FC Barcelona Thread - *Campeones de España y de Europa 2009*

We don't need a new leader in the attack. We have Messi for that. As far as i'm concerned we are playing great football and i'm thrilled the same way i was when Dinho was playing.
Of course i'm missing all the magic that he did, but we are again great team to watch.
And IF we win titles this season it will be labeled as one of the greatest Barca teams ever.

kas wrote:

TM wrote:Marquez Out for the rest of the season.

I think he'll be out till October/November, considering it's a knee ligament injury.

So now Henrique will definitely return, and Caceres will probably stay as well. Will be good to have Milito back.

Means Pep will have to shuffle his backline a bit for the CL Game.

I have a feeling he will drop Toure to CB.

kas wrote:Not sure about you saying that Deco or Ronaldinho can dribble out of tight spaces then make a telling pass, but Iniesta and Messi can't do that

I should have said "tightest spaces" which is no truer than what Chelsea (or PL teams) oblige the opposition.

Agree about age factor. Maybe yes, Messi and Iniesta could "possibly" become better. Not much sure about Iniesta than
Messi.

TM wrote:

kas wrote:

TM wrote:Marquez Out for the rest of the season.

I think he'll be out till October/November, considering it's a knee ligament injury.

So now Henrique will definitely return, and Caceres will probably stay as well. Will be good to have Milito back.

Means Pep will have to shuffle his backline a bit for the CL Game.

I have a feeling he will drop Toure to CB.

No, I highly doubt he'll try something so radical as Toure at CB or Keita at LB as some are suggesting. It'll be Caceres or Abidal there, with Sylvinho or Caceres taking up the LB spot if Abidal moves.

I'd suggest a 3-4-3 gamble but the game situation doesn't require it, and with Alves around it's not really a feasible system.

Kas, reg. "individual defenders." Ultimately the defenders dispossess, intercept, and mark out players. It is also true that it is easy to defend when you play two waves of players in front of the goal. But let me put it this way, apart from the PL top 4 sets of players, I'm yet to be convinced defenders in other leagues could do that. As cowardly the tactic is.

i definitely think we can go through and if we come out of the mardid game with something, i think we should really go at them.

i know messi will be pissed.

we created a fair amount of chances, very time they had the balls to go forward.

so, we will get even more space at the bridge, and to me honest with the exception of set pieces and lamps late runs, i'm not overly worried about what they will do in attack.

marquez out for 8-10 weeks

http://fcbtransfers.blogspot.com/2009/04/medical-marquez-out-for-rest-of-season.html

Oh ok, that's better than expected. Glad he's not out long term.














































Only because it means we can still sell him in the summer

http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/gen/20090501/53694244313/noticia/franck-ribery-esta-atado-para-el-proximo-ano.html

cash+helb=ribery 'agreement"

Is it a done deal according to the Spanish media or is it still in the making?

It's only MD reporting it, on the basis of some inside knowledge that there was a meeting at the agent's house in Ibiza last week.

Not sure how they would agree a fee if it was only the agent involved. As we've seen, Bayern are a tough selling club. Then again, with the talk of Hoeness maybe being asked to leave this summer, perhaps there's no one in charge right now and Barça are looking to take advantage?

I don´t know what´s currently going on at Bayern, but apparently Bayern contacted Diego´s management about a potential transfer to Munich. And there were also rumours about Bayern and vdV and Bayern wanting to change their system again. So there might be something going on, who knows...

Did I understand it right that Barca offers €25m + Hleb?

If so, then Hoeneß will get lynched in Munich if he agrees to the deal. That's what Bayern paid for him. Now add all the signing fee they paid to convince him to play in Germany and we are around the €35m mark. His transfer value has increased over the last two season as well, so I don't see him leaving after the season for 'only' 25m + Hleb.

Here´s what Bild published 1h ago...nothing new from Bayern officials though.

http://www.bild.de/BILD/sport/fussball/bundesliga/vereine/bayern/2009/05/01/franck-ribery-zum-fc-barcelona/im-tausch-mit-hleb-diego-van-der-vaart-als-ersatz.html

Metze's Haeschen wrote:Did I understand it right that Barca offers €25m + Hleb?

If so, then Hoeneß will get lynched in Munich if he agrees to the deal. That's what Bayern paid for him. Now add all the signing fee they paid to convince him to play in Germany and we are around the €35m mark. His transfer value has increased over the last two season as well, so I don't see him leaving after the season for 'only' 25m + Hleb.

Doesn't exactly sound like a great deal. Hopefully none of it is true and they value VDV higher then Hleb(like most would/should do ).

then again, Hleb's value must have gone up since we bought him. He has had a lot of rest this year so must be fired up for next year, he has been able to learn from Iniesta and something must have rubbed off that he is saving for Bayern, and he knows the German league.

toon h wrote:then again, Hleb's value must have gone up since we bought him. He has had a lot of rest this year so must be fired up for next year, he has been able to learn from Iniesta and something must have rubbed off that he is saving for Bayern, and he knows the German league.

I don't want to bump any of my previous postsregarding the match, but that was awesome game from us.
Regardless how shit RM played, we were great.
One thing i was pleased of, and i couldn't get it: How did Pep motivated these guys to run so much and to look so fresh like it was the beginning of the season?
Probably by saying, win this and u are CHAMPIONS.
I can't think of anything else.

Not just Pep, but the players themselves have shown their hunger time and time again this season.

The turning point IMO was those two matches against Espanyol and Betis earlier in the season - against Betis we were leading comfortably, suddenly they got goals back and equalised, but Gudjohnsen got a late winner. And against Espanyol too, we got a late winner.

These 2 games broke the jinx of the past 2 seasons where we couldn't win big games and kept throwing away winning situations.

Now I'm going to enjoy this as much as possible, because next season it will again be a case of too much expectations to live up to, and not the same level of motivation.

I don't care about our expectations next season to be honest. If we finish this season in style like i want it to be, no matter what we do the next season, i will have a fantasy time the next 24 months probably enjoying the football that we played and the trophies that we won.

I noticed one thing during the season.
Every time that we draw or lose a match, and prior to that we are in a good run of wins, then we start to win again and have a good number of games won before we make another draw or defeat.
I hope it continue on Tuesday.

the difference this season is pep.

people forget that he was the leader on the field for the dream team, and that team knew how to handle pressure, 3 of their 4 league titles, were won when they had to fight back against madrid and i think one of them, we only won by 1 point or something like that.

as he said to, i welcome pressure, he lives for it and he is passing it on to the players.

goals (146 = 100 + 33 + 13)
36 Messi (23 + 8 + 5)
32 Eto'o (27 + 5 + 0)
26 Henry (19 + 6 + 1)
9 Xavi (6 + 3 + 0)
9 Bojan (2 + 3 + 4)
5 Keita (3 + 2 + 0)
4 Iniesta (4 + 0 + 0)
4 Alves (4 + 0 + 0)
4 Gudjohnsen (3 + 0 + 1)
3 Busquets (1 + 2 + 0)
3 Márquez (1 + 1 + 1)
2 Touré (2 + 0 + 0)
3 Piqué (1 + 1 + 1)
1 Puyol (1+0+0)
1 Sylvinho (0 + 1 + 0)
4 own-goals opponent (3 + 1 + 0)


assists
33 Xavi (25 + 6 + 1)
20 Messi (15 + 4 + 1)
16 Iniesta (12 + 2 + 2)
14 Henry (10 + 4 + 0)
14 Alves (10 + 2 + 2)
12 Eto'o (8 + 4 + 0)
6 Bojan (2 + 2 + 2)
4 Gudjohnsen (2 + 2 + 0)
4 Puyol (4 + 0 + 0)
3 Márquez (0 + 3 + 0)
3 Hleb (3 + 0 + 0)
2 Touré (2 + 0 + 0)
1 Piqué (0 + 0 + 1)
1 Sylvinho (0 + 0 + 1)
1 Keita (0 + 1 + 0)
1 Pedro (0 + 1 + 0)
1 Víctor Sánchez (0 + 0 + 1)
1 Busquets (0 + 1 + 0)

Messiah wrote:the difference this season is pep.

people forget that he was the leader on the field for the dream team, and that team knew how to handle pressure, 3 of their 4 league titles, were won when they had to fight back against madrid and i think one of them, we only won by 1 point or something like that.

as he said to, i welcome pressure, he lives for it and he is passing it on to the players.

Etoo also mentioned this in his post-match comments, saying how Pep's knowledge of how to play Madrid was a crucial part of Barça's tactical preparation before and during the match.

SPORT gives everybody a 10
http://sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=44&idioma=CAS&idtipusrecurs_PK=7&idnoticia_PK=609097

kas wrote:SPORT gives everybody a 10
http://sport.es/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=44&idioma=CAS&idtipusrecurs_PK=7&idnoticia_PK=609097

My rating

VV-7.5(too very good saves)

Alves-7: good game

Puyol-7(started badly, put got better with time)

Pique-10 (MOTM, a rock at the back today)

Abidal-7(started slowly)

Yaya-8 (didn't even remember he was on the pitch, means he was doing his job)

Xavi-9.5 (4 assist)

Iniesta-7( good game)

Messi-8(should have scored more)

Eto'o-7.5(worked hard for the team)

Henry-9.5(scored vital goals for us)

Puyol:
“The goal I scored came from a move we practiced with Tito Vilanova just before we came on, and only Xavi, Piqué and me knew about it.”


Tactics

kas wrote:Puyol:
“The goal I scored came from a move we practiced with Tito Vilanova just before we came on, and only Xavi, Piqué and me knew about it.”


Tactics

That is well done but I wouldn't read too much into it when you consider that Real Madrid is perhaps of the few big teams that is worse then Barcelona in terms of set pieces. If you are able to do it against Chelsea or some team of this caliber then sure.

I'm only happy because it's better than nothing. Rijkaard never focused on setpieces, but Guardiola has, and we've scored at least 3 or 4 goals due to that this season.