Ernesto Valverde

serghei said:

He had superstars slightly past their prime, of very high football quality but frail mental strenght.

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khaled_a_d said:

That is one way to describe it if you look at every player individually.
But the "past your prime" means you aren't at your physical best anymore, and this entitles massive tactical burden on the team.
Pique, Alba, Busquets, Rakitic, Messi, Suarez were the core of the team and all were past their physical prime for couple of years already (except Alba and Raki, were still decent in 1st year) and when you put it together, it is huge minus. Add to that there was no elite younger players in the team anymore.
The team wasn't "slightly" past its prime anymore, but massively, unlike the individuals.

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Rassvet said:

Two league titles, two domestic cups, and countless great matches to look back on: the last dance of Barcelona?s greatest era finally ended two years ago on this day. Your work began when club morale was at rock bottom after our aging squad looked finished the prior season under the much vaunted Lucho and Neymar?s untimely departure that summer. Despite all that, you pulled off one of the great managerial achievements in carrying us to an easy domestic double and 36 game league unbeaten run over an all time great Real Madrid squad in just your first season. Year two brought more dominance over our domestic rivals and a plethora of huge big game victories. Sadly, individual errors and a flawed squad once again denied you the chance to make the desired impact in Europe even if our last three Champions League campaigns showed that you still overachieved on that front.

Maybe the incredible start in season one ended up being your biggest problem by raising expectations and assessments of the squad to unrealistic levels. That combined with the overrating of many new additions to the team led to some of the most unfair and shameful attacks ever leveled against a coach. One bright spot from our great club?s struggles in these two years has been your undeniable and unequivocal vindication. Despite being claimed to be a cancer holding us back, it?s now been shown that you were actually doing a great job as manager and getting our dysfunctional squad to perform well beyond its potential. Like many geniuses, it sadly seems like the full extent of your achievement was only apparent after your departure.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you, mister. We miss you.

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CanadianCanadian said:

Great post but I will add. Watching Valverde's Barcelona was depressing. Game plan was pass to Messi and inshallah 99% of the time. Valverde managed to squeeze out as much as he could from our squad while trying to handle Barto and his genius management of the club and transfers. The picture of him leaving after being dismissed from the team needs to be in a museum for future generations to study

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Rassvet said:

Two league titles, two domestic cups, and countless great matches to look back on: the last dance of Barcelona?s greatest era finally ended two years ago on this day. Your work began when club morale was at rock bottom after our aging squad looked finished the prior season under the much vaunted Lucho and Neymar?s untimely departure that summer. Despite all that, you pulled off one of the great managerial achievements in carrying us to an easy domestic double and 36 game league unbeaten run over an all time great Real Madrid squad in just your first season. Year two brought more dominance over our domestic rivals and a plethora of huge big game victories. Sadly, individual errors and a flawed squad once again denied you the chance to make the desired impact in Europe even if our last three Champions League campaigns showed that you still overachieved on that front.

Maybe the incredible start in season one ended up being your biggest problem by raising expectations and assessments of the squad to unrealistic levels. That combined with the overrating of many new additions to the team led to some of the most unfair and shameful attacks ever leveled against a coach. One bright spot from our great club?s struggles in these two years has been your undeniable and unequivocal vindication. Despite being claimed to be a cancer holding us back, it?s now been shown that you were actually doing a great job as manager and getting our dysfunctional squad to perform well beyond its potential. Like many geniuses, it sadly seems like the full extent of your achievement was only apparent after your departure.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Thank you, mister. We miss you.

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BarcaOG said:

the football was not appealing but there was more to it than that. koeman and setien also tried 'passing to messi and hope', without success. what EV managed to do was shore up the defence and make us a hard team to beat, defensively capable. we havent had that since he left

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JohnN said:

They couldn't 100% replicate the "pass to Messi and pray" tactic because of two reasons:
1) Messi got older and could not bail us out singlehandedly anymore.
2) they organized the defense in a worse way than ev, who was good at it. Setien and koeman as far as defense goes are bums. For the attacking part it was always on Messi alone with all of them.

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BarcaOG said:

1) both EV and setien coached messi at the same age. so the first point is not really valid

2) well yes: thats my point, lol

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KingLeo10 said:

Messi's production was already lower with EV in EV's 3rd season. It was somewhat better than what he output with Setien, but with Setien there was also the start of COVID upheavel. EV knew how to use Messi than Setien did, for sure, but it wasn't some genius coaching on EV's part. It was Messi mostly being Messi.

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BarcaOG said:

messi just being messi, underperforming, glad to see u say it KL, u are growing

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KingLeo10 said:

Messi's production was already lower with EV in EV's 3rd season. It was somewhat better than what he output with Setien, but with Setien there was also the start of COVID upheavel. EV knew how to use Messi than Setien did, for sure, but it wasn't some genius coaching on EV's part. It was Messi mostly being Messi.

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