Valverde: a second look

Birdy said:

Agree with every word you wrote down.

Just want to add that at Barca historically way of playing is AS important AS results, if not more.
And personally I side with that, that's why I hated our team under EV

Question is if he could play a different, a more aesthetically pleasing football.
Khaled implied that he could if he had prime Neymar staying put, and Verratti.
Indeed his first few games showed traces of an intention to implement good eye-pleasing football, but he abandoned the plan very soon

Click to expand...

I don't know if he could or if he could not tbh, it is up for anyone guess.
But I don't think we had the team back then to ask for a competitive and entertaining team at the same time.
A healthy Umtiti/Verratti/Neymar and I would have blamed him like anyone else for boring football.
The squad had awful balance and structure, with overrated players too. That was on Bartou and Abidal/Fernandez. If we had those 3 they would have solved those problems and then I can ask the coaches for what he did and what not.
For the record, I don't think he is elite top notch coach, but there are way too many levels for coaches, far beyond the "great, mediocre, awful" that fans usually loves to categorize coaches.
For the specific moments, with that squad and board I think EV was a good coach for us, those 2 Liga titles are appreciated from my behalf.

EV tenure is basically marred by that Liverpool match. He and the team just had to win that CL and prove they are not imbecile bottlers. All the stars in the world lined up to do it, including playing a possible CL final vs fucking Tottenham, that almost never happens .

Lucky win in the first leg, where they missed everything, no away goal for them, 2 out of 3 key attackers injured for the return leg, involved in a big title fight with City at the time which had them unable to rest anyone... Everything lined up to win and you STILL lose to a team starting Shaqiri and Origi.

Valverde only looks good looking back because we are now worse, but he played a part in the erosion of the team.

The only part where I was wrong about him was that he was also a victim of Bartomeu's disastrous presidency.

serghei said:

EV tenure is basically marred by that Liverpool match. He and the team just had to win that CL and prove they are not imbecile bottlers. All the stars in the world lined up to do it, including playing a possible CL final vs fucking Tottenham, that almost never happens .

Lucky win in the first leg, where they missed everything, no away goal for them, 2 out of 3 key attackers injured for the return leg, involved in a big title fight with City at the time which had them unable to rest anyone... Everything lined up to win and you STILL lose to a team starting Shaqiri and Origi.

Valverde only looks good looking back because we are now worse, but he played a part in the erosion of the team.

The only part where I was wrong about him was that he was also a victim of Bartomeu's disastrous presidency.

Click to expand...

Also the mental fragility of the players. I don't care if Valverde was League Two level, you don't bottle like that. Even if you have a literal traffic cone on the bench.

Marshall D Teach said:

Also the mental fragility of the players. I don't care if Valverde was League Two level, you don't bottle like that. Even if you have a literal traffic cone on the bench.

Click to expand...

Yea, it was a perfect symbiosis of bottlers, from players to staff. Even the locker room leaked stuff paints a picture of the void of personality and tenacity. There was no one in that team or on the bench to fucking stand up, man up, and realize this shit is not happening that night.

Reminds me of how Eto'o said at the CL final in 2006 at HT that he couldn't believe they were losing to 10 men Arsenal. And that he had a rant. That's the type you need. But also the manager can be a catalyst of that sort of thing. He's actually the most in charge of the atmosphere in the locker room. I saw a weak manager who didn't really have any leadership in EV.

We had a stronger team and more quality up front, but his 4-4-2 set-up also compensated for the lack of legs. His ugly football was the only way to mitigate the team's physical shortcomings. The CL humiliations were largely down to exceptionally bad luck and mental fragility.

te amo barca said:

We had a stronger team and more quality up front, but his 4-4-2 set-up also compensated for the lack of legs. His ugly football was the only way to mitigate the team's physical shortcomings. The CL humiliations were largely down to exceptionally bad luck and mental fragility.

Click to expand...

Tactically, he was better than he was given credit for. His main flaw though at that level is his personality. He is just not a leader and not a winner. That's why I doubt he will get another top job like that.

Big teams have complicated locker rooms and EV's way to handle that was to be submissive and kind. That's not what it means to lead.

Us being even shittier now doesnt make Fraudverde any better.

Only reason he looks a bit better than worthless is because MaTS and mainly Messi bailed him out as we grinded all the narrow wins throughout the season. And lets not forget bottling enormous leads against Roma and Liverpool when they lined up with the likes of Shaqiri, Origi & co while missing 2 of their most important players.

The only thing this confirms is that Valverde wasnt the only problem, nor the biggest. The whole team is shit.

te amo barca said:

We had a stronger team and more quality up front, but his 4-4-2 set-up also compensated for the lack of legs. His ugly football was the only way to mitigate the team's physical shortcomings. The CL humiliations were largely down to exceptionally bad luck and mental fragility.

Click to expand...

This

What EV did for Barca is a bit like what Scaloni has been doing for Argentina

Will forever remember him as the guy who made less CL finals than Avram Grant.