Potroh
New member
Okay my friend. Let it be:
1. I don't understand why you question Semedo being ALONE in the right. It's obvious, all you need to do is to watch or watch again a particular game.
He stops and turns around because there is nobody ahead of his position, occasionally Messi goes wide and he is there but manned by at least two defenders.
2. Your statistics are not flawless, but mere statistics never are. Statistics are the fleshless and rigid bones, not necessarily related to the actual FLOW of Play.
3. Assists are similar to goals, it matters HOW an assist happens, often an assist is just an assist because xyz player was the one touching it last before the scorer.
Those are indeed statistics - raw, rough and often meaningless numbers to cover the FLOW of ACTION, which tells something but covers less than the game implies.
Those statistics are for the forgetful spectators, who love the Gerd Mueller, CR7 and Levandovsky types of players, scoring a lot of goals from one meter. They are the ones who "somehow" are capable of pounding or sieveing a ball through the goal-line - and that's all. Messi is the living example of of how goals - and assists at the same time - also mean QUALITY.
- In my vocabulary there are clear goals which are the result of a well thought-over ACTION and there are "dirty goals", which result in the same quantity of points or trophies, but are lucky, unintentional or often accidental. Don't mix up the two types in the long run! The same stands for assists.
(When I used to play for my NT, there was a manager, who listed the goals of being 5 different types. Namely:
1. Penalties, given one point.
2. Accidental and lucky goals - two points.
3. Free-kicks or corners - three points.
4. Nice collective actions or goals scored followed by a well-thought-over action - four points
5. Individual or collective brilliance resulting in a goal - five points.
When the mere statistics give the same number of "points" to a penalty and Messi's genius finishing capabilities, then the problem is with the statistics that simply doesn't differentiate well enough.
You should ALSO differentiate when you analyze and see the weak and uniform nature of the dry statistics!
(The difference is that teams can thoughtfully PRACTICE the flow situations, while the lucky bounces and accidental, instinctive and unintentional moves cannot be practiced).
2. In EV's system, Roberto plays against weaker opponents. When defending is a must, even EV often prefers Semedo.
- The same stands for assists.
If Messi gets the ball 60 meters from the goal, in our own half, then he dribbles through 5 opponents and scores, the assist will be still given to the midfielder or defender, who passed the ball to Messi. So you should once again differentiate between types of assists too.
The last clear assist by Roberto that I recall, happened at the 0:4 game against RM, when Messi was absent and Roberto gave a nice ball to Suarez. The rest I don't remember, even if statistics tell you so. There are "assist masters" but Roberto is definitely not one of them.
- In EV's system, Roberto usually plays against weaker opponents, while Semedo starts when defense is needed more prominently.
- Roberto - being a generic midfielder - usually tries to cut to the middle, while Semedo is restricted to the line.
- When Semedo plays (and Dembele does not on the right) usually the only attacker on the right is Messi, but already manned by at least two defenders. That's why Semedo's "famous" stop and back-pass happens. There's nobody else.
- As I mentioned, Roberto's and Semedo's positions are NOT the exact same. Roberto tries to come to the middle, Semedo remains close to the line. Probably it is a part of the "tactical" manual of EV, I'm not certain of that.
- I did not claim that in this static system "nobody would move", yes they do but they do it quite predictably apart from Messi. This Barca is made around Messi, don't forget it.
- Suarez is usually in the middle but more importantly he is 50% of the cases is standing backwards to the goal, trying to make room for the others. When he gets the ball while facing backwards, he usually falls or the ball bounces from him. Nothing else remains but to find Messi from the right side, but he cannot always be found. That's why a RB in attack can rarely find a good solution, including both Roberto and Semedo.
It started when Xavi left, Iniesta played more on the left, everything happened on the left, with the exceptions of Dani Alves's moves. But he is not there anymore and since then the entire Barca scheme is single-sided (left sided). With one exception: if Dembele plays on the right.
But Dembele doesn't often play on the right - because EV's system IS STATIC, so look at any Barca heat-maps, you will see that twice as much happens on the left...
