Ivan Rakitić

[Obiaseti]

No point blaming him. He has done his best for us given his capabilities. At no point did he ever indicate he was anything special or different from the player we got from Sevilla. Our board made the decision to buy him and it paid off short term when we won in 2015 with a slightly different type of midfield to the ones preceding it. But, long term you can't expect a player to drastically change. His issue is not that his effort is limited. His main shortcoming is that technically his ceiling is not as high as it needs to be for the kind of football we've been used to over the past decade. There's nothing he can do about it.

There's always a push and pull between the kind of playstyle we would like to play and the playstyle that our players afford us. Right now the scale is tilted very much in the direction of our players limiting what we can do. Rakitic is an example of this. But there are others as well. Certainly, a more innovative coach than Valverde would be able to get more out of our squad but changes are needed nevertheless.

 

[Andrew M]

No point blaming him. He has done his best for us given his capabilities. At no point did he ever indicate he was anything special or different from the player we got from Sevilla. Our board made the decision to buy him and it paid off short term when we won in 2015 with a slightly different type of midfield to the ones preceding it. But, long term you can't expect a player to drastically change. His issue is not that his effort is limited. His main shortcoming is that technically his ceiling is not as high as it needs to be for the kind of football we've been used to over the past decade. There's nothing he can do about it.

There's always a push and pull between the kind of playstyle we would like to play and the playstyle that our players afford us. Right now the scale is tilted very much in the direction of our players limiting what we can do. Rakitic is an example of this. But there are others as well. Certainly, a more innovative coach than Valverde would be able to get more out of our squad but changes are needed nevertheless.

He certainly thinks enough of himself to ask for a pay rise every other season

 

[Potroh]

This has happened multiple time in a row. Showing your happy face after another disaster shows you don't give a shit. I don't want to see an attitude like that. I want them to cry because that shows at last they cared.. I hope they care enough to change this team for better. This team is done, they need to change it, management (Coach) and some old VETS need to go.

Understandable words, no doubt. But that comes from your specific point of view only.
So please never ever forget that these relatively young boys are professionals.
They are payed (often too well) to go to the arena, sacrifice themselves and depending on where they play, sometimes 90% of spectators - the crowd - want them to suffer, to be eliminated, to be abased and crashed. One needs to handle that.

- Professional footballers do not only "work" for Barca but for thousands of teams worldwide. There are lower ranking teams out there and there are teams who rarely even taste victory.
Those players have to bear or abide to be beaten very often, but the next weekend or so they need to go out the pitch once again. Then again in 3-4 days.
Hence they mentally need to be strong, which also means they need to bear the sinus-nature of the game, once up - once down.

- In the best case you do not carry your work-related problems to your home and you don't beat up your wife and children because of the serious or frustrating problems at work.
A pro-player thinks the similarly. He doesn't want to carry the work-related shit into his bedroom and he is right about it.

- Barca players rarely taste to be beaten, specially badly beaten, but they have the rights to be a private person too.
So with a friend or with a long lost colleague, they have the rights to smile on a common photo, specially if they are not aware that it will be public in hours.

- If I were the coach of a team - like this team now - who underwent a shocking defeat, I would be happy to see the players smile in private, because it would be a sort of guarantee that the shock will not last for many games ahead.

- They truly "care" if they get passed it with the most possible edification and if they are capable to straighten their bent spines.

- Clear minds are needed in situations like this, therefore a small friendly smile is actually not a bad sign for the common purpose... A smile gives hope, whereas unstoppable tears weaken...

 

[xXKonan]

A tidbit on MD's front cover claims Inter-Barca are close to an agreement with Rakitic.

No idea if it's their own sources or them just reposting other news sources.

 

[Sterlingfan2000]

It's apparently 50 Million Euro.

Take and run hahahah

 

[BBZ8800]

I am reading in Sport today that 3 scapegoats sold will be: Coutinho, Rakitic and Umtiti.
Fine.

But the one thing which I don't like is that a club is always "killing" the foreign players.

Busquets was equally as shit as Rakitic during the last few years.
In fact, I would dare to say that Busi has declined physically way worse than Rakitic.
So, Rakitic will be sold and what, Busi will be a starter till the age of 35, lol?
Or Alba? An awesome player for La Liga, but a headless chicken without IQ in a Champions league.
A guy doesn't even have a sub for his position.
Pique, the same, he will play till the age 40.

I have wrote a few days ago that Barcelona can't sell/Bench domestic players.
Pique is a political icon, a symbol of independence.
Busi is a last part of Xavi-Iniesta-Busi trio.

If the board would get rid of Busi and Pique, in this moment, a club would be left without any classical La Masia products as starters (if we consider Roberto as a squad player, Alba as so-so La Masia player and Messi as a foreigner).
Alena is not a starter material currently, Puig is far from that level.
So, I would personally put my money that due to political and identity reasons, our dear Busi will be playing as a starter for at least 2 more years, with or without Valverde.

** Remember when Rijkaard came, he fired ALL foreign players and ALL older players.
He kept only YOUNG and La MASIA players: Xavi, Iniesta, Valdes, Puyol, Oleguer, Motta, Gabri. Everyone else had to leave.

When Pep came, in the first 12 Months, he got rid or Ronaldinho, Etoo, Deco, Edmilson, Gudjohnsen, Zambrotta, Thuram.
He kept majority of domestic players.

That is fine to some extent because a club needs to keep an identity.
But, imo, a problem is:
In 2003 and 2004, Rijkaard had young Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol to build a team around them.
In 2008, Pep had: Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol plus Busi and Pedro turned into awesome players.

But a coach from 2019-20 has NOBODY decent from domestic players.
Pique will be 32 and 33 in the next season.
Busquets is the weakest liability in European matches.
Roberto was never a starter's material.
Alena and Puig are fans' wishful thinking.

So, my point is: Rijkaard and Pep got rid of foreign players and they have built a team around domestic players, but both of them had the best generation ever of domestic players.
It was somewhat "easy" to rely on domestic players when your domestic players were Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and Busi.

A new coach will be forced to play 2-3-4 Catalan players as starters and his only options will be: granny and mentally drained Pique, granny&mentally drained&without any fighting spirit Busi, low IQ headless chicken Alba and 2 questionable young CMs.

I already see, people will now say: Iniesta was also unproven under Rijkaard, so a situation is the same with Alena and Puig.
Lol.
Iniesta was the best young Spanish player, their captain and was leading them to youth World cup finals and trophies, being voted in all star teams all the time.
Alena is nowhere near that level and Puig doesn't play in ANY youth NT level at all.

The same about Busi, a late Bloomer, but immediately turned into an NT player.

Anyway, I think that we will have a problem with this part where a few Catalan players have to play in the next season, and yet our core Catalans are finished and young guys are far from ready.

 

[Judoman]

Dude don t drag Alena and Puig in to this. Let them show what they can do first. You have a weird thing about trying to predict future, while forgetting that the game evolves.
What worked 10 years ago doesn t necessarily work now.

Agree od double standards though, specially regarding Busi. He shouldn t be a starter anymore.

 

[Potroh]

I am reading in Sport today that 3 scapegoats sold will be: Coutinho, Rakitic and Umtiti.

Selling Rakitic most probably had been decided when they bought De Jong.
If Rakitic undertakes being a substitute, then fine, they can keep him like that, but probably he wants to play.

Coutinho's possible sale is a mere financial matter, they will get rid of him but only for considerable amount of money.
If Valverde stays (I sincerely hope he will not) there is no use for him to play further. But in case another coach comes, there is perhaps a slight chance that he can reincarnate himself, preferably in a different position.

What I don't understand is Umtiti - if the gossips are true.
He is a great player and at his best he is much better than Lenglet.
I doubt that a sane manager would get rid of Umtiti, simply because he was injured for a long time.

Anyway, I think that we will have a problem with this part where a few Catalan players have to play in the next season, and yet our core Catalans are finished and young guys are far from ready.

First of all the only Catalan player there is Piquet. The rest are either Spanish or "adopted" Catalans.
Secondly the high-management knows that by relying mostly on "domestic players" - as you put it - would be a popular trend, but would not lead to either results or to form a newer style - based upon them.

You are absolutely right, the present La Masia adduction is not very good, neither Alena or Puig are good enough for a newer Barca setup.
In my subjective opinion Alena will never become a great player, (sorry to say but whenever he plays I only see a slightly better version of Andre Gomes in him, their physical characteristics, moves are pretty similar).
Puig has more talent, but at present he is perhaps good for the bench only, the others are more or less forgettable as first team material.

But the La Masia thing - that is repeated like a mantra over and over again - is a natural one, there are peaks and bottoms, only idiots could think that it is a "factory" capable of producing better and better players - continuously - all the time.
It did produce great ones for say 10 years, so it is inevitable that a slight drought comes for quite a few years to come... One can do nothing about that, because it's the most natural tendency...

 

[BBZ8800]

First of all the only Catalan player there is Piquet. The rest are either Spanish or "adopted" Catalans.

Look, I know that 90% of fans won't agree with my theory or won't be able to understand it.
Since I am from a country which was in a similar situation like Catalonia vs Spain (Croatia vs Yugoslavia/Serbia), then I understand how important politics and national identity is to Catalans and Barca.
In those moments, a national identity and emotions are often more important than logic and trophies.
To some extent, I think that our board is obsessed with La Liga and CDR because we are winning against mortal enemies Spain and Real that way.
For Catalonia (imo), in this moment, it is more important to win trophies against hated Real than against European teams.
Remember that only in the last 1-2 years, fans here started to accept that CDR is a Mickey Mouse trophy while other sane European teams stopped caring about a national cup in late 90s and turned to league and Champions league.
Puyol had to intervene last season and say that we need to change our priorities.
Remember how both Lucho and EV played Messi in a round of 16 of a CDR against Espanyol and similar, lol.
For our club it is important from a political perspective to win that "King's trophy" against Spanish teams.

Manchester City, Arsenal and similar are different clubs.
They are "normal" clubs who just want better results.
For them it is more or less irrelevant if you have 10 domestic players or 10 French players on a field, even though, every club will try to have at least a few domestic players so that fans can relate stronger with them.
But still, having 11 foreigners in a line up for City is a smaller problem than having 11 foreigners at Barca.

In Late 90s, when Van Gaal came for the first time, we had 8 Dutch players in a team, and a few Brasilians, 2 Portuguese guys, some Argentinian guys and only a few Spanish guys.
1. there was a lack of domestic players in a starting 11
2. plus, the only starters like Abelardo and Pep were around 30. So we needed young Catalan players since fans always want youth hopes for the future (that trend wasn't invented in the last few years with Barcaforum)
So, there was a pressure from media and fans to play young Xavi since Barca became too-Dutch oriented.
It turned out well in Xavi's case, but you get the point.

Further, again, Barca is more than a club, and it is a cultural and national symbol of Catalonia.
And since currently Catalonia is in the biggest political problems (vs Spain) in a long time, it is easy to understand that domestic people and fans want more domestic players.

I mean, just look at true La Masia players, which one was ever forced to leave?
Xavi was here till the age of 35.
Iniesta was here till the age of 34.
Puyol was also here till the end.
Valdes was here as long as he wanted to stay.
Busi will stay till the age of 34 (2-3 more seasons).
Pique will stay till the age of 34-35.
We only got rid of weaker players like Gabri, Oleguer, Motta (injured all the time) and Pedro (who wanted to leave), Thiago (a foreigner to some extent).

Have we ever showed the door to DOMESTIC players in the last 20 years?
No.
On the other hand, club (Van Gaal) said: fuck you to Rivaldo when he was aged 30.
Pep said f*** you to Ronaldinho aged 28 and to Deco aged 31.
Pep sold Etoo aged 28.
Rijkaard sold Kluivert aged 28 when he declined.

So, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Etoo, Deco, Kluivert, they were all legends, but when rocky times came, they were the first targets to get sold.
This year it will be Rakitic, Coutinho, Umtiti.
Papers are also mentioning that Rafinha and Malcom could be sold also.
Next year we will probably sell Vidal and Suarez.
But guess what, Busi, Alba and Pique will still stay.

Again, for people who live in "normal" countries, not affected with wars and independence problems, they won't understand these problems.

It is what it is.
My point is: when you guys on forums will be planning lineups for the next season or a for a season after that:
Busi will be a starter NO MATTER WHAT.
Pique, a symbol of politics, also.

There is no way that Busi will be dropped for some Frenkie-Arthur-another foreigner lineup.
Busi may be dropped only if he decides to retire or once when ANOTHER La Masia player will improve.
Let's say that Puig will start to play awesome, only THEN there is a chance for Busi to be dropped and to play Frenkie-Arthur-Puig, for example.

On the other hand, if Alena and Puig will fail, I have no idea what the board will do in terms of domestic players.
Imagine if in 2 years Busi and Pique retire and Alena and Puig fail.
The club will be forced to either buy some former Catalan player, or we would force some kid into a lineup (regardless of his actual level) like with Xavi in 1998.

 

[MTL_Barca]

Well i mean you're kinda right, but what do we do with that information now? Still better to sell burned out / old foreigners than to sell nobody i guess.

I also don't think the board would go to the coach and force them to play Busquets and Pique every game. I mean they already signed De Jong and are interested in De Ligt, so what is Barto gonna do if the coach decides to field them instead of Pique and Busi and not instead of Rakitic and Umtiti? Force him even if the team performs good?

It makes life difficult for the coach for sure but i also think it's understandable if the club wants to see some la masia players in the squad. And it's not exclusive, just look at Bayerns Thomas Müller never being in question of getting sold no matter how he performs mostly because he is from their own youth, represents bavaria and is beloved by many more traditional fans.

I don't think a coach HAS to always play certain players. I mean if Alba stays starting LB, Busquets, Roberto and Pique get rotated more than this season and of course Messi stays a starter while the coach gives minutes to Alena, Puig and possibly Cucurella if he is coming back then it would still look ok. I mean all the la masia players besides Roberto are either super young or 30+, the board will know they can't remain starters forever because i doubt they put representing la masia and catalunya over having success. They can't let it out on the coach that the last few generations of la masia didn't really produce players with starter quality besides Thiago who is gone for 6 years now.

If the board wants more la masia players in the team they have to a) stop buying players like Gomes, Paco etc who just come to Barcelona to sit on the bench and take away minutes (already learned their lesson there i think) b) work on la masia (youth coaches, scouting etc) since even the players that left Barca mostly flopped so Barca can't just assume la masia is still best academy in the world and c) get a good team and first team coach that can establish a system where you can throw in some la masia players here and there to see how they do. Besides that it's just hope and pray for another golden generation, at some point they'll have to accept Busi/Pique generation is finished soon.

 

[Potroh]

Look, I know that 90% of fans won't agree with my theory or won't be able to understand it.

Then I belong to the remaining 10%, because I get your idea and agree with your fears.

Some thoughts hope you don't mind the few notes:
- Barto knows that a "domestically formed" team will hardly be competitive internationally, thus even the most "politically minded" members and fans - sooner or later - need to realize that the best present teams have hardly any "discrimination nuggets" behind their policies and the market is also very different nowadays.
- If EV stays (God forbid that) it is possible that he will only leave along with the president and board. That means new policies come and it's just a matter if a new board prefers political thinking (due to Catalonia's present situation) or becomes a rather internationally minded entity.
- Although Messi is the core of present Barca, even a La Masia kid, but despite his South American origin he became such a symbol in Catalonia, that perhaps will prevent the over-patriotic and blimp thoughts in the long run.
- 90.000 fans at Camp Nou would rather see and experience an internationally selected team playing brilliantly, than a domestic one losing all the time...
- The entire MSN was South American, and it was not an issue, regardless who played behind them.
- Unfortunately the club always want coached with Barca background, which is a way dated notion nowadays, so the question is who will be the next manager, because a sane coach only undertakes the task, if he can do it according to his preferences, without the politicians telling him the lineup.

But overall you are right, it is possible danger on the horizon for the club...

 

[Cule4life]

At no point did he ever indicate he was anything special or different from the player we got from Sevilla

His constant begging for a new contract says otherwise.

Look, I know that 90% of fans won't agree with my theory or won't be able to understand it.

Again with the imaginary agendas. Almost everyone here is sick of or board's obsession with Barca DNA and politically motivated attachment to Catalan players.

Majority of the people want Busquets to be benched/sold and Pique to be phased out by De Ligt.

Barca board and socis does not equal 90% of Barca fanbase

 

[Tekkers]

that picture and the time it was taken is almost as flagrant as coutinho's vile and tasteless taunts towards the paying camp nou fans

grinning from ear to ear less than 24 hrs after that shambolic performance at anfield... its all a joke to this character isnt it?

the summer transfer window cant come soon enough. we'll see if he's cheesing when he's offloaded to china

 

[JerseyAddict]

Well... That is a stupid thing to do. He probably wanted to "offload the bad feelin" whil hangin oit with wife and kids.

But you don't do that in public 24h after the disaster.

That is totaly wrong. He literaly put his own head "under the axe"...

 

[clemente]

I deserve a new contract