CL Round of 16: Napoli - Barca 1-1

[Don Juan Laporta Estruch]

I expect nothing short of a meltdown if anyone messes up at any point in the game TBH
Team looking as fragile as they did in that 2-8, now against an opponent who are themselves a minnow this season. More of a United vs Montella's Seville vibe to this than anything else

Arguably Xavi's largest shortfall as manager so far has been the inability to manage 2 legged knockouts.
With morale as it is, dont expect surprisingly good performances, unless both teams are on opposite ends of spectrum in league form going into the return leg

You sound a bit mad because you laughingly predicted Barca would get smashed yesterday, when in reality were by far the better side.

The stench of superiority from a guy that supports a team who can only seem to be successful with a La Liga president making up the rules to benefit them and castrate their competitors.

A VAR which allows handball goals and is caught on audio to ignore Vinicius punching an opponent on the face and ignore 2 fouls and an offside which lead to goals to beat the almighty Almeria.

And a La Liga committee where the decisions are made by a Madrid fanatic who reversed Nachos leg breaking tackle suspension so he could play in the Classico and then stealthily made his twitter profile private whilst deleting posts that showed him posting x-rays with the heart replaced by the Real Madrid badge.

Lest we even attempt to bring up the state funded car park deal and dodgy financial accounts which means Madrid are somehow allowed to spend 150m in the transfer market every season, whilst every other team in Europe not in the EPL cannot afford a ham sandwich.

Know this. Your stench of superiority would completely disappear if you ever play on a fair and level playing field. Not that that will happen any time soon.

 

[MagIX]

This Napoli is not even a shadow of the Napoli of last season (Scudetto won + playing brilliant football)...destroyed a brillan team thanks to president De Laurentis ! Spalletti out and 3 new coaches in a few months ! beyond ridiculous !fanculo !
Barca were better and should have won the match.

 

[Nazario1985]

It's always the same shit :
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 goal ==> win
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 and fail ==> draw
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 and fail ==> panic and get smashed

We are the worst team in transforming chances to goals.

This one is NOT on Xavi, a manager will help you get the ball in the danger zone ... the rest is up to you.

We can create even more chances if LW knew how to work with Yamal.

Pedri + Gundo + FDJ is way too much, Pedri seemed lost and had no role, FDJ and Gundo are enough we needed more players who can score not create.

Felix at the 86' minute !! way way too late.

As a surprise or maybe because Napoli is shit, the defense was for once good... except of course that stupid shit from Inigo

 

[malvolio]

This Napoli is not even a shadow of the Napoli of last season (Scudetto won + playing brilliant football)...destroyed a brillan team thanks to president De Laurentis ! Spalletti out and 3 new coaches in a few months ! beyond ridiculous !fanculo !
Barca were better and should have won the match.

They were already on the decline. By season's end they looked nothing like a title winning team.

They had their Leicester moment and bubble burst. Not like Spalleti is a genius coach that somehow went under the radar till last year.

 

[serghei]

They were already on the decline. By season's end they looked nothing like a title winning team.

They had their Leicester moment and bubble burst. Not like Spalleti is a genius coach that somehow went under the radar till last year.

Nah, it's a stretch to compare them to Leicester. They were a top 4 team in Italy for a good while prior to winning the title.

This season they are wildly inconsistent, a bit like Barcelona only worse.

 

[serghei]

It's always the same shit :
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 goal ==> win
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 and fail ==> draw
Create many chances ==> score only one goal ==> not able to score a second ==> go back and defend the +1 and fail ==> panic and get smashed

We are the worst team in transforming chances to goals.

This one is NOT on Xavi, a manager will help you get the ball in the danger zone ... the rest is up to you.

We can create even more chances if LW knew how to work with Yamal.

Pedri + Gundo + FDJ is way too much, Pedri seemed lost and had no role, FDJ and Gundo are enough we needed more players who can score not create.

Felix at the 86' minute !! way way too late.

As a surprise or maybe because Napoli is shit, the defense was for once good... except of course that stupid shit from Inigo

Subs were too late imo, I totally agree with that. Xavi should have reacted sooner as the team was obviously super-tired. Past min 60 Pedri and Gudogan were fucking swimming, they were dead.

As for the team, it's just not that good as most here believe, in their illusions.

Unless you are Manchester City or occasionally Liverpool, CL ties are tough and all opponents in knockout games are difficult.

Take Arsenal. Rocking it in EPL, 1 billion aseembled squad. Lost to Porto. Everyone were saying around here how the CL group was so easy and Porto was a joke.

 

[Barcaman]

As I said in Xavi thread, I don't think we were that poor.

Experiment with Christiansen doesn't work and we can't make subs when needed. I don't understand how Xavi is so blind.