The problem is Barca playing possession football. Possession football is for teams that keep the ball to just keep the opponent from attacking (i.e small teams). The base of the best team in the world was formed on the Dutch Total Football not possession football (although the possession came as a by-product of our domination). We have moved away from all out full attacking Total Football to defensive minded possession football hence the possession for possession's sake instead of possession with an intent to attack the hell out of the opposition. We need to go back to Total Football, our roots, in order to be our best again.
This is awesome post.
People are confusing total football and possession.
Barca always "copied" total football from Netherlands and Ajax.
And we basically always played versions of total football with Crujff, Van Gaal and Rijkaard.
Pep brought that to a new level, but in the last 3-4 years everything went horribly wrong.
As Behrox said, we played attacking, total football and product of that football was a total domination and possession.
But lately we don't dominate as with Crujff, Van Gaal or Rijkaard, we just have possession and nothing more.
So, total football and possession are not the same thing.
We should go back to attacking total football which brings possession with it, and not this current sterile possession crap which we are playing for the last 4 Seasons.
I have been reading this whole topic one more time, and again, I have a feeling that people either haven't watched Barca too much before Pep's era, so they think that Pep's way is the only way, or I don't know what happened, but too many people still think that Barca played well and won trophies only under Pep.
Further, again, Pep's system worked only for 2-3 Seasons.
And that system is extremely one dimensional with no plan B, and with that crappy short players thing.
Messi, Xavi and Iniesta are not on their prime, and what we have now?
= a bunch of short players past their prime and extremely one dimensional playing style
I have watched some Goals (whole Seasons) from Van Gaal's and Rijkaard's era in the last few days, and you can see that we scored so many headers, goals after corners, goals from outside the box etc. And a lot of semi-counterattacks.
While, when you watch videos from recent years, all goals are extremely one dimensional:
= we play against a parked bus, and all goals come after 1000s of passes inside a box
Again, some people will say that teams didn't play this way against us in the past.
Imo, we are guilty for that.
We play 1000s of passes on the ground and we aren't lethal with crosses/headers and we don't attempt long range drives.
So, teams just sit back and defend against our only weapon: passes on the ground and solo actions from Messi and Neymar.
Now, please, take a look at this video from Van Gaal's 2nd Season 98-99:
-- it is insane to see how many headers we scored
-- when you look at a video, we are versatile as Bayern
-- we can score after shortpassing, after counterattack, after a cross into the box (with a header), with long shots, with solo actions
-- teams don't know how to defend
-- in this era, nobody would allow Alves to cross 20 crosses, because Kluivert, Rivaldo, Giovanni, Luis Enrique, Sonny Anderson, Cocu scored 1000s of goals with headers
-- so, teams needed to defend both against counterattacks, shortpasses, solo-actions, corners, crosses etc..
Video:
Or, Rijkaard's Barca:
People should just take a look at different types of actions and goals back then and today.
Especially a lack of goals after corners, then headers after crosses and long shots.
The current copy of Pep's Barca is a disaster.
We should take a few steps back and go back to Van Gaal's or Rijkaard's style.
With more total football, more direct and fast actions, and to change this system of short players who can't do anything except to pass left and right for 90 minutes.
