21 - Frenkie de Jong

jamrock

Senior Member
Using his midfielders as wingers is sometimes he has always done though, just look at rakitic over the years, even though the excuse for that was he was cover the space Messi vacated, but as is being shown with frankie, valverde probably sees some tactical advantage to this set up,
 

Aryagorn

Improvin' Perfection!!
the first Barca jersey my father bought me was like this, so guess since when I'm a Barca fan? :rolleyes:

s-l300.jpg

:lol: Called [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] out like a boss - As usual, he chooses to ignore all the messages where he gets showed out!
 
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serghei

Senior Member
Using his midfielders as wingers is sometimes he has always done though, just look at rakitic over the years, even though the excuse for that was he was cover the space Messi vacated, but as is being shown with frankie, valverde probably sees some tactical advantage to this set up,

Of course Valverde has some ideas when he does things like that. Idiots have ideas all the time too, the problem is that they aren't the right ones.
 

Leo_Messi

New member
Is there is a site that I can get players heat map on regular basis?

Messi2140 answered your question.

BTW as a curiosity that feature has been adopted (during games even) by La Liga's official coverage of all La Liga games. Pretty cool for those of us who like the tactical aspect of the game.
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
Messi2140 answered your question.

BTW as a curiosity that feature has been adopted (during games even) by La Liga's official coverage of all La Liga games. Pretty cool for those of us who like the tactical aspect of the game.

Yeah, I am a bit against detailed states or over analyzing things but the availability of this stuff is always welcomed.
I think the only current important stat that is currently lacking is distance covered. But otherwise it is good
 

Leo_Messi

New member
Yeah, I am a bit against detailed states or over analyzing things but the availability of this stuff is always welcomed.
I think the only current important stat that is currently lacking is distance covered. But otherwise it is good

La Liga's official coverage has had statistic about distance covered for each player for years. It used to be shown after games when highlights were shown and stats. I think I recall such data from as far as 10+ years ago. My memory might be playing with me but in any case the "distance covered data" is old news.

Not sure if Whoscored and similar sites have that data available. I don't use those sites too often.
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
La Liga's official coverage has had statistic about distance covered for each player for years. It used to be shown after games when highlights were shown and stats. I think I recall such data from as far as 10+ years ago. My memory might be playing with me but in any case the "distance covered data" is old news.

Not sure if Whoscored and similar sites have that data available. I don't use those sites too often.

liga shows it for sure, along many others but yeah it isn't on any site on consistent basis which is a bit of a bummer
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
:lol: Called [MENTION=16942]BBZ8800[/MENTION] out like a boss - As usual, he chooses to ignore all the messages where he gets showed out!

You should get a gold medal for not getting a point in posts, mate.

I'll try slowlier:
1. I said that Barca was always an extremely messy and a chaotic club in terms of long term planning, politics, egos, transfers.
2. George mentioned something from the past
3. I asked whether he is a younger fan since majority of older fans surely know and have accepted how chaotic we are
4. George replied that he not a young fan
5. then you came and laugh at me. Lol.
Cool story.
The point of the story is not that I was wrong, but that Barca still is and was extremely chaotic club.

Now, to explain why Barca is chaotic and why we CAN'T have a longterm plan and things about fans are dreaming of.

Let's say that the main factors about which fans are dreaming of are:
1. playing beautiful, Barca's DNA football
2. winning trophies while playing beautiful
3. use La Masia players when playing beautiful and winning
4. have a good board, a coach and sporting directors
5. also, I would dare to say: coach has to play fan's favorites, because fans will whine.
Even if we will be winning and playing beautiful, fans will whine if their new toys are not playing.
Example: imagine if we start to play awesome now, and Frenkie or Arthur are benched. People wouldn't be happy.
A win is not a win, if players "for the future" or "fan's favorites" are not in a team also.

So, let's go point by point:
1. president and a board=we can't get a new board until 2021
So, until then, no progress can be made.
2. then we will need a lucky combo of a new president and a new coach.
Regarding a new coach, since we are Barca, we won't have too much to wait for beautiful play and results.

Now, people need to realize that PEP was the only coach ever in our history with immediate success (and Lucho, to some extent).
People often mention Crujff or Rijkaard.
But a thing is, we were an ultimate shit back then and those coaches had more credit and time to "do their thing".
When Crujff came in a summer of 1989, Barca has won only 1 title in 14 years prior to that.
And Real won 8 titles in those 16 years. Plus, Real has just won 3 La Ligas in a row before Crujff was hired.

So, we were a total shit back then.
We were desperate.
Our results were horrible.
We haven't won any CLs till then and we won 1 La Liga in the last 14 years.
In moments like that, it is somewhat easier to say: fuck it, we don't know what to do now... Let's try someone new with good ideas, give him more time and hope for the best.
This is what happened with Crujff.

And you know what?
When Crujff came:
1. in his first season, Real again won La Liga.
So, Crujff came to Barca, and Real won their 4th La Liga in a row.
But he wasn't fired since: well, we sucked either way.
He was given more time.
We did won Cup winner's cup in his first season.
Back then Uefa had 3 competitions: Champions Cup (later turned into Champions league), Uefa cup (similar to a current competition) and Cup winners cup where winners (or finalists) of domestic Cup competitions played.
2. in his 2nd season here: no improvement in La Liga.
In his first season, we finished 2nd, and in his 2nd season we finished the 3rd behind champions Real Madrid and Valencia.
We won CDR in that season.

So, a lot of guys are talking about Crujff and how we need something similar today.
Yet, today fans want to sack a coach who won 2 La Ligas in 2 years.
And back then, Crujff kept his job for ending the 2nd and the 3rd in La Liga in his first 2 seasons.

Some smartasses will reply: yes, but we played beautiful.
I didn't watch football back then and I doubt that we started to play good right away under Crujff. We needed a few years to start to click and implement his ideas.
The point is: in today's Barca, no coach will get a credit for not winning anything for 2 years and keeping his job.
So, even Crujff wasn't able to produce magic right away.
He won his first La liga in his 3rd season here.

Let's move forward to Rijkaard.
A similar story.
It was a summer of 2003.
We won our last LA Liga under Van Gaal in 1999.
Since then, champions were: 2000 Deportivo, 2001 Real, 2002 Valencia, 2003 Real.
And even worse, in 1998, 2000 and 2002, Real won 3 CLs with Galacticos.
So, Real was banging La Ligas and 3 CLs.
Valencia was winning La Ligas and played 2 Cl finals in 2000 and 2001.
And we? Well, we ended:
4th in 2001, 17 points behind RM, and behind Deportivo and Mallorca.
4th in 2002, 11 points behind Valencia, and behind Deportivo and Real.
And the best thing: we ended 6th (lol) in 2003, 22 points behind RM. And ended behind Sociedad, Deportivo, Celta and Valencia.

So, we barely qualified for a CL in 2001 and 2002.
And then missed a CL in 2003/04, after finishing 6th in 2003' season.

So, when we hired coach and gave him time to try his ideas: we had 14 years prior to that with 1 La Liga win. And Real has just won 3 La Ligas in a row, and eventually after first 2 years of Crujff, Real won 5 La Ligas in a row.
In 2003, Real was winning CLs, and we were finishing 4th, 4th and 6th in the last 3 La Liga seasons.
In 2003' we had elections and Laporta won.
Now, since we were an utter shit back then, it was a good idea to try something new, just like with Crujff.
So, Laporta with an advice from Crujff: gave a job to Rijkaard.

But remember: we were an utter shit, so it was ok to try something new.
But even when Rijkaard came, we turned from a shit to even bigger shit.
After 15 rounds of 2003/04 season, we had 5 wins, 5 draws and 5 defeats.
Out of 45 points, we won 20.
And we were iirc 12th on a table in Decemeber.

Rijkaard was on a verge of sacking and he was given 2-3 more matches and he needed to win in all of them.
Luckily, a team won 3 matches in the next 4 matches.
And won 15 out of the last 20 La Liga matches and we almost won a title in the end (finished 2nd behind Valencia).

But anyway, what is the point of my story?
= you can't expect big changes in times like today when we are winning.

Crujff came after 14 years with 1 La Liga.
Rijkaard came after 4 years without trophies and after finishing 4th, 4th and 6th in La Liga.

Even Pep came and made a rehaul when Rijkaard didn't win anything in his last 2 years here.

So, more or less, we were shit for years before those glorious years.
And fans weren't spoiled back then.

When Crujff came and when we had 1 La Liga in 14 years, fans surely weren't saying: we need to play good, we need this, we need that etc.
Crujff brought all of that, but we would be happy even with trophies back then.
When Rijkaard came, we didn't play beautiful in the first season.
But people were happy because we showed a fighting spirit and came from the 12th place to almost winning a title. We had faith heart and spark again.

Now, imagine a season 2019/20:
If we'll win La Liga, and if we will play EV's uglyball=people will say: fuck him, sack him.
If we'll lose La Liga and a CL and play beautiful=people will say: sack him. He is wasting Messi's final years, we need trophies RIGHT AWAY.
If we will get a new coach in 2020:
If he will play beautiful and lose La Liga and a CL, people will say again=sack him. We are again wasting Messi's final years
If he will win in an ugly way, again=sack him, this is not Barca. We need to play beautiful.

Even worse, as I mentioned in a point no5, even if we would win and play nice, but let's say with Busi-Raki-someone midfield, and if Frenkie/Arthur would be on a bench, people would again say: fuck this shit. Get this clown out, we need to play Arthur/Frenkie, they are our future.
So, basically, just as I have said in the beginning, in order to have happy fans, a coach needs to:
1. play beautiful
2. win titles RIGHT AWAY
3. play La Masia players and have points 1 and 2
4. play fan's favorite players, paired with points 1, 2 and 3
5. on top of that, fans would require: a good board, good sporting directors and sensible transfers

Now, when you go back and look at our history:
1. Crujff needed 2 years to win titles, he would have been sacked in a current era because we can't wait for 2 years
2. Rijkaard needed 1 year to click. Today: maybe he would get sacked, hard to tell.
3. Pep is the only coach EVER who clicked right away.
He played beautiful, he was winning titles, he used La Masia kids.
But even he had stupid man management decisions with Etoo, Zlatan and bad transfers of Fabregas, Alexis, Chyngry.

Anyway, a point of my post is:
Barca is a weird club, not a normal club.
Man Utd is a normal club, they are looking only for a sport results.
The same with Bayern, Juve, Milan etc.

With Barca:
1. we are a symbol of Catalonia. Catalonia has political problems with Spain for 10s of years.
So, Barca is not just football, but more than a club in terms of politics.
So, when Real is winning, that is a knife stabbed in Barca's heart and Barca is forced to do crazy moves to regain position no1.
2. further, Barca is spoiled in the last 20-30 years with a lot of titles and we have crazy expectations today.
We want titles right away, and to play Joga Bonita, and to play La Masia kids.
It is hard to get everything.
3. further, add Catalan's latino (hot blooded and emotional roots) and you have a recipe for a disaster.
4. add presidents, boards, clans, money, egos and shaddy guys wanted to be on top.

So, my point is: Pep's Barca and things surrounding our club in 2008-2012 is not a usual Barca.
That was some weird, successful and calm Barca.
In 90% of other years during our history, we were a chaotic, too emotional club with crazy decision and impatience.

To some extent, this is why me, Khaled and other guys aren't THAT harsh on EV.
For younger fans, they were spoiled with Pep's era, beautiful football, La Masia, not too many crazy transfers, a good board.
But again, that happened like once in our history.
Majority of other years are as chaotic as a current era. Except that we are at least winning La Ligas now (ok, I know, we have Messi, but still..)

Also, when people say: nothing can be worse than a current season...
I will just post one story from early 00's:
1. 1999/2000 season, it was Van Gaal's 3rd season. He won LA Ligas in his first 2 years and finished 2nd in 1999/2000 behind Deportivo.
A press and fans hated Van Gaal and wanted him gone.
They all thought that better times will come.
We hired Lorenzo Serra Ferrer that summer as our new coach.
Ferrer was like Valverde, a random La Liga coach, who coached Mallorca and Betis before Barca.
2. 2000/01:
Van Gaal finished 2nd in 2000' and a new coach Ferrer ended as 4th in 2001'.
Fans thought that better times will come after Van Gaal, yet we dropped even lower, to a 4th place.
Ferrer was sacked after 31 rounds since we were in danger of losing 4th spot (Champions league).
We hired a new coach, a former player Charles Rexach who played for 16 years for Barca (1965-1981).
We were 5th before the last round, 3 points behind the 4th placed Valencia, and we needed a win against them in the last round to earn a 4th place and a Champions league.
And then this magical match happened.
It was 2:2 until the 90th minute:
3. Rexach kept his position for a new 2001/02 season.
In that season, we again ended 4th in La Liga.
We lost in a CL semis to Real Madrid.
We lost in a CDR to Figueres.
And we even lost Copa de Catalunya to CF Balaguer.
4. Rexach was fired after that, and after 2 bad attempts: Ferrer and Rexach, the board realized that maybe Van Gaal was not that bad.
And then, they brought Van Gaal back in a summer of 2002'.
This time, Van Gaal said that he don't wnat Rivaldo anymore.
And we had to sell Rivaldo in order to make Van Gaal happy.
We were so shit again, that Van Gaal was sacked in January of 2003.
We were so bad that even Gaspart left his position in February of 2003'.
We hired Radomir Antic, another La Liga coach, who won a double with Atletico in 1995/96'.
He was not as badl but he couldn't do too much with our team who were in the bottom half when Van Gaal was sacked.
We eventually finished 6th and secured Uefa Cup.

So, basically, when we fired Van Gaal in 1999/2000 who won 2 La Ligas in 3 years, in the next 3 seasons we had: Ferrer, Rexach, Van Gaal attempt no2 and then Antic.
We often say: it can't be worse than this.
Yet, in early 2000s, more or less, every new coach (except Antic) was actually even worse than a guy who worked before him.
And no matter what they tried, a club and our players sucked and kept losing and losing matches.

In that situation, Laporta won elections, hired director Begiristain and a coach Rijkaard.
But as said, in the first 5-6 Months, Rijkaard also couldn't do anything with our dying team and we dropped to even lower ranks, to a 12th place in La Liga, before we eventually started to play better (only when Rijkaard actually benched and sold ALL players from a previous era who were walking zombies: Frank De Boer, Reiziger, Kluivert, Saviola, Cocu, Riquelme, Mendieta, Overmars, Christanval, Rochemback, Luis Enrique).

Anyway:
1. I don't think that we can have a long term plan in a current era, since we need results right away.
Even Klopp needed a few years at Liverpool before he started winning.
You will never get that amount of time at Barca...
2. further, I am not too sure about saying: it can't be worse than this, regarding coaches and some players.
3. on the other hand, an improvement in play, running and desire has always came when we turned a page and got rid of more or less all players from a previous era (Crujff, Rijkaard, Pep).
 
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Vilarrubi

New member
Arguably your longest post ever BBZ, your dedication to Barca is incredible.

About Cruyff and Rijkaard, that is the point that they were hired off the back off a shit period in our history. Valverde inherited a stacked team with 100m+ players and Messi who have won most La Ligas in the last 10 years. I think with any manager we are expected to win La Liga, even Tata with no European experience only lost by 3 points.

If we hired a new coach and didn’t win La Liga I believe it would be down to Real and Atletico improving not us getting much worse.
 

MTL_Barca

Well-known member
That's a lot of words but Valverde is still Valverde. There is a lot between the utopic perfect coach that plays beautiful, successful football with only la masia kids and the shitshow Valverde delivers almost every week for more than 2 seasons now.

If the club just keeps a mediocre coach forever we'll never know if someone could do better. Keeping him as long as he somehow wins titles and ignoring all his flaws in the meantime will end in a desaster.

Would you keep Valverde? Do you think renewing him was correct? I'm curious.
 
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jamrock

Senior Member
for the first time in a very very very very long time i actually read every word of what BBZ wrote and it reminded me of why i never do, basically wrote a book to say something you could have said in 3-5 lines and to make it worst what he is saying isn't that interested because he is just finding new says of repeating the same thing.
 
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JohnN

Senior Member
I will some up the long post:


  • Valverde is not good enough and out of his depth, but there are managers out there who could do worse. So there is risk involved in any new manager.

  • It is hard to make big changes when the team is not in shambles. Always easier to start over when you have nothing to lose.

  • Most managers need time to have positive impact and need to be given slack. This would be hard with our current expectations and status.

  • We have had much worse periods in the club's history than this one. We are still considered a top contender for CL every year after all.

  • Fans have developed huge expectations for this club to produce beautiful football, use la masia players and win titles at the same time. Any new manager would have to tick a lot of boxes to not get crucified.

All the above is true. But when a manager has two consecutive disasters, it's hard to justify keeping him. Even for the psychological impact alone.
 

BBZ8800

Senior Member
Arguably your longest post ever BBZ, your dedication to Barca is incredible.

About Cruyff and Rijkaard, that is the point that they were hired off the back off a shit period in our history. Valverde inherited a stacked team with 100m+ players and Messi who have won most La Ligas in the last 10 years. I think with any manager we are expected to win La Liga, even Tata with no European experience only lost by 3 points.

If we hired a new coach and didn’t win La Liga I believe it would be down to Real and Atletico improving not us getting much worse.

That's a lot of words but Valverde is still Valverde. There is a lot between the utopic perfect coach that plays beautiful, successful football with only la masia kids and the shitshow Valverde delivers almost every week for more than 2 seasons now.

If the club just keeps a mediocre coach forever we'll never know if someone could do better. Keeping him as long as he somehow wins titles and ignoring all his flaws in the meantime will end in a desaster.

Would you keep Valverde? Do you think renewing him was correct? I'm curious.

Have you guys ever had a job or something in which you needed to make risks?

Imagine if you have a company which is earning you enough money for a living.
But, you have a feeling that you could earn more if you would change some things in that company.
But also, on the other hand, you could bankrupt or lose a lot of money if your new decision turn bad.

I really don't mean anything bad, but majority of posters always have (for me) childish what if ideas, where a risk is always a way to go.
And where that famous line works: it can't be worse than this.

So, MTL Barca, I am asking you again: you have a private company which is earning let's say 100K Euros per year which is enough for you, your family, your kids and for wages of your employees.
But... There is one guy in your neighborhood who is having a similar job and he is earning 200K per year.
But also, what people often neglect, there is 5 other dudes in your area who are struggling and who are earning only 30k per year and don't have enough to pay bills.

This is Barca's forum and it is easy to say: fuck EV or a similar coach, let's risk, it will probably turn out fine. If not, well, eventually after 2-3-4 attempts, it will turn out fine.
But again, would you do that if this was your life, your family, your job, your invested money.

In real life, your job is EV.
Not good (Champions league), but decent (La Liga titles). You have enough money for living.
But you don't have as much as that guy with 200k earning (Champions league analogy), but you are way better than a majority (those guys who do the same job but struggle to pay bills with 30k earnings).

Now, if this was a real life, I am betting that 90% of guys wouldn't make suicidal moves and investments.
You would try with minor investments. If they wouldn't work, you would continue with the old way.
If minor investments and changes would work, you would continue with further small investments.

So, this is a part where I don't agree with majority of users here.
I don't think that EV is good.
But I don't think that he is as bad you guys are saying.
Also, I am not sure that a new coach would be able to win even these things which he is winning.

Here are some points why I disagree about a risk ratio:
1. I am following Barca since 90s, and imo, this is a rating of our coaches since then:
World class: Pep, Crujff
Very good: Rijkaard, Lucho, Van Gaal in his first stint
Average with a moderate success: EV, Tito, Robson
Ok but without sucess: Antic
Meh to bad: Ferrer, Rexach, Tata

So, at least for me, when you put on paper all Barca's coaches since 90s, EV is still around average when you compare: titles, beautiful play, La Masia players.

Where is EV bad?
= well, he is bad if you compared it with era from 2008 till today.
But even then, can you say that Tito's team was that better?
Tito's team played on an autopilot after Pep's era.
Tata's team was shit.
People have excuses: we had injuries, a team was bad.
But what about: EV played without Neymar. He had a shitty forever injured Dembele and a horrible fit Flopinho, plus a current core was very old and lost motivation.
Or Lucho? when we mention Lucho, people immediately think about a treble from 2014/15.
But even in that season, we played like a shit: both ugly and skipping a midfield in the first part of a season (plus we had horrible results).
And then it clicked in a spring of 2105 and we won a treble.
We played good in an autumn of 2015 and then we returned to shit.
Have you guys forgot how we played in the last 18 Months under Lucho?
Atletico 2:0, Psg 4:0, Juve 3:0 in a CL.
In La Liga, our 433 started to look like shit under Lucho and we were outplayed in a middle on every away match. Betis, Las Palmas and Celta looked like Liverpool against our 3men midfield all the time.
Mats was called frozen in those days.
Defense was leaking goals left and right.
Midfield was non existant.
MSN played hot and cold, with Neymar going MIA in springs of 2016 and 2017.
So, basically, outside of a spring in 2015 and autumn on 2015, during Lucho we played like shit in terms of play and results:
1. in autumn of 2014
2. spring 2016
3. whole 2016/17 season

So, when people say: it can't be worse than EV...
Really, are you guys completely honest?

1. Pep was awesome
2. Tito, it is hard to be objective about him because he died and people don't want to post bad things about his lack of tactics now
3. Tata was lost, shit and totally lost the reigns
4. Lucho was good for 12 Months and bad for 24 Months where we needed to play with a false RB-CM Roberto in 343 to regain back some control in midfield

So, honestly, except Pep, was any of these coaches THAT better or better at all than EV?
Lucho has a treble which is masking otherwise quite meh 3-years stint.
Tata has nothing.
Tito has La Liga, the same as EV.

So, again, I agree with you that EV is not good enough.
But for anyone who watched football or business and making risks for 20-30 years, you should know that chances are way higher that a new guy will be even worse than EV.
The same as how any new signing for our club has around 1/3 chances to make it here and 2/3 to flop.
Or how any La Masia kid has around 90% chances to not make it.
I will pull numbers from my ass and say that every new coach, not named Pep, will probably have around 70% chance to have even worse results than a current EV.

Why?
1. well, Messi is 32. He will be 33 at the end of a season. A moment will come soon when Messi will not be a gamechanger anymore.
That means that we will be a team of mortals just like pre Messi.
And pre Messi, we had other leaders, like Ronaldinho.
But Ronaldinho alone was not enough. He had Etoo and a playmaker Deco (plus Xavi).
Begiristain and Rijkaard needed a few years to build a team who will have enough of leaders and playmakers so that we could actually win.
Today, we are in a deep hole.
We can't build a team for the future, because everything evolves around Messi.
Imagine if Messi retires tomorrow or misses a whole season due to an injury.
Who will carry our team? Griezmann, lol? Good luck with that.
We had Dumbele, fat Suarez, a bad fit new guy Griezmann and that's it.
So, Messi's impact will be weaker and weaker each new Month.
Guys who should take a leadership after him=don't exist in our team yet. And we will need years of a hit and miss transfers until we will find some new Figo, Rivaldo or Ronaldinho to lead our team after Messi.
Further, a core is finished. Busi can only be weaker and weaker each new season.
Raki is maybe already done.
Vidal also.
Alba soon.
Roberto sucks either way.
Suarez is done.
And yet, new guys are even worse than these old players.
Further, we are in a specific situation since we never won so many titles.
Pique, Busi and co are complacent.
We will need to turn the page.
It won't be possible for 1-2-3 years.
So, we will have 2-3 more years of sinking deeper and deeper.
Remember that BOTH Rijkaard and Pep turned the page and SOLD 10-15 players from a current era.
We will have to do the same. The problem is: we can't do it yet, Busi, Pique, Suarez and not yet ready to go.
Yet, we don't have replacements.
Plus we don't have money due to high wages, 105m gross yearly for Messi, 145M Dembele, 165m Coutinho and Barto.
Also, Barto will be here for 2 more years, so you can't expect improvements.
Also, Barto even wanted to go all in for Neymar, lol, and he will return for him in 3 Months.

So, in short:
1. Messi is getting older and won't be a gamechanger anymore
2. a core is old, and new guys except a rare examples are bad
3. our hands are locked for 2 more years with Barto
4. we won't have money for a new team after Barto, it seems
5. we will need a few years to rebuild a new team WITHOUT Messi, which will be hard since for 10 years everything was revolving around him
6. now add to that those points from a previous post: Barca's fans are spoiled and entitles and want: titles right away, beautiful play right away.
7. Catalonia has political problems, we are emotional and hot headed, so it is hard to cool down and make a longterm plan for 5 years
8. none coach in a current era will be given 2-3 years to slowly rebuild a team without results (like Crujff, Klopp)

Now, when you sum it all, and if we agree that we can't get Pep or Klopp...
Do you think that a random guy like Klopp, Sarri, Allegri, Conte, Setien would be able to EVEN WIN LA LIGA in this mess, with all these problems mentioned above?
You guys are obsessed with a CL. That ship has sailed.
If it happens, happens.
If not, oh well, we such either way.

We should turn to winning La Ligas.
Now, short terms, since Barto will be here for 2 more years:
1. all coaches will be screwed until Barto is here. So, whom could you hire to be a coach in this mess?
2. longterm, after Barto:
1) we will lose Messi surely
2) we will need to offload: Busi, Pique, Alba, Suarez, Raki, Vidal
3) we will need to build a new team and buy at least 2 new Ronaldinhos/Rivaldos.
We don't have money for that. And there are no available Ronaldinhos in site.
4) even if we buy 2 new star players and surround them with a functional team, it will take 2-3 years until it will click and gel correctly.

So, imo, 2 years under Barto will be: it is what it is, not due to EV; but due to all problems mentioned above.
After Barto, we will have a long rebuilding phase.
Crujff needed 3 years to click with his team.
Coaches in Gaspart's era (and later) needed 5 years to finally click.
Pep is the only guy who clicked right away. But again, he had cheating codes named Messi and Mr. TikiTaka himself called Xavi.

Now, when you sum it all and my analogy regarding your job: which is good. But it could be better, or easily way worse if you make a wrong move.
Do you still think that sacking EV is an absolute must?
That every coach will be better?
That random guys like Setien will be better?
That even guys like Valdes or Xavi would be better? How would they cope with their former teammates? Try to bench Busi, Alba or Messi...

So, one more time, I don't disagree with you guys about EV.
I just don't think that he is AS BAD as you claim.
And I don't agre with percentages and estimations how: everyone will be better than this.

Remember how people laughed at Mou at Man utd and how he is ruining their club with their ideas.
Solskjaer came, they had a few wins due to motivation and a fresh start.
And a few days ago, I have read that they have 3 wins in the last 17 matches.
A phrase: "It can't be worse than Mou" sounds different today.

Or just look at our team: it can't be worse than Suarez.
Then we buy Griezmann, and we are reaching new levels of horrible with him as a No9.

Or: it can't be worse than turtles Busi-Raki-Vidal.
After only 2-3 matches, Alena and Roberto are dead as midfielders.
So, it can get MUCH WORSE than Busi-Raki it seems...

In Croatia, a lot of people jumped and say that we play better without Rakitic.
Only to play 1:1 with Azerbaijan 3 days later, with Modric being exposed and clueless both in midfield, attack and defense without Rakitic.

So, we shouldn't be that fast with these: it can't be worse than XX or YY.
When in reality, for Barca's level, it is always way more likely that a new coach or a new player will be=30% success, 70% a failure or worse than a current guy.

Now when you calmly think about all of this.
Whom would you hire tomorrow?
Don't say Pep or Klopp, btw

Don't fix what ain't broken=wasn't invented for no reason.

It doesn't mean that I am against risks.
But you guys would be fired after 7 days since you would be making risks too often, in every single case.
 

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