Josep Maria Bartomeu

Leo_Messi

New member
Had a 2.5 hour long talk with Piqué (president of the club de amigos clan) during which they apparently discussed Piqué's comments aimed at Xavier Bosch's in my eyes spot on article in MD.

The good thing is that the seniors and the board have apparently declared a united front from now on. The seniors (lead by Messi and Piqué) had a squad meeting where the same focus on unity was emphasized and where it was made clear to hurt club de amigos clan members such as Rakitic, Vidal (due to lack of playing time) etc. that it was no time for complaining and creating division. The whole media-created Griezmann noise was dealt with too.

According to Lobo Carrasco and Quim that is. Hopefully they are not wrong.
 
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Luftstalag14

Culé de Celestial Empire
What triggered the senior players to have this beef with the board? If anything they were the ones who were not performing and they were the ones backing Valverde so I don't see why they were complaining.

If it was because of Neymar then screw them.
 

DonAK

President of FC Barcelona
A lot of rumors in the Catalan press lately that the reason this board are not fronting Cardoner as Bartomeu's succession candidate yet is because Sandro Rosell is returning and might be the succession candidate instead.

If that's true we're doomed because no candidate is beating Rosell in the elections. He'll get a lot of sympathy votes for being imprisoned two years without a fair trial. Also very popular with Mundo Deportivo and probably even Sport.

Jordi Marti at Cadena SER alluded to it too.

[tw]1180973458982920193[/tw]
 
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jairzinho

Senior Member
This entitled club de amigos group needs to be broken up at the end of this season. These guys think they're invincible when in reality most of them are in the twilight of their careers. Realistically, the end of this season or next season should be the last for Pique, Suarez, Vidal, Busquets and possibly Alba aswell. Rakitic should be out the door in January. The cycle for that goup is done. Time to start the rebuild.
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
This entitled club de amigos group needs to be broken up at the end of this season. These guys think they're invincible when in reality most of them are in the twilight of their careers. Realistically, the end of this season or next season should be the last for Pique, Suarez, Vidal, Busquets and possibly Alba aswell. Rakitic should be out the door in January. The cycle for that goup is done. Time to start the rebuild.

Agree.
But tbf, FDJ is gradually replacing Busquets. Raki is already shown the door and sooner or later is leaving. Vidal will be out in summer most likely too. Rumours saying we are following some midfielders like Ruiz & Olmo. That will be the end of Busquets as a starter. Will probably be allowed to stay as an important rotation player since he is a club legend.
Griezmann will sooner or later overtake Suarez, especially if Neymar is bought (don't want it to happen). And as long as he doesn't renew, he has one more season left.
Pique is tricky one, he is still very good tbf and made a smart decision to retire from NT. He is superior than Lenglet who is the younger one. So even if we buy a CB he is likely to remain startin.
I would expect next year to have Alba/Pique/Messi as 3 starting players who are over 3, while Busquets/Suarez as over 30 bench players. Not so bad tbh and acceptable step
 

FCBarca

Mike the Knife
If so, Victor Font and Laporta should unite as a team to stand against Rosell and his gang.

They are unlikely to unite but one may end up supporting the other ultimately. Bigger issue is to get the vote of no confidence before 2021 and with the electronic voting measure shot down, that complicates matters. Current board loving the relic of a 'democratic' institution we have at present to put hurdles over modernizing

If Rosell becomes a candidate again and games the relic of a system in place to be back in power, no question I would be forced to quit the club. The last decade has been hard enough watching the erosion many of us predicted would happen with them & I could not continue to watch it sink under a corporate whore like Rosell
 
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The Observer

New member
What's the issue with Bartomeu? He might be a sleazy character and there were some bad decisions during his tenure but also many great ones.

Neymar, Umtiti, Arthur, De Jong, Lenglet, Digne, ter Stegen. All young players that turned out gold. Umtiti was on his way to become a top 3 CB in the world before injuries. Can't do much about that or Neymar's greed when he thought he became too big to be Messi's sidekick.

There were also some bad decisions like Arda (wish of the coach) or Coutinho/Dembélé (panic buys) or simply getting it wrong (Gomes) but you can't fault the will to invest and invest in the right type of players.

None of the "neglected" La Masia players turned out good enough. Tello, Cuenca, Deulofeu, Adama, Samper, Grimaldo. People hate on Roberto who is by far the best of the lot, imagine trying to incorporate someone as brainless as Deulofeu into the team.

Why should Laporta do better? His last campaign promise was Pogba, a pink-haired, dabbing, lazy, overrated piece of Raiola client. This board got us Arthur instead. Just because Laporta struck gold with Pep doesn't make him a no brainer as president a decade later.

Can't fault coaching choices either with this board. Lucho, former Barca legend, unproven, was as much of a risky decision as appointing Pep back in 2008 and it turned out great. Valverde remains the best La Liga coach to this date who was praised by Cruyff multiple times even during his Espanyol days, Cruyff himself would have appointed Valverde. Bottling CL away games and not playing as well as prime Barca doesn't change that fact.

100 % of the criticism and wishes stem from living in the 2006 - 2015 Barca bubble. You'll have to get out of that sooner or later. Or just give up on Barca alltogether after Messi (like half the fanbase will do anyway).
 

George_Costanza

Active member
I actually wrote long post replying to [MENTION=16313]The Observer[/MENTION], but then I thought his post was so ridiculous that it's not worth a reply. A guy who has Xavi as an avatar and in his signature, yet praise Xavi's ideological opposite. Talk about Cruyff had words of praise for Valverde is like Obi-Wan Kenobi once praised Anakin before he transforms into Darth Vadar.

This is what Johan said about EV's Espanyol: "His work is more than excellent. If you watch Espanyol play it's good to watch I'm very happy there are people like him and Rijkaard who are trying to play in a way people can enjoy because that's what football's for."

Now, do you think if Mr. Cruyff is still alive, he would enjoy watching the way this Barcelona plays? :rolleyes:
 

soul24rage

Senior Member
I actually wrote long post replying to [MENTION=16313]The Observer[/MENTION], but then I thought his post was so ridiculous that it's not worth a reply. A guy who has Xavi as an avatar and in his signature, yet praise Xavi's ideological opposite. Talk about Cruyff had words of praise for Valverde is like Obi-Wan Kenobi once praised Anakin before he transforms into Darth Vadar.

This is what Johan said about EV's Espanyol: "His work is more than excellent. If you watch Espanyol play it's good to watch I'm very happy there are people like him and Rijkaard who are trying to play in a way people can enjoy because that's what football's for."

Now, do you think if Mr. Cruyff is still alive, he would enjoy watching the way this Barcelona plays? :rolleyes:

imagine what Cryuff would say now about those performances vs Roma and Liverpool.
 

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