Recent content by Bionicman

Don't flatter yourself. By goal difference, 12 of the 19 La Liga teams Atletico played had a better head to head against them than Milan. Aside from Austria Vienna, Atletico had an easier time with Milan than any of their other Champions League opponents, including Zenit and Porto in the group...

Two goals and an assist... against a Betis team that has been rock bottom in the league for most of the year. A goal and three assists in two games... against Rayo Vallecano when they were marooned in the relegation zone. Another two goals and an assist... in December against a Getafe team that...

:facepalm: And here I was, thinking that today's performance would kill the stupid idea that Abidal would spend hundreds/thousands of hours in training just so that he could make a few cameos and retire. On a team where the 2011-2013 version of Pique is our first choice CB, Abidal will be more...

Barcelona B still is comfortably the best offense and worst defense in the Segunda.

Right. Furthermore, getting past the defense has several advantages. First, defenders have to turn towards the player with the ball, thus turning their line of sight away from most of the players. This allows strikers to evade markers and midfielders to make unmarked runs. Second, because at...

Does anyone else think Tottenham might end up being a better destination for Villa? Adebayor is doing his usual "stop trying after getting a contract" routine, Dempsey isn't working like they hoped, and Defoe is limited (I like him, but he obviously is way below Villa). Meanwhile, Arsenal still...

While moving Messi to the wing is one plan, another is that the coaches could work with Messi in practice to make him better at playing the forward role for games like this. Here's one idea I have: in practices for the Milan game, put cones on the sidelines about 30 meters from the "opponent's"...

Xavi's best years came with Eto'o playing the classic number nine role, staying near the opponent's centerbacks and making runs. I also remember Xavi saying in an interview how he liked playing with Ibrahimovic because he had a targetman who could control passes on the chest (he may have said...

Over and over, I've heard Alexis excused for his poor offensive play because of his "defense, workrate, width, runs," and so forth. Going by this silly logic, Barca ought to play with four fullbacks (for instance, Alba and Montoya in defense, Adriano and Alves forward). After all, I'm sure the...

Congrats on completely missing the point: every league game since the Madrid loss has been pointless. There was no need to play any starters. That wasn't the case before. Also, Alves doesn't have a big tournament coming up, he has no history of injuries, and both he and Villa are younger than...

Management quiz question #1: You have two key players above 30 years old. Both have played a ton of games for club and country over the past few years, and have another big tournament coming up. One is a defender with several injuries in the past two years, the other is a midfielder whose...

Much has been said about his indecision on Ramires's goal (similar mistake to the Cristiano goal), but not much has been said about the Ivanovic corner chance, when he made the same mistake that he did with the Khedira goal, when he got caught in no man's land on a corner and was lucky not to...

In 2009, Barcelona played against a previous-year finalist Chelsea team that finished 2nd in the PL when the PL was sending 3-4 teams to the CL semis each year. In 2010, Barcelona played against a team that won the Italian treble for the first time in history, beating the champions of England...

First, listing the tactical points brought up by the 2-1 loss to Madrid would take pages. Check out the comments section of Zonal Marking's article on the game. Key points: 1) A golden rule of tactics is to have one spare man at the back (one more defender than the opponent has attackers)...

Sometimes I wonder if he'd be better off if Pep told him to stay high up instead of coming deep. While it's great having his skill in midfield, it often puts him too far away from where we most need him.