CL | Round 6: FC Barcelona - Sporting Lisabon 2-0

God Serena

New member
I'm not trying to "justify his shocking decisions", I'm trying to understand logic behind them. And my reasoning is a lot better than just saying he's a coward or Fraudverde as other people have called him. It's easy to just call him out with no further explanation.

Really, tell me why would he be a coward and not play this game with some B teams players under different circumstanes (if Barça B would be in a better position and/or if they'd play their league game only on Saturday or Sunday for example; or let's say if we'd play El Clasico on Friday so he'd need to rest his best XI, then I'm sure he wouldn't call up Messi, Busquets,.. for today's game). You have a better explanation than just saying he has no interest in using Barça B players? Or you just can't accept that it could be some logic in what I'm saying?

You're not trying to understand his logic, you're inventing some of your own so you can continue your stance of blind faith in this coach who clearly does not deserve it. But since you're a poster whose opinion I often respect even though it so rarely lines up with my own, I'll go ahead and address all the mental gymnastics you're trying to pull on this one.

He has no option to call up Barca B CB. Costas and Cuenca are ineligible to play (Fali and Martinez too but I doubt anyone really wants to see them :lol:) and Tarin is injured.

You're right. And unfortunately for us, this is such a challenging, high risk game that the mere though of using someone that's not a CB is something we can't afford to do. Digne is a failure at CB so he'll have to play LB over Cucu and calling up Palencia to get a run out at CB would be a terrible decision because he's not a CB at all, and we really, really need this win if we want to have a chance in the CL this season. Our only real choice is to use our only two healthy CBs even if one is extremely injury prone and just pray nothing bad happens. Poor Valverde has been backed into a corner.

People overreacting again. Barça B is playing their league game already on Friday night so I think EV has talked about this with Gerard and they want to keep Alena&Co. fresh for their important game vs Gijon in a tough situation Barça B is currently in. Alena has played 2 league games last week and Copa game for the first team in midweek. He and other B team players are still not used to play 3 games every week like our usual first teamers are.

First of all, who the hell cares how Barca B does in the league? Their job is to develop players, something they're not doing a very good job of, anyways. Their success should never be a priority over the needs of the first team and they should absolutely never rob a player of a chance to get an extremely rare opportunity to play first team football. Second, they're going to lose or draw whether they have their top players or not, as Lopez isn't a good enough manager for 2nd division football. Even Lucho didn't hesitate to pull Barca B's top two forwards from their team when there were opportunities with the first team and they were facing relegation then, too. Getting Munir and Sandro back didn't do a thing to save them from relegation in the end, either. Thirdly, playing three games in a week once =/= playing three games every week, and if that was really a problem just giving Alena a single half of playing time would more than alleviate that imaginary problem.

At the same time we have Roberto and Gomes coming back from injuries who needs to get regular playing time and other first team players who deserves more minutes like Vidal, Digne, Paco and Denis.

Did you seriously just say Gomes needs to get regular playing time? Are you shitting me? Did you seriously just say Vidal of all people deserves more minutes? Do you really believe this? I sincerely hope you don't. And players like Paco, Digne, Denis and Roberto don't have anything to do with not bringing the likes of Alena or Palencia with the team. Especially since lineups are out now and somehow Rakitic and Suarez are still starting.

Also, we only play vs Villarreal on Sunday so there will be enough time to rest for those players from the best XI that will play tomorrow. And we won't play a midweek game over the next two weeks. And after that there will be a 10 days break over the hollidays. So we'll really only play four games over the next month and I guess EV also doesn't want his players to get too much out of match rhytm.

Villareal is a better team than many of the teams we've dropped points to, I don't know what you're talking about when you say "Only" Villareal. They've got a better defensive record than Celta and we seriously struggle to score goals nowadays. And match rhythm is useless when you're overplaying your squad. Umtiti and Iniesta were both overplayed and are now paying the consequences, and now Vermaelen, who is literally made of glass, is starting a useless friendly when he's our last choice for CB. It just makes no sense.

Thinking about all this I can totally understand Valverde's decision to not include Alena or other B team players for tomorrow's game. Sure, I'm also disappointed as I was looking forward to see some of them again but at the same time I'm trying to understand the logic behind his decisions instead of just calling him a fraud.

You totally understand the coach who was advertised as being the coach who loves developing youth, completely ignoring them, for a laundry list of reasons that make virtually no sense. I have a confusion.
 

bodi16

New member
Looking forward to seeing Messi in the second half, at least for 30 minutes. Can't stand this snoozefest anymore.
 

Home of Barca Fans

Top