bit off topic lol
 
10 Barcelona players out of 24 are Spanish.

Real Madrid has 9 Spanish players out of 22.

Arsenal for comparsion has 6 English players out of 26.

source: wikipedia

Barcelona core is Spanish... Pique, Alba, Busquets, Iniesta are the core of Barcelona 11 playing all the time if fit.
 
Why do you bring in Arsenal ? because I support them? its irreverent. I'm mentioning La Liga lol . I don`t consider Alba core and let`s see which Barca players will be joining MCity.
 
You are counting Messi as foreigner, and yes he is argentinian, but he is a homegrown player.

Pique, Busquets, Iniesta, Messi are the real core of the team, and all of them come from the youth teams, that's the important aspect for me rather than the country they were born.

But this core is now working wonders mainly because of the addition of Neymar and Suarez. If they are fit they are the best attacking trio in history, not only in numbers but in quality of their play. It's like having a team with many Ronaldinhos at the same time, it's just insane.

To me, when they play at their peak they are even better that Guardiola's team, which is saying a lot. We're just lucky to have witnessed the last decade of Barcelona succeess, possibly one of the biggest dinasties in football history.

But just remember it's all down to Messi, the genius that improves each season. Right now he has evolved into a total player that can hurt you in so many ways that you can't stop him. The only way to defend messi before was to put many players around him. But having Neymar and Suarez aroound makes it harder to pull off.
 
I personally never consider core 1st choice but the role a player plays. The word core can translate the spine (top- middle - back) to use Liverpool's example imo Sturridge-Coutinho -Skrtel is the spine. Barça Messi-Xavier-Pique (spine from the academy) Today it's different by what the core is surrounded by .(Messi-Raf-Pique). Nothing wrong just pointing out the difference from what they were. Today there's no room to bring up from the academy the league is too hard to gamble with. It's not a 2 club league ... RM has to play hard to get their result Barça too!
 
bebo said:
Why do you bring in Arsenal ? because I support them? its irreverent. I'm mentioning La Liga lol . I don`t consider Alba core and let`s see which Barca players will be joining MCity.
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We won't try to sign from Barca with Pep in charge, at least not players Barca want.


Would be interesting to see which Barca side would come out on top between this one and the previous one. This one has the superior ATT. The previous one has the superior CM
 
Godotelli said:
We won't try to sign from Barca with Pep in charge, at least not players Barca want.


Would be interesting to see which Barca side would come out on top between this one and the previous one. This one has the superior ATT. The previous one has the superior CM
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loads of rumours in the Hispanic media...there was interior motives for Pep wanting the world to know he`s heading to MCity. Players and agents needed to remove doubt. In the words of Trump
 
bebo said:
loads of rumours in the Hispanic media...there was interior motives for Pep wanting the world to know he`s heading to MCity. Players and agents needed to remove doubt. In the words of Trump
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An ex-Barca player currently residing in London whose name isn't Pedro would be fine by me ;)
 
bebo said:
I personally never consider core 1st choice but the role a player plays. The word core can translate the spine (top- middle - back) to use Liverpool's example imo Sturridge-Coutinho -Skrtel is the spine. Barça Messi-Xavier-Pique (spine from the academy) Today it's different by what the core is surrounded by .(Messi-Raf-Pique). Nothing wrong just pointing out the difference from what they were. Today there's no room to bring up from the academy the league is too hard to gamble with. It's not a 2 club league ... RM has to play hard to get their result Barça too!
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Sturridge is all but Liverpool´s spine.... Sturridge is a luxury player atm... a player LFC can´t rely on... he is all but a spine of the team...

currently LFC has no spine...that is why there are many bad results...

but that´s for a different thread.

Liverpool had a spine with Reina, Carragher, Mascherano, Alonso, Gerrard and Torres... but those days are gone.
 
Article from Barney Roney on Busquets, well-worth a read.

All hail Sergio Busquets, the hotdog seller in the background of history

The Barcelona midfielder’s work often goes unnoticed but in his selfless excellence and emergence from within his club’s ranks he shows what the Premier League’s top teams are lacking

Watching Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Neymar surge about the Emirates turf in the late stages of Tuesday night’s hard-fought Champions League last-16 first-leg defeat of Arsenal it was tempting to conclude once again that the best career choice any Barcelona defender ever made is simply to become a Barcelona defender. A bit like Geoffrey Boycott’s advice that the best way to play top-class fast bowling is leaning on your bat at the other end, any career path that guarantees never having actually to face Barcelona’s attack is always likely to provide the most flattering light.

And yet, even with that inbuilt parallax error perhaps the most sustained influence on the pitch on Tuesday night was a player who has taken exactly this path; who tends to operate beneath a near- invisibility cloak of selfless, loping excellence; and who has for the past seven years acted as a kind of quietly omniscient Jeeves in this team of earls and dukes.

Sergio Busquets is unlikely to feature in many post-match montage segments, or to find his night’s work droolingly Vined and gif’d across the social media diaspora. But he was familiarly excellent at the Emirates as the passing fulcrum, defensive shield and general midfield conscience of this Barcelona team. Aged 27 now, Busquets seems to have been around for ever. A quietly evolving presence, he has turned out to be key to the deep throbbing fleshy heart of this champion team as Barcelona have moved on over the years from the passing purity of the Pep years to the current front-loaded version.

Busquets completed more passes than anyone else on the pitch on Tuesday – not that you’re likely to remember many of them. He had more touches than Andrés Iniesta who seemed, watching in the stadium, to have had the ball glued to his feet pretty much all night. Busquets was lurking helpfully next to Neymar as Barcelona set off on that three-pass 60-yard move for the first goal. He was 20 metres back in space as Mathieu Flamini fouled Lionel Messi to give away the clinching penalty.

The hotdog seller in the background of history: it has been tempting for some to see Busquets as a football version of this. Fluffer to the stars, Barcelona’s own version of the Pavones-y-Galácticos model across five league titles and three Champions League wins, perhaps the most glittering trophy haul ever accumulated by a player who remains outside the star system, the least eye-catching midfield essential in modern footballing history.

As ever at the Emirates Barcelona’s defensive guard ambled about like a great gangling son-of-a-goalkeeper, some stooping anti-athlete accidentally strayed in among the sprites. Busquets has had four shots on goal in the past year and a half. He can be physically assertive, even nasty at times. Above all though he is a player defined by positional intelligence and quick accurate passing, a midfielder who reads the movements of both his team-mates and the opposition, driving this Barça team on quietly from a space somewhere near the back of the bus.

Tying to put a pin in his exact worth remains a wonderfully fruitless business. The Meaning of Busquets: it is a fascinating topic and a thoroughly useful one even if – in a deeply Busquets kind of way – it remains entirely insoluble, a conundrum without an answer. Even now he remains almost impossible to get a really clear view of. Is he, in fact, the best midfielder in the world? Or the best player in the world, as one eminent football sage suggested at the Emirates on Tuesday night? Is he actually any good at all? Would he really stand out that much if he were playing for, say, Queens Park Rangers in the Championship?

The best of Busquets is that there is no obvious answer to any of these questions, focusing as they do on individual worth rather than team, process, component parts. Praising him in isolation is a bit like declaring Usain Bolt’s left knee to be the best left knee in the world, a left knee to transform Tyson Gay could he ever muster up the millions to buy it. The knee, the leg, the working tendons, the whole Bolt. This is the magic.

It is also one place where the Premier League might hope to learn from the example of the current club world champions. There are plenty who will insist the real difference is the failure, as yet, to hurl sufficient money at similarly alluring star attackers, and certainly £150m to spend on your second- and third-best strikers always helps. But the fact is the one truly extraordinary, indispensable part of this Barcelona team is the bit that cost next to nothing.

Look away form the glittery attacking trio. Do not allow yourself to be hypnotised by the shiny things. That home-reared spine of Gerard Piqué, Busquets, Iniesta and Messi is the extraordinary sporting triumph here.


By comparison the three English clubs left in the Champions League can boast just two high-class first-choice genuinely homegrown players, a catastrophic failure of development, planning and resources. One, Jack Wilshere, is injured. The other, John Terry, is on his way out. Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City all have spirit and fibre and long-serving players. But there is no equivalent career-long spine to provide a similar glue: not just loyalty to the cause, but an instinctive sense of self, the indefinable ballast of team building.

Oh for a Busquets, if not in style or accomplishments, then at least in spirit. Not only does English football struggle to produce and nurture exactly this kind of footballer, those defined by intelligence, timing, tactical wit rather than moments of explosiveness. It struggles even to try, undermined by short-term planning and managerial turnover, the terror of even the briefest period of failure.

Louis van Gaal may have run dry at Manchester United but his basic methods remain sound. Give him two years more and United might not score another goal but there will at least be a clutch of players promoted from within and given the chance to stick and gel and form that galvanising armature. It is significant in itself – and salutary for those predicting instant overspend this summer at Manchester City – that promoting Busquets from the junior ranks was one of Pep Guardiola’s most significant early moves as Barcelona head coach.

Continuity from academy to first team, a 10-year plan, a unified way of playing: it is this that Busquets, whatever his merits in isolation, embodies so successfully. The meaning of the MSN front trio – buy the best: score brilliant goals – is clear enough. It is the meaning of Busquets the Premier League must continue to struggle with if it wants to be not just the richest and most feverishly transitional, but the most compelling on the pitch too.
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http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/feb/24/sergio-busquets-barcelona-arsenal
 
Suarez has to be considered the best player in La Liga atm...possibly world.

He is only second to Ronaldo in goals, Suarez has 26 goals to date, but only 1 penalty to Ronaldo´s 6....

and he is the leader in assists... with 12.

LFC sold him very cheap...
 
Suarez has always been great! It's just his on-field antics that hold him back. If he was better at keeping his mouth shut, he'd already be up there with Messi and Ronaldo as the best rather than just being considered now.

Btw, happy Camp Nou is getting upgraded. It looks very nice too. I do hope tha thte name won't change too much though. So much history with the stadium.
 
Just seen that Johan Cruyff has passed away aged 68.

Had the pleasure of seeing one of footballs true greats in 1975 European Cup Semi Final.

R.I.P.
 
Well the wheels have well and truly come off the bus. This is the hard times for barca fans that we need to endure. I still believe we will win the league. Just a pity this is making me have sleepless nights. We should have finished Valencia off in the first half hour already.

There are no issues except the mental block our players are having.
 
zeemeister said:
This is the hard times for barca fans that we need to endure. I still believe we will win the league. .
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Some hard times, zeemeister...
For 99,99% of all the football clubs and their fans, a season like Barca have had would be a dream come through.

I have nothing against Barcelona and their fans (as a matter of fact, Barcelona is the only big club i genuinely like), but your reaction is a testament of what football has become...

We need more Leicesters...

PS: don't take this personal, as a fan you have every right to feel like this and to post this...
 
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