₦airaland Forum

Yahoo1: my fellow cules. lets not under-estimate milan.i believe we should give them respect,which they deserve. thanks

I agree. While I'm confident that we will go through, Milan is surely never an easy team to play. They may not be on great form currently, but February is still several weeks away and they can easily buy players, regain form or we lose players to injury/loss of form. Anything can happen, though we hope for the best.

honeric01: Get well soon Tito.

Oh no! This aint good. I wish him all the best and a quick recovery.

Hopefully he gets well soon.

UCL draw comes up on Friday. Which team will you like to draw and Why?

For me, Porto because its a short trip to Portugal and also because Barca generally does well against Portuguese teams.

Thanks dippset n eyoniggar

Anyway to more interesting stuff: Messi has renewed to 2018. So if Citeh, PSG n co were nursing crazy ideas, they better think again.

hustler anthem: i can see u'r just a plastic fan who does not understand the true value of our great club..for heaven's sake,Messi is the main focal point,he plays the No 9 position.so what is bad if the ball meets him more often?.the people who plays at the flank creates space for him to shoot and even create more chances..i bet you that villa or sanchez cannot replicate what messi is doing in that no 9 position..so it is not all about SHOOTING from outside the box..ronaldo shoots about 20shots per match to no avail..what is most important is that this formation is working perfectly and Messi is the main focal point of our team..so he has to receive the ball more often..

What's wrong with this dude? You are new here and you start to call people names?

If you don't agree with me fine, but please do not undermine the respect we have for each other on this thread.

Read my previous posts - I'm not one of those internet warriors who pick fights With people they don't know.

Besides, I never said anything about the team's style of play nor did I say anything negative about Messi.

Thank you!

AjanleKoko: Haba.
Fact of the matter is, nobody passes to Messi in particular. I always wonder when people say this.
How can everybody pass to a guy who operates from deep midfield most of the time?
Messi's first goal yesterday was from outside the penalty area. He received the ball from just inside AM's area, sprinted a few yards to create the space he needed, and shot into the far left corner. The second goal was from a stolen ball off a defender.

Messi isn't a standing center forward. Most of his runs are meant to create space and draw away defenders. He's just a master poacher that can create goals from nothing. How many of his recorded assists are from Villa, Pedro, or Sanchez? Most of Messi's assists come from Iniesta, Alves, and Xavi. On the contrary, most of the goals scored by any of Sanchez, Villa, or Pedro, are assisted by him!

Lol, doesn't matter. Looking forMessi doesn't necessarilymean they always find him. It just means that they throw away several potential goals. Recall the match when Messi seemed angry at Villa? Its clear that these guys have been instructed to pass to Messi, but some of them don't use their discretion and take it too far. I have seen Alves one-on-one with a goal keeper and he still attempted a pass to Messi.

Tello, Adriano, Cesc seem to play with more freedom and will usually choose to shoot rather than pass when a chance comes along.

I'm not taking anything away from Messi and his unbelievable skills and workrate.

hustler anthem: that means you do not watch our games..have u not seen villa and alves score from outside the box on so many occasions...villa's goal vs madrid? alves goal vs madrid? even villa's goal at wembley!! i agree on pedro and sanchez and Adriano has been outstanding this season.

Lol, I watch almost every Barca match. Go back on the thread to see my many analyses. How many times have you seen Alves get a chance even inside the box and the guy is still looking for Messi? Same applies to Villa, Sanchez, Pedro. Its like Pep at some point told the players that Messi is the focal point (I have no issues with that) but some team members seem to have taken it too far.

Adriano is one of the few Barca players (other than Messi) who tend to take shots from outside the box, or any other time a chance comes along. The others are Cesc and Tello.

Pedro, Sanchez, Villa n Alves are always so obsessed with passing to Messi that they don't see the chances that come their way.

Nice win. Tito's team marches on. Solong as wehave wither Pique or Puyol, the defence can be managed for this season.

Thank God for Aguirre. For once, Espanyol don't lie down to get flogged by Real.

OT:

Did anyone notice that the worl's richest man, Carlos Slim Helu, has invested in troubled Oviedo, which was about to go bankrupt.

Let's hope that this is the start of positive investments in La Liga after the failed billionaire entries into Malaga and Racing.

La Liga teams need a lotof cash injection to make the league more competitive.

usbcable: there is so much envy in the world right now
times past it was messi performs only with barca
later messi has not done anything for argentina
later its messi has not scored much goals as pele
now its win three world cups as brazil
.

Nice write up, coming from a Madrid fan.

Nice analyses by medjai! Good stuff!

I agree with AJ that Betis is a good side and I have a lotof respect for their coach, unlike many La Liga coaches.

BTW I'm also a fan of the new Barca. I think Tito will do a better job than Pep against park the bus teams, learning from the defeat to Celtic.

Messi the record breaker! So happy for him!

It was an enjoyable game - I'm not a big fan of mopping every la liga side 4-0, 5-0. Betis did justice to the match and we were lucky to escape with a win. Another tough one next weekend with A.Madrid coming to Nou Camp.

The match against Betis will be tough. Time for the resrt of the squad to stand up and show what they can do without Messi.

Benfica is a crap side. You don't get a better chance to beat Barca and they couldn't even score one goal. Good news is that 2 EPL sides are out.

The injury to Messi is unfortunate
Let's hope he recovers soon enough to beat Mueler's record.

I really admire Tito. I already feel that he will be a better coach than Pep, as difficult/impossible as that sounds. No one expected Messi to be rested for this match, but Tito has the courage to bench him even with Muller's record there for the taking.

I guess Messi will still come on, maybe Tito just wants Celtic out like we all do. In that case, Benfica better score a couple before the Lion King comes on.

Mcleo, that was some very funny stuff.

Medjai, JP, Mcleo

Excellent comments guys

Excellent win. We are hard to stop when we play this way - the boys were all fired up.

Tito's subs were spot on again!

Where are all the trolls who were making noise after matchday 4?

Meanwhile, for once, I hope we lose a match: if we lose to Benfica on matchday 6, pesky Celtic will be eliminated.

AjanleKoko: I'm not sure what he's on about.
For me, only one or two contributors actually post stuff that's lively reading. The rest is rather inane and boring.
Not to hurt anyone's feeling's though.

I'll blame that mainly on the irritants (non-barca fans) who come here to start silly cat fights. Unfortunately not everyone has the tough skin to ignore them.

I'm happy with this win. Tonight. The team didn't have to stress themselvves too much.

Credit to Zaragoza for trying to make a match of it. Our defence still lokks vulnerable even with Pique and Puyol back.

As usual, I was happy with Tito's subs. It's refreshing to see his subs compared to Pep who always brought on Keita predictably.

Medjai

I agree with you on the sponsorship deal. I think overall it's good forr Barca. Whatever money we lose with Turkish will be made through Qatar - you can't have it all.

AjanleKoko: Even as a Barca fan, this thread embarasses me sometimes

Pharoh: Some of you Barcelona guys are becoming something else and talking anyhow to be honest. I hope you guys remember that Barcelona FC is first and foremost a Catalonia club and they really do not give a Bleep about your existence than monetary benefits.

What are you guys talking about?

RuuDie: The only thing I think FCB needs to inculcate in their near-perfect football philosophy is. . ."if you don't need to win, don't play like you need to win!"
Especially when playing "park-the-bus opposition" they don't necessarily need to beat!

Pass the ball around at the back, up to the half-way line and pass it back again. Play keep ball in your own half and maintain that status quo for as long as you can, if the opposition don't want to come out of their shells to compete, na dem sabi!

I agree. No point risking it all with a careless all-out attack. Same thing applies to the semi final match against Inter. Once we took the lead, we continued to attack and they hit us with 3 counter attacks to make the 1st leg 3-1 in Milan.

We should learn some conservative things from the spanish national team.

^^^^^^^

Lol, Logica, thanks for pointing out my mathematical error.

I agree with your points. We have to change a no of things when facing these park the bus teams.

medjai: Thankfully this wasn't that important of a game. . . like, say, a CL semi final. We can take this loss as a positive and learn from it.

The thing is. . . I really hope we do learn from it. Because apparently we haven't learned enough from our lesson against Chelsea last season. We need to shoot from further out more often, forcing deflections and rebounds. We need to look for more direct runs and passes, and stop passing it around all the time. Our forwards like Pedro need to stop passing back to Iniesta and Xavi, and have inter-play with the other forwards moving towards the goal.

Also, we really do need to come out with intensity from the get go. We look way too casual.

Yeah we really need to learn from it. Especially because all of Europe will watch this match and believe that if crappy Celtic can beat us 3-2 over 2 legs, then they also have a chance playing the same way.

I sure hope Tito and the club make the right decisions concerning player selection, tactics, players to buy, etc...

All the haters can celebrate, but if we learn the lessons, this can be an important step to win the UCL. I prefer to lose this kind of match and reflect over it than win after playing poorly and assume all is well.

usbcable: as long as we qualify, second is still good enough.

Yeah, so what's the issue about Barca's play again? What's the joke on Barca? We are 1st and sure to qualify. You are 2nd and must face man city in Manchester...


well you can continue to take panadol for our headache.

usbcable: lemme be the first to ask


Ke maka ahia?
yaya aiki?
bawo ni oja?

dayokanu: Yaya Kasua

Well it's smart coming from a Madrid supporter and a Bayern supporter. madrid is looking up at Dortmund right now. Bayern is also looking up at at Valencia right now. Barca will still win this group, so while I know you guys are happy to see barca lose, Barca couldn't have picked a better match to lose this season. We still have Benfica coming to Nou Camp and the match against CSKA in Moscow.

I'm sure most Barca fans see this as a small blip in an otherwise successful season so far.

We are still top of the group, but Tito needs to learn from Pep's failures. Pep lost his only 2 UCLs to park-the-bus teams. Now Tito has had a taste of the same, but fortunately in the group stages.

My key points:
1. When we face a park the bus team, more direct players like Tello, Villa and Cesc should be on the field. With Pedro and Alexis, you are guaranteed that Barca will have few shots on goal - these guys will rather pass than shoot. Also, Xavi slows the game down while Cesc goes the direct route.

2. Song should have gone off at half time. I don't know how coach will keep a player on with a yellow card and persistent fouling. We were lucky he wasn't sent off.

3. Alexis is crap.

Medjai and JP

I agree with you guys - Cesc was excellent again. He makes the team more direct than Xavi and Iniesta. That's why we could win by so much without dominating possession so much.

The match started a bit poorly, with the defence struggling.but our excellent midfield/attack won the match again.

I feel a bit bad for Rayo but such is life. They actually did very well in the 1st half.

I like Tito's subs. I think Tito can be just as successful as Pep. At least he seems not as emotional as Pep which is a good thing. Pep's emotions kept us from getting the best from players like Ibra. Tito is squeezing out the best from this team right now!