Ivan Rakitić

KingMessi said:

Option 1. If you're not playing well at your club, you won't play well at your national team.

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Ok, I will try in numbers.
(Petroh, I know that you said that he ran a lot of kms in the past)

Example:
Neymar has pace 99/100
Neymar has natural stamina 98/100

Rakitic by default:
Pace in peak physical shape 70/100
Stamina in a peak physical shape 80/100

Now, all players will naturally lose some of their natural peak pace and stamina over years.
Some players will lose it slowly, for example:
peak pace aged 25: 99/100
peak pace aged 26: 97/100
peak pace aged 27: 95/100
peak pace aged 28: 92/100
peak pace aged 29: 88/100
peak pace aged 30: 83/100 etc

While some may lose their pace for some reason, because their body will age and lose it's peak slightly sooner (that's because of our DNA, each person will age differently and at different strength and pace)
Guy 2:
peak pace aged 25: 99/100
peak pace aged 26: 95/100
peak pace aged 27: 90/100
peak pace aged 28: 83/100
peak pace aged 29: 75/100
peak pace aged 30: 65/100

So, you see, these 2 guys had the same peak pace aged 25 at 99/100.
But a guy 1 aged slowly and still had pace 83/100 aged 30.
A guy 2 lost abilities faster and dropped to 65/100 aged 30.

Now, imagine that Rakitic is one of people who are losing physical abilities in earlier age than an average sportsmen.
Add to this that his default peak pace was always quite poor (even on his peak he was as slow as Cesc, Gomes, Internet explorer and similar).

So, sum his natural weaker pace and stamina with a chance that he is one of people who will age pretty fast.
Some guys aged 40 are like teens, like J. Zanetti and Giggs.
Some other guys aged 28 are a shadow of whom they used to be, in a physical terms.

Total-Football said:

This age thing is taken to a whole another level in the forums here.. I have been reading about it since Messi was 27 !!! and now rakitic who is stil in his twenties !!! Take a look at the age of the bayern team which has demolished Arsenal mid-week. Some of the players are literally mounths away from retirement; midfielders! and their main winger is 34 years old of age.

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He will be 29 in 3 weeks actually.
Born: March 10, 1988
He is not that young either...

I get what you're trying to say; I just don't buy it. At least not until he's just as poor under a new coach.

KingMessi said:

I get what you're trying to say; I just don't buy it. At least not until he's just as poor under a new coach.

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Ok, fair.

If he will be as slow as today in the next season in Barca's shirt (or in a new team if he gets sold) then we know that it was a natural ageing in his case.

If he'll run around suddenly like crazy in the next season, then it was Lucho or psychological.
I will put my money on ageing, though.

Man i have heard it all now .. players who are 27 and 28 years old are "old" because of their dna. damn lol

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This has been a recurring theme all season. When your two CBs and GK have more touches and passes than everyone else on the team then you're in huge trouble.

BBZ8800 said:

Now, imagine that Rakitic is one of people who are losing physical abilities in earlier age than an average sportsmen.
Add to this that his default peak pace was always quite poor (even on his peak he was as slow as Cesc, Gomes, Internet explorer and similar).

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Rakitic is a Usain Bolt compared to Gomes. Can't agree more on Internet Explorer though.

So, sum his natural weaker pace and stamina with a chance that he is one of people who will age pretty fast.
Some guys aged 40 are like teens, like J. Zanetti and Giggs. Some other guys aged 28 are a shadow of whom they used to be, in a physical terms.

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Oooufffff.... You just simply mix up ageing and sporting capabilities here.
Of course we all age slightly differently and it stands for athletes too, but but the major difference is not in the physical part.
99% of sports related medical and genealogical experts say that the parting border is about 33-35 years of age, when human physical capabilities start deteriorating. Until that age everything depends on WHICH sport we are talking about and football is definitely not the one where players would easily loose their apparent physical capacity till 30 or so. Of course unless a single serious or multiple injuries have their logical and pragmatic somatic effect on the given player.

Unfortunately and apparently the REAL cause of deterioration till 33-35 is ALWAYS psychological! Always. Reasons:
- the player is not motivated anymore
- won too many titles or games and his motivation deteriorates
- did NOT win titles and enough games, so his motivation deteriorates
- earnt enough $$$ and money doesn't motivate him anymore
- he doesn't trust ANY coach further, he feels he knows better
- he has been loosing enthusiasm and can't be easily motivated anymore
- afraid of (further) injuries and starts thinking about his life after retirement
- becomes stiff because he knows his end of carrier is close
- becomes stiff because he repeatedly wants to prove that he is NOT old as yet
- becomes stiff because his younger teammates handle him as being old
- becomes stiff when he is benched for any reason, because he fears he can't return
- by experience he knows in which situations it is worth to run, so runs less and this gives a false impression of less physical capabilities
- day to day success has a less motivating factor in his play
- he is fed up by the boring part of training, so trains with less intensity
- he doesn't always enjoy playing anymore, his daily tasks become repetitious
- envy about more successful teams, so starts blaming the coach and teammates
- he signed for another club late in his carrier and has no mental strength to learn new solutions
- he becomes nostalgic towards his own past carrier, looks back and not ahead
- afraid of serious injuries that may even ruin his life after retirement

I can go on and on and list these psychological and mental factors...
And here not 99 but 100% of sport-psychologists agree that delivery above 33 deteriorates due to THESE factors and just VERY RARELY due to the actual physical ageing.
ALL coaches learn this and have to know this.

KingMessi said:

Option 1. If you're not playing well at your club, you won't play well at your national team.

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Yeah? Tell that to Brazil's next Ronaldinho who doesn't play anything like Ronaldinho when he's starting for Barca.

Potroh said:

Oooufffff.... You just simply mix up ageing and sporting capabilities here.
Of course we all age slightly differently and it stands for athletes too, but but the major difference is not in the physical part.
99% of sports related medical and genealogical experts say that the parting border is about 33-35 years of age, when human physical capabilities start deteriorating. Until that age everything depends on WHICH sport we are talking about and football is definitely not the one where players would easily loose their apparent physical capacity till 30 or so. Of course unless a single serious or multiple injuries have their logical and pragmatic somatic effect on the given player.

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I have no idea where did you get those data or how old are data from those studies.
Newer studies (just google around the internet) say that sportsmen start to physically decline after the age of 26.
Especially in sports where they rely on pace.
https://www.wired.com/2011/07/athletes-peak-age/

"For Athletes’ Peak Performance, Age Is Everything

ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE OBVIOUSLY decreases as people get older and their bodies wear down physically, but new data compiled by French researchers sheds new light on exactly when these declines might start showing up, at least in some sporting disciplines.

The careers of more than 1,150 swimmers and track-and-field athletes, as well as the accomplishments of nearly a hundred chess grandmasters, were scrutinized based on the event they were participating in, as well as their age and how old they were when they established any world records. In all, more than 11,200 performances among these athletes made it into the data set, and the results confirm that there reaches an age — a physiological tipping point, if you will — when athletes start to experience an irreversible downturn in their abilities.

Generally speaking, athletes start to see physical declines at age 26, give or take. (This would seem in line with the long-standing notion in baseball that players tend to hit their peak anywhere from ages 27 to 30.) For swimmers, the news is more sobering, as the mean peak age is 21. For chess grandmasters, participating in an activity that relies more than mental acuity and sharpness rather than brute, acquired physicality, the peak age is closer to 31.4.

For setting world records in a given athletic discipline, the mean age is 26.1, so all you sports-minded thirty-somethings hoping to still see your name published in the Guinness Book may have already missed your mark.

Of course, if Olympic champion Dara Torres taught us anything back at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, it’s that age is sometimes just a number."

So, one more time, if I claim that Rakitic aged 29 is slower and has weaker physical skills than Rakitic aged 26, I am quite sure that a science is on my side also.

Here is a study/stats for footballers in European biggest leagues:
http://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-sports-analytics/jsa0021

"The peak age for professional soccer players is of significant interest to coaches, managers and executives alike. The evidence so far is predominantly anecdotal and subjective. This paper formally analyzes the peak or optimal age in professional men’s soccer using performance ratings of players in the four major top flight leagues of Europe. WhoScored.com ratings from 2010/11 to 2014/15 are used. The analysis is done for all outfield players, separately by field position. In addition to simple age distribution and bivariate approaches, a player fixed effects model that accounts for potential selection bias is estimated. The results show that the average professional soccer player peaks between the ages of 25 and 27. In the preferred models, the average forward peaks at 25, whereas the typical defender peaks at 27. For midfielders, the estimated peak age varies by model but still occurs in the 25–27 age band. Defenders experience relatively minimal curvature in the age-performance relationship. Further results show that peak age may vary directly with ability."

I think Rakitić is lesser of Barça worries nowdays. Ok, he is not as good as 14/15. So the 90% of squad is not. We can argue about him declining. But so are the others.

I am also keen on sell-half-of-the-team but the thing is. Who to buy that is available for "normal" money for his position and with his understanding of the team? And not even to mention what problems Rakitić is dealing with... no Messi in front and no "real" RB behind him. Who would fix all that shit by himself and not to cost a fortune?

We can all talk about monopoly money here and say sell Arda, Gomes, Paco, D. Suarez, Rakitić and "God knows who"... and then what? Buy real good RB and real good CM. that is nowdays with all that "drunken millionares" 150m E for the Two. You can't scrap 80 for all named ones with current form they are showing. And then you have a problem of Rakitić place?

FlaFCB said:

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Umtiti did more passes than Rakitic and Gomes combined, and at higher succesrate.

SeloBarca said:

Umtiti did more passes than Rakitic and Gomes combined, and at higher succesrate.

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To be fair, it's expected for a CB to have a higher successrate than an AM.

JerseyAddict said:

I think Rakitić is lesser of Barça worries nowdays. Ok, he is not as good as 14/15. So the 90% of squad is not. We can argue about him declining. But so are the others.

I am also keen on sell-half-of-the-team but the thing is. Who to buy that is available for "normal" money for his position and with his understanding of the team? And not even to mention what problems Rakitić is dealing with... no Messi in front and no "real" RB behind him. Who would fix all that shit by himself and not to cost a fortune?

We can all talk about monopoly money here and say sell Arda, Gomes, Paco, D. Suarez, Rakitić and "God knows who"... and then what? Buy real good RB and real good CM. that is nowdays with all that "drunken millionares" 150m E for the Two. You can't scrap 80 for all named ones with current form they are showing. And then you have a problem of Rakitić place?

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The board didn't think too much about player's ageing.
They probably thought that player's quality alone will be enough to neutralize the effects of ageing.

If we don't buy anyone, look at our attacking and midfield line in the summer:
2017/18:
Busi 29
Iniesta 33
Rakitic 29
Messi 30
Suarez 30
Neymar 25

For example, our midfield and attack in Pep's prime, let's say in a final of 2010/11:
Busquets 23
Xavi 31
Iniesta 27
Messi 24
Villa 29
Pedro 24

Average age of those 2 lines in 2017:
= 29,3
Average age of those 2 lines in 2011:
= 26,3

So:
1. not only that we lost prime Xavi+Iniesta
2. not only that we have a tactically poor Lucho
3. but we also have a considerably older squad than in our prime, glory years

Even though there is a lot of blame to put on Lucho, I am quite sure that even Pep's team today wouldn't be nowhere as good as back then, if almost all key players would have been 29-30 years old.
Even with a perfect players and a perfect coach, teams aged 26 and 29-30 CAN'T play/run/press/move off the ball in the same way.
With or without Lucho.

True, but Umtiti is a great passer when not under preassure.
Makes better cuttrough passes than our midfielders.
Highest pass % in the team.

JerseyAddict said:

I think Rakitić is lesser of Barça worries nowdays. Ok, he is not as good as 14/15. So the 90% of squad is not. We can argue about him declining. But so are the others.

I am also keen on sell-half-of-the-team but the thing is. Who to buy that is available for "normal" money for his position and with his understanding of the team? And not even to mention what problems Rakitić is dealing with... no Messi in front and no "real" RB behind him. Who would fix all that shit by himself and not to cost a fortune?

We can all talk about monopoly money here and say sell Arda, Gomes, Paco, D. Suarez, Rakitić and "God knows who"... and then what? Buy real good RB and real good CM. that is nowdays with all that "drunken millionares" 150m E for the Two. You can't scrap 80 for all named ones with current form they are showing. And then you have a problem of Rakitić place?

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Amadou Diawara