₦airaland Forum

Oldboss:
[b]This idiot man is still defending himself [/b]Earlier today, former Barcelona president Josep Maria
Bartomeu wrote a letter to Joan Laporta, as relayed by
Ara. The former president claims that it was his obligation
to do so to clarify certain statements that manipulate the
image of his board of directors.
In the first point, Bartomeu refutes Laporta’s claim of the
previous board fabricating the accounts to cover up
losses. He states that the losses in the pandemic were
not considered to be considered negative economic
results in the years affected by COVID-19 according to
the Royal Decree 1162/2020.
He further states that the economic condition when his
board took over from Laporta in 2010 was far worse than
what the President is currently facing.
He then goes on to speak about how he and his board
resigned voluntarily instead of waiting for the vote of no
confidence in view of the health interest of members.
This, he states, prevented his men from working on the
situation and alleviating the losses. Due to the early
resignation, he says he is not responsible for the financial
situation.
Bartomeu speaks about the 12% uniform wage reduction
of all members of the staff and players as his effort to
combat the circumstances. He again blames the new
board for not following up on their initiatives.
The next point covered is that for Barca Corporate, an
entry of strategic partners up to 49% for the joint
exploitation of the four commercial assets: Barca
Licensing and Merchandising, Barca Studios, Barca
Innovation Hub and Barca Academy.
He says that if Laporta had agreed to continue with the
operation, the club would have seen an inflow of 220
million Euros to reduce covid losses.
The following calculations presented by the former
president aim to prove that this inflow of cash with the
wage reduction would have been sufficient to register the
new signings. He also talks about the Super League and
its potential revenue as a solution his board considered.
Bartomeu blames Laporta and co. for improper sports
planning of the 2020-21 season, an initiative started by the
former board. He also questions the president on why the
16.5 million Euro case against Neymar was forgiven when
it could have brought in significant revenue.
The former president defends the decision of his board to
provide lucrative contracts to players and glorifies the
same saying it featured the club as the most valuable club
by Forbes. He says it was necessary to keep the club in
the competition with other European Giants and the
Premier League.
Continuing, Bartomeu talks about the Espai Barca project
and the approval of the modification of the general
metropolitan plan.
Finally, Bartomeu asks Laporta to make public the results
of the audit, or any precise information so as to avoid
suspicions or negative publicity to him and his board. He
then signs off threatening legal consequences if it is not
done.

Bartomeau had excellent financial plans for the club but the sporting aspect suffered. Barca is a sporting project before it's a financial project. The finances are necessary to support the sporting projects but they planned very very badly, the frightening wage bill was poorly planned and signing Greizman wasn't well thought through.
But they sha gave us De Jong and Pedri that's all. I am certain that 142m they used in signing Coutinho would have brought us someone good from the academy or some cheaper midfielder from Ligue 1 or Bundesliga. That's poor planning but economically, Bartomeau had brilliant ideas.

And personally, looking at some of Bartomeau's wins as Barca president, I think he is a better leader than Buhari

FirstbornWds:
Damn, Bart isn't wise at all. I thought he was in prison?

Just imagine how he sluggishly tried defending himself with points less valid than a poorly instated financial manager would do. The mugu forgot that at most times, emotions triumphs over certain acumen, especially when it has to do with what third-parties are influential to deciding. We still day vex say the mumu sell ney, he still day ask Laporta to further jeopardize the club's interest by continuing with a 'never-to-be-won' lawsuit.

Gosh, this man should never be allowed to head anything, not even his family matters. He's just too dumb

Bartomeau didn't sell Neymar.

VerifiedStalin:
I wish it were longer. Can't wait for episode two.

We all are. Next week Wednesday will be lit

Nigerian lesbians are never fine, it's so unfortunate

VerifiedStalin:
My opinion of the first episode.

It was brilliant. Better than Black widow. And not even 40 minutes long

Yungbitz, BMW's are fun cars to own but you need to pay extreme attention to them. And have a trustworthy mechanic that actually knows what he is doing. One guy in our church was BMW mechanic and that was the only car he ever used and he didn't use them for a long time too. If you are such a person, then you can go for the BMW if not, just go with the Acura

Yungbitz:
And what if I take the Honda Accord out of the equation? Cos it is actually my least preferred vehicle among the list. Budget can be increased up to 2.5m

The Acura

FirstbornWds:
I thought it was West Ham? Damn, what are these ines earning in Barcelona that's making them not making them leave?

Braithewaite isn't earning much, but he wants prestige. He wants the attention and West Ham

GrammarNazi1:
Messi alone is worth more than a number of players put together.

Violence has entered

So Messi is the Barca player with the most appearances. He is also the club's highest goal scorer and highest assists provider.
That's 672 goals in 778 appearances
He is La Liga's highest goal scorer, and also it's highest assists provider and also the scorer of the most hattricks in La Liga.
He has also won 34 trophies in 17 seasons and of course was part of the Barca team to win the every tournament available to club in a particular season.
He has scored more goals in a season than any player in the competition's history and holds the record for the most goals scored home and away in a single season.
In 2011/2012, Messi went on a 21 match scoring streak yielding 33 goals, no player has come close before and after Messi.
Man's scored 36 goals from free kicks in La Liga and against 36 different La Liga teams.
He is also the most impactful substitute in La Liga history scoring 30 goals from 35 sub appearances.
He is the highest goal scorer too in El classico, scoring 26 times, in which he has 8 goals than Ronaldo and Di Stefano and 11 more than Raul.
Messi is the second highest goal scorer in UCL second only to the phenomenal Ronaldo but Messi's 120 goals from 149 appearances gives him a better goal per game ratio at 0.81 which is only beaten by Alfredo Di Stefano's 0.84.
He has been the top scorer of UCL 6 times and wad the first player to score 5 times in one game against Leverkusen and then also destroyed Arsenal by scoring 4 times in one game too.
He has been nominated for Puskas award 7 times and weirdly never won it but he has won the European Golden shoe 6 times.
He has 151 caps for Argentina and scored 76 times of course, Argentina records too.
He has won the Ballon D or 6 times.
The Ballon D or trophy weighs 12kg and Messi is 65kg thus we can say that Messi is worth more than his weight in gold

Debroslink:
Gerrard was actually the badluck and the weak point. He contributed massively to England's loss at euro 2004.
When Liverpool was at the brink of league title, he made sure that that didn't happen by slipping in front of Demba Ba.
Who can forget his header and pass to Uruguay's Suarez at the WC? A world class blunder!

Just under 5 years of leaving Liverpool, they won the EPL and UCL.

Watch this video below if you have forgotten.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVPypAiIXLI

I think, you don't just like Gerrard. That's it, you don't like him at all.

Debroslink:
While Modric dragged less fancied Croatia to WC final by winning Golden Ball, Gerrard was busy making sure England were beaten at Euro 2004 by giving a back pass to Thierry Henry of France.

Modric at age 22 ensured that England with peak Lampard and peak Gerrard didn't qualify for Euro 2008. He helped Croatia beat England at Wembley.

How can NT flops be placed alongside gods like Xavi, Iniesta, Zidane, Pirlo, Kross, Modric

You won't use only the national team as basis to compare these players na, Modric has never won an international trophy and will most likely never do so. Gerrard was basically wallowing in a pool of badluck with Liverpool because for a lot of his career was freaking phenomenal for Liverpool, as an 8, as a 10 and as Deep lying playmaker, just for you to get his versatility. And he was brilliant playing all these roles. So I don't get how you want to use only national team triumphs to criticize a phenomenal player

GrammarNazi1:
He knows exactly your point but I, too, disagree with you.

It is not always about trophies, yet it is about your contribution to trophy wins.

Xavi and Iniesta contributed hugely to lots of club and international trophies. How then is it not about trophies and how the players contributed to them?

Kindly mention the lots of trophies that Scholes, Gerrard, and Lampard contributed hugely to.

Scholes and Lampard contributed to lots of trophies for Man utd and Chelsea respectively. Gerrard not so much but he was phenomenal nonetheless.

GrammarNazi1:
They were over hyped. They are below Xavi and Iniesta.

Brother, being below Xavi and Iniesta isn't a bad thing. I love Pirlo, Busquets, Zidane, Guti, Ozil and some other excellent midfielders even De Bryune. But except Zidane, the rest of them are all below Xavi and Iniesta.
Xavi and Iniesta are basically the walking peaks of midfield brilliance since I started watching ball.
For Gerrard, Scholes and Lampard to be below them isn't a bad thing it also doesn't mean that they are overhyped. It just means that while being phenomenal for their teams, they aren't as good individually as Xavi and Iniesta

patrickmuf:
We are not comparing teams but players...I am dead sure before the COPA win, you already believed Messi was the greatest even though Pele and Maradona have the their respective world cup medals in their cabinet...I do not rate players based on trophies but based on their individual abilities and that's why I don't agree when you attempt to talk down on Scholes, Gerard and Lampard just cos they don't play football in a certain way...

This is the point of view I wanted debroslink to look at it from. It's not always about trophies, if not Dani Alves would be the greatest footballer this century. But he isn't

pu7pl3:
Has to be another Modric you're referring to

The same Modric that Fede Valverde has been outshining for the past two seasons?
Modric in his prime wasn't better than Gerrard or Scholes

GrammarNazi1:
No one is saying they aren't great.

They are, perhaps, over hyped.

I don't think you are right, Scholes, Gerrard and Lampard weren't overhyped

FirstbornWds:
I don't understand what you mean by "the season that ronaldo played against Madrid for the first time"?

I don't know the exact year but I can remember the occurrences in that year.
That season, Man utd and Madrid played, Giggs played as a CM.
Ronaldo had joined Madrid by then. That was also the season that Modric was voted as Madrid's worst signing. Mourinho was Madrid's coach too. I think

FirstbornWds:
How did you ascertain that treble was my scale?

And for the records, Giggs played most part of his latter career as a central midfielder.

Uh, Giggs was a winger, Left winger, and by most it was just that last year. The season that Ronaldo played against Madrid for the first time.

GrammarNazi1:
But the dent of not having won some prestigious trophies will always be on the career.

Yes, it will but it doesn't diminish the fact that a great player is a great player.
Casemiro is believed to be one of the best ball winning DMs in the world but if you compare his ball winning ability with that of Kante, you find out that Kante in form is far far better than him.

Debroslink:
When you drag a less fancied Croatia to WC final by winning the golden ball, you should be placed above Scholes who couldn't nail down 1st team shirt in the porous midfield of Gerrard and Lampard.

As for Gerrard, no league title in his career. You wanna compare that with a title winning midfield god at Bayern, Madrid and his NT?

Abeg abeg abeg

You didn't use trophies to compare Scholes and Modric, but you used national honours. If you used trophies, Scholes wipes the floor with Modric but we are using football ability and we watched both of them. I don't know how you see it but Scholes is a far better midfielder than Modric.
Scholes retired, came back from retirement and won EPL with Man utd as one of their best players that season. Since Ronaldo left Madrid, there have been tears upon tears.

For Gerrard and Kroos, Kroos has played in better teams than Gerrard sha but in terms of their individual quality, from dead balls, short and long range passes, general creativity, Gerrard pips Kroos. Gerrard and Scholes are actually very good footballers, no hype or noise. And they signified the peak of the dominance of English football until Xavi and Iniesta scattered the show.

Debroslink:
Kindly remove Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard from that list. They are simply overhyped.

1. The rest are multiple UCL winners

2. The rest won trophies for their countries

As far as this century is concerned,
Modric over Scholes
Kaka over Lampard
Kross over Gerrard

Scholes is better than Modric and in no dream or such is Kroos better Gerrard. Or trophies are the only metric for grading players now?

FirstbornWds:
You should have seen how poor they were all through.

Yeah... It's a friendly but at least, we should have at least seen something good. They even had a red card.

All the same, I wish them luck abeg... May we see a more competitive laliga

I think they were just poor but it was still a friendly.
My own is that Barca should win that La Liga and reach semi finals of UCL

FirstbornWds:
And these ones really want to compete in Laliga next season


Issokay

It's freaking friendly

MadamVanessa:





What is so wrong with someone having sex with inmate? When the person wasn't forced into the act, it was clearly based on agreement.

So because someone is in prison, he shouldn't have his life again.

You know what's in your head? Bubbles, bubbles and nothing else

Odunharry:
Flying thread

It really is, last time I logged in it was around 7000+

FirstbornWds:
Age has got to do with it brother.. This man analyzed it all with complete details.




He stopped practicing obviously because age caught with him and continually practicing that would mean more damage.

Juninho and Pirlo didn't always use the knuckle style. It was all dependent on the placement of the ball and wall height.

That means we have arrived at a suitable compromise. So yes I agree that Ronaldo stopped being an explosive dribbler around that 2014 and he evolved his game to be more effective in front of goal. So even if he doesn't score a free kick or make a 60m dash, he could score the goals to lift the team.
And most likely the injury made him stop practising those free kicks and if you remember, he doesn't score from range as he used to do earlier in his career too.
Finally, injuries na bastard. Ronaldo's knee, Messi's groin

Santiago123:
Ronaldo stopped being a good freekick taker as far back as 2014,there is no way it is lack of practice that made him not to be good.

In football, there is nothing you get good at without practice. From shooting to passing even heading and tackling. You must practise it. You might have a knack for certain things but you still need to practise it.
Free kicks have different ways of execution, and it's still one of the hardest ways to score, if you don't practice it you would be poor. It's that simple. Why do you think Ronaldo is so stellar at penalties but poor in free kicks? Practise. It's that simple. He is also stellar at finding pockets of space and finishing chances. He is also phenomenal at headers. Practise.
Messi practises his free kicks, his passing, his dribbling, his shooting. That's why he is still good at these things.
Like I said, you as a player may have a knack for certain things on pitch but you still need to practise to remain good at those things.

FirstbornWds:
No doubt. But let's get back to what about the freaking debate about Ronaldo not been great at free kicks.


The writer explicitly said he was good but wasn't the unique freekick taker. He's very much the kind of a taker that depended on power than style. And if you have watched the best freekick takers of all time, not many of them... In fact, I can say up to 90% don't go for power.

Now, let's dive back to how badly he has become in taking them. Obviously, the power and speed he relied so much on isn't the same as it used to be. These days, you'll rarely see his kicks hitting the target or even getting close, that's to tell us that he definitely wasn't that exceptional to begin with. He was good at it, no doubt but not anymore.. And I could further buttress my point by arguing that the best deadball takers grew better with age since they technically grew brighter to understanding wall placement and all sorts. That's exactly what Cr7 hasn't got.

Ronaldo simply stopped practicing his free kicks, even Messi still practises his free kicks and Ronaldo was good at free kicks, his technique was the same knuckle ball technique that Juninho, Pirlo used. Rashford tried it against Chelsea and that was his best free kick. Ronaldo was using it frequently and it worked for him. But he has stopped practicing and I think he is now betting for holes in the wall to score his more recent attempts and most walls are braver now and so he would score less and less.
And using his age as basis to criticize his FK taking ability is off for me cos firstly the dead ball technique of free kicks achieved by using the knuckles to hit the ball is harder to execute than using the instep of the foot to hit the ball for either a straight shot or a curl. It's not about age or power but practice and accurate execution. Pirlo at 35 was still scoring free kicks and even Ronaldo's FK goal against Spain in 2018 was a well hit curl so he scored a curved ball. But Ronaldo has just stopped practicing as regularly as he should.

FirstbornWds:
I saw it and decide to share... And yes, the Rashford part was the greatest nonsense. I wanted a debate on it but obviously no one was interested

Rashford is a thrashy FK taker. The best FK taker in EPL is Ward Prowse and then maybe between Trent Arnold and De Bryune not freaking Rashford.
In fact I will take Savic of Lazio ahead of De Bryune and Trent Arnold.
Who dash Rashford free kicks? If Mata was in the first team, he would even take free kicks ahead of Fernandes.

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