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All they really need is a coach who can get them playing in an organised manner. That doesn't require remotely great players - look at Greece in 04. Many other teams too are reasonably solid, more solid than Argentina. After that Leo, Kun, Di Maria etc is more than enough to nick some goals...

The Swiss aren't a terrible team or anything. Held Spain at the WC. Anywho great for his confidence.

My favorite part was Xavi's reaction after the goal. He's so good he can still surprise and impress the likes of Xavi.

Bloody hell that was some shit defending. Wasn't just Pique though, not fair to only have a go at him. They were all shit, even Puyol. At least we can rest some players now. Should play that BATE team!

Don't have those stats available to me :( I'm sure he's very high up. I'm also sure Ronaldo, Rooney, and all the other mentioned names are as well. Physically, players can deal with this. That said, I agree the mental strain is great, and combined with the NT issues he's probably had more than...

Messi's minutes on the pitch: 1847 David Silva's: 1954 Rooney's: 1816 Nani: 1772 Aguero: 1693 Mata: 1781 Bale: 2184 Modric: 2060 Point is, Messi's minutes simply aren't notable amongst the top players. They all play a lot, and many of them do more running than Messi. He doesn't look quite...

Zidane at his best was incredible, utterly majestic. Pity he was at his best maybe 3 games a year.

Ya I know, I meant his iffy performances in general.

Fabregas, whatever his faults, works really hard. You can easily see he's trying his best. As for Pique, well if Pep feels that then he should drop him to send a message. He knows better whats going on than us.

Aye. Not just the motivation but the physical strain. Sacchi's Milan just collapsed from the physical strain of their pressing, and we've been notably weaker in that area recently. Sustaining such levels of success for more than ~3 years seems almost impossible to do. That said we're still big...

Is there ever just one underlying problem? Messi looks a bit off, though his stats are still incredible. Iniesta, meet treatment room. Xavi is getting old :( Cesc is in his first season in a new team. Pep is fiddling a bunch with formations/roles etc. Pique got Shakira'd, or whatever happened...

We have a small squad, it's not that many injuries :/ Time to give a youngster a chance - that's half the joy of supporting Barca anyway :)

No one is disagreeing. Just saying that it happens. The reason you have more than one goalscorer in teams is so misses don't cost wins.

IMO our issues in games like that was cutting edge though. It's not like we didn't dominate the games possession wise. And cutting edge comes down to Iniesta being a sicknote, Xavi IMO in decline, and our wingers being...the less said the better, usually.

I'm not saying we're not worse, of course we are. I'm trying to point out that our lost points have mostly been reasonably understandable. We set incredible standards last year - 96 points!, and frankly, we were always going downhill from there. We're on course for ~86 points, which is still...

I would play Thiago more, instead and/or with him. Thiago isn't setting the world alight, but he is very consistent in his passing and offers much needed energy. I'd also prefer at least one youngster (Cuenca, Tello?) up front for similar reasons. Our pressing in general has noticeably...

It's not great, but that could just be statistical quirks. Sometimes you'll do unusually well/badly at home or away. Our home form is unusually good - only 2 dropped points. Looking at the away fixtures we've dropped points in: Sociedad 2-2 Valencia 2-2 Bilbao 2-2 Getafe 1-0 Espanyol 1-1...

*heresy alert* Is it just me who feels Xavi should start playing quite a bit less? He seems to lack energy, closing down less and less, and pressing is such a key part of our game.

Well we also dropped points against Sevilla and Espanyol with him. And I dunno how you can attribute his absence to us blowing a 2 goal lead against Sociedad. Don't get me wrong, the guy is class. Obviously we miss him. I just don't think we become shit or anything. It's our strongest area by...

Passing to Messi is the right choice in at least 95% of cases. Anyway we didn't have our usual right winger, so his passing choices were limited unless he went backwards. Hattrick last game?