Barcelona Dominance...

No one can stop us at this moment if we think of playing exactly the way we should play - the `el Barca` style. No One.

Jordzibob said:

And I think your underestimating us a little, but I do see your point given well...he's Messi, it's taking away our star player yeh, but the likes of Iniesta can still work their magic. Take away Messi, and it's basically Spain. To an extent.

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Not at all, they'd still beat most teams without Messi, but Messi's the player who makes Barcelona so fearfull to everyone else, and the player that makes Barcelona a level ahead of the rest of the European giants. His goal scoring and playmaking threat combined with his movement around midfield and attack make him impossible to man mark (He was stuck out on the right in 2008-09 when Bosingwa tailed his arse for 90 mins).

The rest of the Barcelona team are containable with the right tactics, Messi's like quicksilver though. Can't get close to him, and if he's not causing havoc up front, he's doing it in midfield. His presence also makes Xavi and Iniesta far more effective players as he's always in space or available for them to thread a pass/through ball to him.

In form Barcelona without Messi - containable. In form Barcelona with Messi - Unstoppable.

My only disagreement with that, because I can see your point, and it does make sense, is that if a team is working to contain Barca, which they do and will continue to do every year from now on (parked buses gonna be more and more frequent), then Messi is the first person they work on containing. That's not to say he's the easiest to control, he's probably the hardest, but in the case of the last two years especially, with Inter and Chelsea being examples, Messi was the person they neutralised fully. Iniesta was the most important player in the second leg vs Chelsea, not just because of his goal, he just got more and more influential throughout the tie. If Messi's playing, teams will focus mainly on closing him down as the masterpiece of the whole thing, but generally parking the bus is a very one way thing. We're lucky to have so much quality throughout in Iniesta, Villa, Pedro, Xavi, Messi. You have to close them all down. I agree with the fear factor though, and I guess that could motivate teams to try and play better vs us. But nobodys gonna be stupid enough, apart from Arsenal and Bayern, to try and take us on anymore. =[ Shame really.

No, I think we have found a way to counter the park the bus tactics, emphasied by the results we've been getting this season, teams just can't do it anymore like last season.

Jonathan28 said:

No, I think we have found a way to counter the park the bus tactics, emphasied by the results we've been getting this season, teams just can't do it anymore like last season.

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Yeh but who have we played this season that has a really strong defence? Like I said in my post before, it's all well and good to piss on teams like Bilbao when they try and park the bus, but if someone with huge, physical players like Chelsea does it, it is much much harder to break down. Plus they have more ability on the counter than any of the teams we've played so far. It's a shame Mourinho didnt try and park the bus, it would of been an interesting test. Rubin did it, and we coudlnt break them down.

Jordzibob said:

Yeh but who have we played this season that has a really strong defence? Like I said in my post before, it's all well and good to piss on teams like Bilbao when they try and park the bus, but if someone with huge, physical players like Chelsea does it, it is much much harder to break down. Plus they have more ability on the counter than any of the teams we've played so far. It's a shame Mourinho didnt try and park the bus, it would of been an interesting test. Rubin did it, and we coudlnt break them down.

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We played Rubin when we were still warming up for the season, just watch this week as we destroy them. Also, think about it, last season when we came up against these teams we struggled to score, not now.

We wont destroy them, your prediction will be wrong this time.

And what is our way of countering the parked bus, as you put it? We havent really changed tactics, the way to play us really is to force us to play down the wings and get crosses in, if you squeeze it because we have such midgets in our team, someone like Chelsea wont have a problem just heading it out of the box. Hence we need Llorente in January.

Jordzibob said:

We wont destroy them, your prediction will be wrong this time.

And what is our way of countering the parked bus, as you put it? We havent really changed tactics, the way to play us really is to force us to play down the wings and get crosses in, if you squeeze it because we have such midgets in our team, someone like Chelsea wont have a problem just heading it out of the box. Hence we need Llorente in January.

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The way we counter it? Speedy passing. Last season with Ibra our passing was slow and sluggish and we could hardly get through teams, like at the beginning of the season agaisnt Hercules and Mallorca our passing was the slowest I have ever seen, so the teams could just sit back all night if they wanted to. Now, we have gotten back to the fast pace of our play and our rapid passing, it pulls teams apart. If we play at the pace we did against Madrid throughout the season, no team can stop us. We could just pick them off whenever we wanted to.

Jonathan28 said:

The way we counter it? Speedy passing. Last season with Ibra our passing was slow and sluggish and we could hardly get through teams, like at the beginning of the season agaisnt Hercules and Mallorca our passing was the slowest I have ever seen, so the teams could just sit back all night if they wanted to. Now, we have gotten back to the fast pace of our play and our rapid passing, it pulls teams apart. If we play at the pace we did against Madrid throughout the season, no team can stop us. We could just pick them off whenever we wanted to.

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We played at a very fast pace against Chelsea in the CL Semi Final two years ago, in our treble winning season, and they still managed to shut us out. Bare in mind Mourinho played a suicidally high line, as fucking awesome as we were at exploiting it, it was easy for us to exploit because of how good our passing is. Against a team that will play really deep, like Madrid will do at the Bernabeu, it will be much much more difficult than anything we've faced this season. That's not that I dont have confidence in us to beat it, I'm just saying, there is potential there for it to happen and us to go out of the CL.

Against Chelsea in the first leg we got chances but never took them *cough* Bojan and Hleb *cough*, 2nd leg we got shut down, but we still did it

Yeh I was mainly referring to the second leg. And perhaps Bojan will stop getting, and missing, chance after chance after chance when somebody *cough cough Pep* realises he isnt Barcelona standard.

Oh well as I said it's not that the other top teams can't beat us....just that at this current time they will not lol. Chelsea being my primary example....in top form I fear them more than any other team without a doubt. But put them up against us now...and watch the dominance . Good discussions guys keep it up lol.

I think it's a very interesting topic. I like making predictions, and it's more fun (albeit a little negative) to focus on who we think can beat us rather than just who we'll beat to win the CL this year, because there's too much assumption that we just will.

If things keep going this way for us and the other top clubs don't step it up and get in form then I see us lifting the CL trophy with relative ease. Now the thing is I know this won't happen....it's just interesting to wonder who out of the top clubs will step it up and give us a run for our money. The team I pray stays in their current form would be chelsea...god I hope they don't get Essien and Lampard back then play us in the later stages. That would be damn scary. I don't see much coming from Man U or Inter or Milan...and Madrid will get smacked up again. Of course none of that can be predicted lol . I just feel confident about facing those teams.

I prefer to refer to it as the Barcelona era rather than dominance...As strange as it may sound, dominance has too much of a feel of cockiness to it...It's not a real reflection of how these players play, IMHO

We're just lucky to be living in this era where the play is at such a high & team oriented level...I'd like to believe this could go on forever but the reality suggests that it probably won't (Despite all the instruments in place to insure longevity)...I say ya gotta just sit back & enjoy it while it lasts

Sure don't look forward to a Gaspart era again but history suggests it's probably in the cards at some point