Let's talk about Xavi's replacement (2024)

[Givenchy]

Flick feels very underwhelming long term, would make sense if we sack Xavi now and judge him during an interim but hard to get excited about that.

De Zerbi is the risk I'd take personally.

 

[khaled_a_d]

You don't know if someone has midtable coach syndrome unless he coaches a big club
And frankly all this is BS from people who don't want to take a proper risk, that is taken by all clubs who hire a coach that succeeded in the 2nd tier.
They prefer instead taking the much worse risk of hiring legends, who haven't shown any fraction of actual work as credential making them suitable candidates to begin with

Being born in the 1st tier is impossible, and for those privileged that start in the 1st tier directly, it only works if you are called Pep -> that is roughly once every 50 years

I didn't speak about managers from 2nd tier, I spoke about De Zerbi specifically. He has all the indicators of being a guy who isn't made for 1st tier but rather someone who is good at certain level.
Stubborn coaches with clear holes in their tactics are disaster waiting to happen.

 

[JamDav1982]

All the top coaches are stubborn.

Not sure what more expecting of De Zerbi.. they are losing their best players and still up in EPL and in Europe.

 

[Birdy]

I didn't speak about managers from 2nd tier, I spoke about De Zerbi specifically. He has all the indicators of being a guy who isn't made for 1st tier but rather someone who is good at certain level.
Stubborn coaches with clear holes in their tactics are disaster waiting to happen.

Stubborn coaches are the best coaches in the world.
A manager looking to paper cracks with ad-hoc solutions is the worst thing for the club.

And again: you disregard the most basic fact. That serious clubs, unlike Barca, do precisely these hirings because people like De Zerbi have shown more than enough that they can succeed at the highest level.
whether that will happen or not, no one can tell for sure right now. And anyone professing to know is simply biased

 

[khaled_a_d]

Stubborn coaches are the best coaches in the world.
A manager looking to paper cracks with ad-hoc solutions is the worst thing for the club.

And again: you disregard the most basic fact. That serious clubs, unlike Barca, do precisely these hirings because people like De Zerbi have shown more than enough that they can succeed at the highest level.
whether that will happen or not, no one can tell for sure right now. And anyone professing to know is simply biased

Who are those serious clubs and how much success did they have exactly?
The fail rate is much higher mate, De Zerbi is just flavour of the day the same way guys like Setien, Potter, Sampaoli among others were.

 

[JamDav1982]

Who are those serious clubs and how much success did they have exactly?
The fail rate is much higher mate, De Zerbi is just flavour of the day the same way guys like Setien, Potter, Sampaoli among others were.

Who do you think they should go for?

Most coaches have been flavour of the month at one stage.. both good and bad.

 

[Birdy]

Who are those serious clubs and how much success did they have exactly?
The fail rate is much higher mate, De Zerbi is just flavour of the day the same way guys like Setien, Potter, Sampaoli among others were.

Klopp was hired at BvB after his work at 2nd tier level of european football at Mainz
Tuchel the same
Nagelsman was hired at Leipzig after his work at Hoffenheim
Leverkusen hired Alonso with only experience at Sociedad B, by merely looking at his work and the potential it has. After 1.5 season he is leading Bundeliga and is unbeaten in all comps
I can go on with examples...

On the other hand, recipe for disaster is to hire a coach that has won at 1st tier without identifying his fit and his philosophy.
Look at Spurs, they paid the price twice with Mou and Conte back to back.
Levy learned his lesson, and now he did the right hiring with a coach that had shown evidence of his football and philosophy at Celtic

The best coaches these days with the most potential are not the ones 'who have won it all' at 1st tier.
There are only few of those that fit the club and the football, and are unavailable with projects elsewhere

PS: Mind you, Potter and Setien have never been given time to show their work at 1st tier.
They were undermined by either power structures that shouldn't be there OR by idiotic boards
Sampaoli a different story
It's propagandist to terrorize that coaches from B tier have a 'midtable syndrom' and they will fail no matter what.
It's time the club moves to the 21st century

 

[khaled_a_d]

BVB, Leverkusen aren't tier 1 clubs to give them as an examples mate. The pressure their isn't close to us and they weren't put in a position of live or die from the go to tbh.

Again, there are levels to the game that you continue to ignore when you make those generalised comparisons.

And god, look at how many stupid coaching hiring each and everyone of those clubs has done, Klopp and Tuchel joined BVB at almost same time we made the Pep and Lucho hiring. Leverkusen made to of mistakes too before finally striking with Alonso. Those club aren't really anymore serious than us mate.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Who do you think they should go for?

Most coaches have been flavour of the month at one stage.. both good and bad.

Of course most coaches were there at some point, but clubs has to avoid some risks at certain points.

As for my choice, I already said the club should try to do everything they can to try to convince Inzaghi (1 year left in contract) as he ticks most boxes out there. Not sure if he will accept though.
2nd choice was Imanol but he distanced himself from the job.

Who is your choice?

 

[JamDav1982]

I would go for De Zerbi if he would take it.

Then they will probably fall back on experience... Flick etc.

Not sure how Imanol is not a 'flavour of month' type compared to others named.

Inzaghi and Imanol are not taking it so not even realistic choices. Be as well just saying 'do all can to get Pep' or 'do all can to get Klopp'.

 

[Porque]

The arguement for De Zerbi (and let's throw Motta into that arguement though way less proven) is that you would be looking to sign a coach who would go to the next level by moving to a top club. In other words, like signing a high potential player, you are signing a high potential coach.

Laporta never really wanted Xavi, and jumped into it faced with the pressures of needing to change Koeman, and he fell under that category. But unlike the rest, Xavi never really proved himself prior to the Barca moved and his tactical naivity has showed.

So along these lines I don't think it would be a terrible option to look at De Zerbi. We done this twice successfully with Pep and LE. And if you want to look at other tier 1 clubs, Arsenal done similar with Arteta, Atletico with Simeone, Inter with Inzaghi.

Plus the major thing in favour of De Zerbi too is, that he is marvellous of getting results AND developing young players, which is something we absolutely require right now with our young squad and quality. As an example, we don't want Flick to come in and then go for short term results, bring in some veterans and backlog our talents which are breaking through.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Plus the major thing in favour of De Zerbi too is, that he is marvellous of getting results AND developing young players, which is something we absolutely require right now with our young squad and quality.

Developing young players is nice and everything, but you are describing a scenario where if he shines it will be more like an Arteta situation where is given carte blanche to rebuild the team and make it his own, you bet even if we are doing rebuild a coach won't get this time and chance tbh. And especially not after Catalan darlin Xavi is leaving.

we don't want Flick to come in and then go for short term results, bring in some veterans and backlog our talents which are breaking through.

I mean we kind of need that tbh, we are overrating a lot of those talents and huge problem of our crisis is that we are too dependent in La Masia, the whole in dark time depend on La Masia thing is more hurting than benefiting us.
I honestly don't think guys like Fort and Pena for example have a first term future, and I am honestly starting to wonder if Balde and Gavi are Barca starting material anytime soon (Balde looked like one last year tbf, and Gavi technical game is still massively lacking).
We need to hit the breaks on this high school strategy tbh and the club is desperate for veterans (who aren't older than 30)

 

[khaled_a_d]

I would go for De Zerbi if he would take it.

Then they will probably fall back on experience... Flick etc.

Not sure how Imanol is not a 'flavour of month' type compared to others named.

Inzaghi and Imanol are not taking it so not even realistic choices. Be as well just saying 'do all can to get Pep' or 'do all can to get Klopp'.

Agree to disagree on De Zerbi, I don't see him as a good choice. Don't think he is that available either as Brighton will make us pay money we don't have to break his contract.

Imanol is more of EV type of hire, he isn't flavour of the day but is the good boring choice who will win the league to us if RM isn't gonna smash it, steady the ship too. He only distanced himself like yesterday or so which was bumer.

Don't know about Inzaghi, Inter aren't in much better position than us and they won't keep him against his well, unlikely it is worth a try.

 

[Birdy]

BVB, Leverkusen aren't tier 1 clubs to give them as an examples mate. The pressure their isn't close to us and they weren't put in a position of live or die from the go to tbh.

Again, there are levels to the game that you continue to ignore when you make those generalised comparisons.

And god, look at how many stupid coaching hiring each and everyone of those clubs has done, Klopp and Tuchel joined BVB at almost same time we made the Pep and Lucho hiring. Leverkusen made to of mistakes too before finally striking with Alonso. Those club aren't really anymore serious than us mate.

And then they made the next step after Bvb to truly and utterly tier 1 jobs and clubs
These are the obvious examples of the ones who succeeded.
There are tons more who will succeed in the future but are still in the process like Arteta or ETH, etc

On the contrary, your comparison is the generalisation: lumping all of them under 'midtable syndrom'
I bet if you were around at 2009 you would have said the same about Klopp

And it's really bewildering that you consider De Zerbi now more of a risk than Xavi, or Marquez now, or some other legend who is either incompetent to become a coach or simply not worked enough to build any experience of it.
These are the stupid signings mate. Not betting on one of the hottest prospects that fits our football right now

PS: Inzaghi is great, but doesn't fit the philsophy/football paradigm

 

[JamDav1982]

Agree to disagree on De Zerbi, I don't see him as a good choice. Don't think he is that available either as Brighton will make us pay money we don't have to break his contract.

Imanol is more of EV type of hire, he isn't flavour of the day but is the good boring choice who will win the league to us if RM isn't gonna smash it, steady the ship too. He only distanced himself like yesterday or so which was bumer.

Don't know about Inzaghi, Inter aren't in much better position than us and they won't keep him against his well, unlikely it is worth a try.

Valverde had played for Barca and was chosen to be good at managing the egos and not as disruptive as other coaches would have been. Barca then had dressing room run by amigos that no coach was coming in to take on.

Different to what Barca need now with a new energetic approach with attacking football and coach given a lot of power over the squad.

Imanol and Inzaghi wont happen be as well saying Pep and Klopp.