Ivan Rakitić

[Neymessi]

Point is that HE HAS NOT BEEN AS CRAP, as people make it sound to be. There is very big difference between being mediocre and being crap. No one expects people to hail him "as greatest midfielder of all time". That is the exaggeration I am talking about. He has been okey, not his best, but also not the worst player on squad. There have been better games and worse games.
This forum is not the only medium I follow regarding Barcelona. I also read professional journalism, different blogs, various social media outlets and more. What makes barcaforum stand out is this bizarre group-effect. If some group of people pick a target, be it Suarez, Rakitic, Gomes or anyone else, it just keeps on growing, until there is something like "barcaforum opinion", which becomes the hip and cool thing and anyone objecting it will be bullied, called names and more. Other mediums take it game by game.
Jamdav is excellent example of this. If you ignore his annoying habit of never backing out, he is in most of cases the voice of reason here, but instead of being one of the respected posters here, is more of viewed as a troll and annoying idiot who does not follow the group mentality. Or then 25k reddit cules, who are just ignorant as they do not share the "barcaforum" negativity.
That is what I am talking about.

I don't know what you think people here mean about the extent of his crapness but if I had to summarize then rakitic in his last 2 seasons he has been extremely mediocre and doesn't deserve to be a consistent starter for a team like barca by any means possible. Not a single top club will start rakitic in their starting 11 if they had rakitic.

And there is no group-effect here. If one remembers then rakitic wasn't criticised too much once he started playing bad. He was forgiven for a very long amount of time until it was like a whole season. Suarez has also been only recently been criticized too much after ages of being mediocre. And right now rakitic IS arguably the worst consistent starter of our team. Even in case of neymar there were always two opposing sides that debated ruthlessly for ages and that wouldn't have been possible if there was this groupthink you talk about.

I don't know if you are aware of this but its not just you but like 90% of the members here who have other sources of barcelona news apart from barcaforum. No one lives under a rock.

I don't know why you bring jamdav into this, he is one of those who has called rakitic average way before most people started calling him that here. Also just because he is different doesn't mean he is the voice of reason. I agree with him on a lot of stuff but he also has a weird boner for barto and co and keeps defending them which is dumb.

Literally no one on here thinks much about what others are saying before posting. I am guessing you once had an unpopular opinion which was rejected by most users here and since then you have made up your current opnion about this place.

And barca reddit is indeed delusional. Did you read the post posted in reddit a few pages ago? Its unbelievable it got such a postitive response on reddit and mind you that post didn't say rakitic isn't as bad as you think which is what you are saying right now. It said rakitic is a "complete midfielder" and "his best is yet to come". Don't make me laugh. There was one thread about Mats where someone claimed he and umtiti were the best signings of the recent times but then someone replied "How could you forgot raki" and that comment got a huge amount of likes as if rakitic was such a great signing. That one treble season has really made people blind to how terrible he has been ever since.

 

[Neymessi]

Sigh, you just do not read properly, the simple fact of him "deteriorating every season", is something that seems to be only in the mindset of this forum. I never claimed hate started overnight, on the contrary, I have stated that it takes time for some "barcaforum opinion" to formulate, but once it does, it becomes some sort of rule.
Trash Suarez, Rakitic after every game, ignore if they play better, or say he had 1 good assist or had 2 tap-ins, return with full strength if they play poor. It used to be Gomes last season, now he barely plays, new faces are needed. I am not even speaking about extreme cases of hoping someone gets injured or dies or something, which are luckily rare minority here. And then if anyone disagrees, he is automatically clueless, because this forum knows best. Want me to find the comments where some tv commentator or reddit users or some newspaper article or stats website is claimed to be idiotic, because this forum has different opinion? There are plenty.
JamDav is good example actually, because on most of cases he actually speaks his own opinion, rather than the common forum opinion and is trashed for that. I am not arguing here that he is correct all the time, definitely not. But his reputation here is mainly based on the fact he speaks against the majority and majority is not always right.
And no, I never claimed that if most people agree on something, they are automatically wrong. But if the common perspective of some topic on this forum is totally opposite from common perspective on some other forum or medium, perhaps people could consider the truth is somewhere in between and not just ridicule the other side?

So basically you admit that the hate didn't start overnight. It took a lot of time. Have you ever wondered that maybe people criticize gomes,suarez and rakitic because they have actually been shit and not because they want to sound cool? Why don't we hate on players like umtiti mats alba etc to sound cool?

And no mate even when raki and suarez have good games no one lashes them. When suarez has somewhat of a good game which he hasn't had recently but he just scored 2 okayish goals and when he did the only response you could see here was "lets hope he gets back in form with this". No one said that he continued to be atrocious. Same with rakitic.

 

[henias]

Sigh, you just do not read properly, the simple fact of him "deteriorating every season", is something that seems to be only in the mindset of this forum. I never claimed hate started overnight, on the contrary, I have stated that it takes time for some "barcaforum opinion" to formulate, but once it does, it becomes some sort of rule.
Trash Suarez, Rakitic after every game, ignore if they play better, or say he had 1 good assist or had 2 tap-ins, return with full strength if they play poor. It used to be Gomes last season, now he barely plays, new faces are needed. I am not even speaking about extreme cases of hoping someone gets injured or dies or something, which are luckily rare minority here. And then if anyone disagrees, he is automatically clueless, because this forum knows best. Want me to find the comments where some tv commentator or reddit users or some newspaper article or stats website is claimed to be idiotic, because this forum has different opinion? There are plenty.
JamDav is good example actually, because on most of cases he actually speaks his own opinion, rather than the common forum opinion and is trashed for that. I am not arguing here that he is correct all the time, definitely not. But his reputation here is mainly based on the fact he speaks against the majority and majority is not always right.
And no, I never claimed that if most people agree on something, they are automatically wrong. But if the common perspective of some topic on this forum is totally opposite from common perspective on some other forum or medium, perhaps people could consider the truth is somewhere in between and not just ridicule the other side?

So are u encouraging users to be like JamDav to always go against the majority for the sake of doing it? Since u said the truth is "somewhere in between", JamDav isnt making any better by having a completely opposite and extreme opinions at times. He still isn't a good example. And exactly which medium are u talking about? Are these medium correct as well? Obviously some social media or journalism wont blow up matters or speak the ugly truth bcos they have to accomodate to the fans or avoid public outcry. So, If those mediums are the majority, wouldn't we be the "minority", in the grand scheme of things? Shouldn't we then be praised for our sheer "honesty" like JamDav?

You already said those were "extreme cases" and it doesnt represent the entire community here. And now u are lumping everyone together and magnifying and blowing it further, by comparing us with "other mediums". You too cant handle the different opinions here frm what u nomally read in other platforms. You yourself couldn't break away from the traditional mindset as well. So why criticise the people here for speaking their mind?

 

[gasgas]

Your desires don t justify hate. Typical for this humanity..."my way or the hate way".

Saying you don t hate him, just the way he plays, is like a patient of yours saying he doesn t hate you, he just hates the way you administer medial treatment.

I m sure you ll be fine with that.

Yeah.
I don't hate Rakitic.
I hate his playstyle

 

[JerseyAddict]

I heard Raki is in Sevilla best 11 of All Times.

 

[Joan]

I think the problem with people hating on Rakitić are their expectations. Playing him on the right, as RCM, without a wing, he's supposed to cover for defence, participate as a winger and show class in the middle. He can't do that, doubt anyone can. Also, he's played every single game this season (bar one) and earned Valverde's trust. If he was as bad as you make it look, he wouldn't be nowhere near the starting 11.
I don't like him much but neither but don't find all the criticism deserved.

 

[DonAK]

I think the problem with people hating on Rakitić are their expectations. Playing him on the right, as RCM, without a wing, he's supposed to cover for defence, participate as a winger and show class in the middle. He can't do that, doubt anyone can. Also, he's played every single game this season (bar one) and earned Valverde's trust. If he was as bad as you make it look, he wouldn't be nowhere near the starting 11.
I don't like him much but neither but don't find all the criticism deserved.

Gomes kept getting picked to play important games for Lucho last season. Doesn't mean much.

Barcelona can and should do much better than Rakitic. The argument about covering up for the wing is used up. He doesn't do much even with a winger and a RB there.

 

[JerseyAddict]

People do have a claim in Barça deserves a better player in his place/positon/usage... But Q is does Barça currently have him? I don't see some that can claim that with 100% backing it up.

Barça needs to buy new midfielders... Ditch halg of current and all this "blabber" will be behind us.

 

[Givenchy]

hes ready

 

[Neymessi]

People do have a claim in Barça deserves a better player in his place/positon/usage... But Q is does Barça currently have him? I don't see some that can claim that with 100% backing it up.

Barça needs to buy new midfielders... Ditch halg of current and all this "blabber" will be behind us.

Semedo at RB with roberto at his positions says hi.

 

[MessiCam]

Point is that HE HAS NOT BEEN AS CRAP, as people make it sound to be. There is very big difference between being mediocre and being crap. No one expects people to hail him "as greatest midfielder of all time". That is the exaggeration I am talking about. He has been okey, not his best, but also not the worst player on squad. There have been better games and worse games.
This forum is not the only medium I follow regarding Barcelona. I also read professional journalism, different blogs, various social media outlets and more. What makes barcaforum stand out is this bizarre group-effect. If some group of people pick a target, be it Suarez, Rakitic, Gomes or anyone else, it just keeps on growing, until there is something like "barcaforum opinion", which becomes the hip and cool thing and anyone objecting it will be bullied, called names and more. Other mediums take it game by game.
Jamdav is excellent example of this. If you ignore his annoying habit of never backing out, he is in most of cases the voice of reason here, but instead of being one of the respected posters here, is more of viewed as a troll and annoying idiot who does not follow the group mentality. Or then 25k reddit cules, who are just ignorant as they do not share the "barcaforum" negativity.
That is what I am talking about.

Maybe you should stop reading about him and start watching him. He has been poor for the vast majority of games.

 

[xXKonan]

Lets just get this out of the way, Rakitic is no means a horrible player in the vein of Douglas.

He is however someone that is way to safe as in a grown man riding a bike with training wheels safe. In a team like ours which is struggling for chance creation and finishing at the moment, this is not what we need. He plays like someone that is okay with a draw and he's to afraid most of the time to even create a forward pass.

He could fit in with other teams but here, no we need someone who can not only dictate the tempo and create chances. But we also need someone who isn't afraid of getting pressed in the slightest and can wiggle out of a jam.

It's actually crazy that a lot of our Midfield options are all the same as in most of them do not want to take the initiative when needed, it's either the same stuff as in Passing backwards/sideways and generally play safe while the others have the shoulder the burden.

I mean come on man this is FC Barcelona. We should at least have Midfielders who aren't afraid of making their presence known.

 

[Zincubus]

Lets just get this out of the way, Rakitic is no means a horrible player in the vein of Douglas.

He is however someone that is way to safe as in a grown man riding a bike with training wheels safe. In a team like ours which is struggling for chance creation and finishing at the moment, this is not what we need. He plays like someone that is okay with a draw and he's to afraid most of the time to even create a forward pass.

He could fit in with other teams but here, no we need someone who can not only dictate the tempo and create chances. But we also need someone who isn't afraid of getting pressed in the slightest and can wiggle out of a jam.

It's actually crazy that a lot of our Midfield options are all the same as in most of them do not want to take the initiative when needed, it's either the same stuff as in Passing backwards/sideways and generally play safe while the others have the shoulder the burden.

I mean come on man this is FC Barcelona. We should at least have Midfielders who aren't afraid of making their presence known.

Rakitic is a funny case as he started great for a short while when we went through that great spell of success ( if that was the time that Messi / Suarez / Neymar were running riot and breaking records then maybe Rakitic's negatives were overlooked?) . He's gradually got less effective and nowadays he's passing short balls either sideways or more often than not backwards to the defence and all done at a snail's pace ( he's officially the slowest player in our squad incidentally) .

Oddly the other night he started the game with two great long crossfield balls so he has that in his locker but they were to no effect and he then withdrew back into his shell ..

 

[henias]

My genuine thoughts on Rakitic:

He looked good during the early MSN era, because there were Iniesta, Busquets and even Xavi in fine form; they were able to draw alot of defenders in one area through their stellar dribbles and passes, Rakitic was then able to exploit the space left behind by his compatriots and drive long passes or switch plays to Neymar or Dani Alves, who are often making runs on the left and right respectively due to their burst of pace. He also provided extra defensive aid whenever Barcelona gets caught in a tight situation and an extra men upfield whenever they are on a counter attack. His workrate was amazing back then.

Despite all that, Rakitic has always been slow, really slow, and was never really too good at tight space dribbling, largely has to rely on his teammates to do that at times. Fast forward to 2017, his flaws becomes more apparent and magnified due to the lack of controlling midfielders, fast wingers and fullbacks on both sides (Alba and Roberto, No Neymar, no Dembele). Rakitic now often gets caught more in tight spaces and run out of ideas of who to pass to, more often than not, resulting in him taking the safer route and passes most of the time.

There is still no doubt Rakitic has lost some of passing or longshot techniques and most prominently, his workrate and pace on the field. Especially with so many old players who lost their pace, namely Suarez, Messi, Iniesta and maybe even Alba who now work alone without Neymar, Rakitic can ultimately get exposed pretty badly. Worse of all, with Paulinho now co-existing with Rakitic in a 442 setup, who are both somewhat "workhorses", it simply is a recipe for disaster. With both of them lacking options to pass to, it will only double the problem that already exists: lack of width. You simply cant have too many workhorses on the field, their similar flaws will definitely cause more incongruity and their inability to compensate each other.

For the sake of the greater good, Barcelona has to give up either one of them, and Gomes. Rakitic is not a bad player; he's just not relevant anymore due to his age and decline.

 

[Zincubus]

My genuine thoughts on Rakitic:

He looked good during the early MSN era, because there were Iniesta, Busquets and even Xavi in fine form; they were able to draw alot of defenders in one area through their stellar dribbles and passes, Rakitic was then able to exploit the space left behind by his compatriots and drive long passes or switch plays to Neymar or Dani Alves, who are often making runs on the left and right respectively due to their burst of pace. He also provided extra defensive aid whenever Barcelona gets caught in a tight situation and an extra men upfield whenever they are on a counter attack. His workrate was amazing back then.

Rakitic has always been slow, really slow, and was never really too good at tight space dribbling, largely has to rely on his teammates to do that at times. Fast forward to 2017, his flaws becomes more apparent and magnified due to the lack of controlling midfielders, fast wingers and fullbacks on both sides (Alba and Roberto, No Neymar, no Dembele), Rakitic now often gets caught more in tight spaces and run out of ideas of who to pass to, more often than not resulting in him taking the safer route and passes most of the time.

There is still no doubt Rakitic has lost some of passing or longshot techniques and most prominently, his workrate and pace on the field. With so many old players who lost their pace, namely Suarez, Messi, Iniesta and maybe even Alba who now work alone without Neymar, Rakitic can ultimately get exposed pretty badly. Now with Paulinho co existing with Rakitic in a 442 setup, who are both somewhat "workhorses", is a recipe for disaster. With both of them lacking options to pass to due to the lack of width, it will only double the problem that already exists: lack of width. You simply cant have too many workhorses on the field, their similar flaws will definitely cause more incongruity and their inability to compensate each other.

For the sake of the greater good, Barcelona has to give up either one of them, and Gomes. Rakitic is not a bad player; he's just not relevant anymore due to his age and decline.

Great post !

I wish I had your way with words !