Who should be Barca manager next season?

[Luftstalag14]

Barca is lucky to have Messi. No matter who is\was the coach.

Very true.

However, I’d argue that an average manager would instruct his players to give the ball to Messi and leave the rest up to him, if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out. A good manager would find ways to provide better support to Messi and help him help the team, and more importantly try to find other outlets and ways to carry forward when Messi has an off game.

If we continue to rely this much on Messi, what happens when he is gone? Start from scratch?

 

[El Gato]

If we continue to rely this much on Messi, what happens when he is gone? Start from scratch?

Not scratch. But you lose majority of the reasons for Barca winning games since circa 2008-2010.

There's a clear difference between the approach to long-term strategy between Barca and RM - Ronaldo is not the centerpiece, more of a cherry on top of the young Spaniard project. No point arguing what one can do and the other cannot. Cules laugh their asses off at Ceballos not getting game time while it's completely not the point. Cules ignore us having the likes of Vinicius and Odegaard still to come. While you lot are stuck with Barto's strategy of bringing in great players to put around Messi in hope they take some load off him. With no foresight beyond that. And it's not a managerial flaw, it goes beyond Valverde's duties. I could ask again what I asked in some other threads - what do Barca have in La Masia that is remotely capable of being called a "youth project for the future"? Alena? Lol.

PS: It's also probably partly the reason why Messi holds Barca hostage over contracts so many times. This obsession Barca have with making sure the world sees him as the do-it-all best player ever must be tiring him out. Many players of his mould would just take their ball back to Argentina and see out their career in peace.

 

[FCBfan22]

Not scratch. But you lose majority of the reasons for Barca winning games since circa 2008-2010.

There's a clear difference between the approach to long-term strategy between Barca and RM - Ronaldo is not the centerpiece, more of a cherry on top of the young Spaniard project. No point arguing what one can do and the other cannot. Cules laugh their asses off at Ceballos not getting game time while it's completely not the point. Cules ignore us having the likes of Vinicius and Odegaard still to come. While you lot are stuck with Barto's strategy of bringing in great players to put around Messi in hope they take some load off him. With no foresight beyond that. And it's not a managerial flaw, it goes beyond Valverde's duties. I could ask again what I asked in some other threads - what do Barca have in La Masia that is remotely capable of being called a "youth project"? Alena? Lol.

Yup. The difference is that if you replace Ronaldo with a WC striker, you would still win most of the games, while we can't replace Leo.

 

[DonAK]

Not scratch. But you lose majority of the reasons for Barca winning games since circa 2008-2010.

There's a clear difference between the approach to long-term strategy between Barca and RM - Ronaldo is not the centerpiece, more of a cherry on top of the young Spaniard project. No point arguing what one can do and the other cannot. Cules laugh their asses off at Ceballos not getting game time while it's completely not the point. Cules ignore us having the likes of Vinicius and Odegaard still to come. While you lot are stuck with Barto's strategy of bringing in great players to put around Messi in hope they take some load off him. With no foresight beyond that. And it's not a managerial flaw, it goes beyond Valverde's duties. I could ask again what I asked in some other threads - what do Barca have in La Masia that is remotely capable of being called a "youth project for the future"? Alena? Lol.

Real Madrid's project is resembling our model than Barca's is doing. That's what happened. And there is no one seeing that. I've been saying this ever since I joined this forum. The current model is not sustainable and it's going to burn us later when we have to use a lot of money to correct it, both 1st team and Academy.

Hopefully they've learned their lesson with Barca B right now, but I doubt it. They're obsessed with promotion and competing in Segunda whereas the focus should be to develop players for the 1st team. Their reasons for prioritizing promotion and staying up there is that the gap between La Liga and Segunda is lesser, but who the fuck cares if all you do is disregard academy players for a bunch of mediocre signings and a manager whose focus is survival to keep his job rather than actually playing, teaching and developing players.

The strategy around putting players around Messi would have worked had they signed proper players rather than the Arda's, Gomes', Vidal's of the World, and realized when it's time to move on from a player. The fact that we cannot even upgrade from Rakitic who should be a bench player, and likely are stuck with Suarez says it all.

But Valverde or any coach for that sake, should still be able to utilize what is available much better, or at least show the commitment to play and act like a big club. The failures begin from the top of the hierarchy, but he's paid to maximize the potential of the squad available, but in the CL he's failed miserably.

Valverde has achieved great success this season that should not be disregarded, but he also achieved great failure which also should not be overlooked.

Btw: Ødegaard is not going to make it at Real Madrid and you need to let Vinicius stay in Brazil or loan him out to a good club to help his development. Ødegaard should have left the league here this early, and if he did, he should have gone the Eriksen route via Ajax or Borussia Dortmund. He's struggling in Heerenveen which is not a good sign. His decision making is way too conservative to match his talent.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Not scratch. But you lose majority of the reasons for Barca winning games since circa 2008-2010.

There's a clear difference between the approach to long-term strategy between Barca and RM - Ronaldo is not the centerpiece, more of a cherry on top of the young Spaniard project. No point arguing what one can do and the other cannot. Cules laugh their asses off at Ceballos not getting game time while it's completely not the point. Cules ignore us having the likes of Vinicius and Odegaard still to come. While you lot are stuck with Barto's strategy of bringing in great players to put around Messi in hope they take some load off him. With no foresight beyond that. And it's not a managerial flaw, it goes beyond Valverde's duties. I could ask again what I asked in some other threads - what do Barca have in La Masia that is remotely capable of being called a "youth project for the future"? Alena? Lol.

PS: It's also probably partly the reason why Messi holds Barca hostage over contracts so many times. This obsession Barca have with making sure the world sees him as the do-it-all best player ever must be tiring him out. Many players of his mould would just take their ball back to Argentina and see out their career in peace.

This I agree with 100%, it is certainly not Valverde’s fault for Messidependencia, however he did take great advantage of it and deepened it in my opinion.

You hit the nail on the head Wolfe. Real Madrid really has a smart strategy. How much do I wish to have that kind of approach for us. That is a winning strategy for the future (certainly nothing is guaranteed) and a great formula for team transitioning into the future.

Edits: I agreed with you almost enitirely before you mentioned Vinicius and Odegaard. First off nobody knows how they will turn out; secondly we are not that different in terms of chasing future talent that are several years down the road before making to the first team as we do our fair share of that too, what differentiated Real Madrid from us is that you have done a much better job buying ready-to-play promising young players around 20 years or age and integrating them into the first team, and more importantly developing a game plan that does not solely rely on the performance of aging stars like Ronaldo. This is where we are significantly lagging behind.

As to Messi, I am not sure I understand what you were saying.

 

[Chainsaw]

True that. But still, if we are not careful, another Tata can happen.

You mean that hiring a coach and not supporting him enough? I agree

Very true.

However, I’d argue that an average manager would instruct his players to give the ball to Messi and leave the rest up to him, if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out. A good manager would find ways to provide better support to Messi and help him help the team, and more importantly try to find other outlets and ways to carry forward when Messi has an off game.

If we continue to rely this much on Messi, what happens when he is gone? Start from scratch?

An average coach does not win the domestic double quite comfortably like the way Valverde did, with a weakened and older squad which hasnt been properly reinforced in the past summer. He had a hasty purchase like Dembele coming very late and out due to injuries for months, Lord Paulinho coming from China who many considered to be a joke of a deal, Semedo who is not exactly a world beater in his postition, and Coutinho who arrived in the middle of the season and couldnt play in the CL. When you look at the quality of the Barca bench it is quite laughable. The team lacks enough quality to play the way some people want the team to play. IMO, minus the Roma tie, Valverde was beyond the expectation for what he had to deal with this season.

 

[Trickykid]

Perhaps the RM strategy is something to envy - but it sure as hell isn't because of the likes of Ødegaard or Vinicius.

We'll see how it pays off once Modric and Ronaldo are getting replaced by these kids of yours.

 

[Stoichkov1]

Sure, if you look at the dire position we were in last summer, domestic double certainly looks great. However, in what fashion did we achieve it? To me it had more to do with luck than substance. We were lucky this season because (1) Messi continued to bail us out even when we played bad and (2) Real Madrid did us a big favor by shooting themselves in the foot. How many games did we play convincingly well this season? I could count with just one hand. And what has Valverde really brought to the table for us? Did our defense really improve? Ter Stegen improved and bailed us out many times for sure.

Coutinho could have had more game time than what he was given. The same was with Dembele on many occasion. Semedo was more or less an afterthought, barring his injury. Mina was completely sidelined.

He is like a poor man’s Mourinho. How much more time do we give him before he wrecks the team and comes up empty-handed? How much time do we have, especially considering Messi only has a few more years left, that it is even more crucial to start building for the future?

Sorry but in a league campaign the best team always wins. You can't play like shit for 38 games and finish 11 points above Atletico and 15 above Real. If we have been rubbish you have to admit that Real played like a team in the relegation zone.

Madrid played like shit the entire season and in CL they've been inconsistent too. They were losing against PSG at home, then thanks to a Kroos' dive they won the match. They dominated PSG in the return leg and Juve away, then got dominated by Juve at their own stadium and they were saved again by the referee. They won in Munich but they were lucky as hell and they should have lost that match.

The truth is that Madrid played good in 2/3 matches all season.

 

[El Gato]

The strategy around putting players around Messi would have worked had they signed proper players rather than the Arda's, Gomes', Vidal's of the World, and realized when it's time to move on from a player. The fact that we cannot even upgrade from Rakitic who should be a bench player, and likely are stuck with Suarez says it all.

I don't actually think all of them are garbage. Arda certainly was the buy that turned out to be a complete flop on the commitment side of the player who felt that he achieved his dream and stopped working for anything else. But Rakitić's and everyone else is just a side effect of trying to fill a post-Xavi gap. I wouldn't hold it against Barto or the managers, cuz nobody can successfully do what the role midfield did with Messi in early 2010s. Not even Seris, Arthurs, you name it. It'd probably be better if you bought those younger guys in hindsight, like Madrid did with Kovacić and Ceballos, let them develop that way, but it's not exactly a horror show with that squad right now. Yes, you'd be overrun in a direct meeting with a top midfield trio, but I don't think you can build anything to compete on that level in 2-3 years.

Btw: Ødegaard is not going to make it at Real Madrid and you need to let Vinicius stay in Brazil or loan him out to a good club to help his development. Ødegaard should have left the league here this early, and if he did, he should have gone the Eriksen route via Ajax or Borussia Dortmund. He's struggling in Heerenveen which is not a good sign. His decision making is way too conservative to match his talent.

You probably watch more of him, being a Scandinavian, but for a 19-yr old I'm not so concerned yet. If in 2-3 years he's still a chickenshit that can't grow a spine and believe in himself then sure. But by that time he'll be back training with Modrić, Kroos et al who will start drilling that into his head. If you look at Kovacić-Ceballos pairing from yesterday, the latter was making some really nice moves showing he does have the balls at 21. Odegaard's experience is far different, but it's not impossible to transform and gain confidence in 2 years.

Fully aware having prospects out there ready to join Madrid isn't the success story. But at least there are young guys away from money and fame of the club honing their craft in peace and there is constant scouting going on ever since Zizou joined the backroom staff. He really does look at least 2-3 years ahead of time, which is super important for a club this size. It's not about namedropping like [MENTION=8742]Trickykid[/MENTION] and [MENTION=13941]Luftstalag14[/MENTION] seem to gather from this, it's about having that branch of future development in your mind. Constantly. You can't really say the same about Barca in any way. On any level.

 

[mateopol]

Yea we have been lucky to have Messi for many years now. Why is this year different to any other? We have been also very unlucky, take all the posts and crossbars and ref decisions and we would be looking at over 100p season.
We have played bad in maybe 4-5 games for entire year, everything else is exaggerating it to the max. There is are other colors than black and white.
Development and growth of the team? Wtf, he sacrificed the solidity we had to introduce Coutinho and Dembele. These are 2 new players who had to be integrated mid-season more or less. Not to mention the on-off Semedo and totally different style of player in Paulinho. For majority of players, there has been clear improvement compared to last year. Likes of Umtiti, Alba, Busi, Raki, Ter Stegen and many others are having considerably better season compared to last.
Putting everything into perspective and looking at how we looked when he took over and what summer we had, I see clear improvement that was backed up by 2 trophies and possibility to do unprecedented invincibles season.
Yes, lets be a club that fires a coach who has lost exactly 2 games for entire season...

Four games, he lost 2 in Supercopa to RM, 1 in CdR to Espanyol and 1 to Roma. There are still 4 games to go. I wrote before Chelsea first match that we have no chance for Champions League because we play very bad but Valverde got a lot of luck. I stand by my opinion. It was most boring Barca since I watch Barca (1998). I didn't feel joy watching this team play, 4-4-2 sucks. Valverde will stay as board won't sack him and won't do drastic makeover in the squad. I don't think Valverde will change in second season, let's see how transfer market goes and will we make correct transfers but with the same squad we have now minus Iniesta plus Arthur, Griezmann and Valverde as a coach I wouldn't put even 10$ bid for us to win Champions League. We need fresh blood especially in the midfield and coach who will make smart rotations not let players play in games like Leganes 3 days before UCL game.

 

[LeeRomeno]

Four games, he lost 2 in Supercopa to RM, 1 in CdR to Espanyol and 1 to Roma. There are still 4 games to go. I wrote before Chelsea first match that we have no chance for Champions League because we play very bad but Valverde got a lot of luck. I stand by my opinion. It was most boring Barca since I watch Barca (1998). I didn't feel joy watching this team play, 4-4-2 sucks. Valverde will stay as board won't sack him and won't do drastic makeover in the squad. I don't think Valverde will change in second season, let's see how transfer market goes and will we make correct transfers but with the same squad we have now minus Iniesta plus Arthur, Griezmann and Valverde as a coach I wouldn't put even 10$ bid for us to win Champions League. We need fresh blood especially in the midfield and coach who will make smart rotations not let players play in games like Leganes 3 days before UCL game.

I always thought Supercopa was actually considered to be part of previous season? Playing good has nothing to do with winning CL and we definitely played well enough to win it this season. What ruined our chances was being arrogant and totally not prepared in Rome. Everyones mind was in semifinals already. If you want to see how mentality makes a difference check our CDR final game and Roma game. More or less same players, totally different outcome. And just as Valverde has to be blamed there, players take their blame as well. Pretty sure he wasnt telling everyone to keep sucking so we lose in the end...
I can also guarantee that no matter if he rested players vs Leganes (which he did at least to some extent + Messi for example got rest during international break) or not, with correct mentality, we still should have gone through.
That most boring Barca since 1998 is hilarious, unless you consider losing fascinating. There were boring games and then there were good games.

 

[LeeRomeno]

Trolling? Mourinho is certainly better. Clearly we see things differently. We will have to agree to disagree then. I don’t see any hope under Valverde and I can’t wait for him to get out.

Sure, he has already more or less achieved what Mou achieved in RM in his 3 years there with his first season. Yes, double with possibility of undefeated season awakens the dark clouds of doom on horizon.

 

[Benzema10]

i wish you guys change your style of play completely, i would love to see a klopp, ancelotti at Barcelona.

 

[dakt]

Big Mou:

It's passion.

 

[dakt]

Or Jurgen:

For sure.