CR7 heading for glory - The Other Teams Thread

There's a rivalry thread in your forum my friend. This is not the place.

 

That third pic of Ronaldo looks photoshopped, his arm looks un-natural. The other photos are standard underwear model photos, nothing overly embarrassing about them at all.

I do recall an actual embarrassing underwear photoshoot, but Hendrix is right - we now have a Rivalry Thread for that sort of thing.

 

what's best for us is for madrid to crash out of both CDR and UCL this month.

that would be beautiful

 

I appreciate that but I am talking about for when RM face us, or it doesn#t matter if they beat or lose to Man U

 

Honestly Real Madrid seems to have learned how to play against Barca the last 4-5 years.. They haven't learned how to beat top teams outside of Spain yet. (Bvb, Bayern, mancity,etc)

So I would think you would rather face manU. Who's midfield and defense is pretty lacking..
They have all offensive punch but nothing special behind the front 4.

Real Madrid seems to have honed in on Barca, I don't think you want to chance it in the CL.

 

probably cause we play them so often

 

Ha ha. I was watching that game and thought that he couldn't possibly be simulating wiping his ass during his goal celebration but it sure looks like that. Didn't know the back story.

 

Seeing as Atletico lost today, hopefully we can keep our lead over them/LPB in double digits for the rest of the season. No 'down the stretch' drama please.

 

Uh , last 4-5 years? some of theirbiggest defeat in history to Barca was in last 4-5 years... 6-2 in 2009 and 5-0 in 2010. Last season our head to head was 3 win 1 lost 2 draws. They only beat us once which was in Camp nou but we beat them in Bernebau and CDR. 1 victory in 6 meets isnt much improvement considering number of up

Only this season it looks even, 1 win 1 draw 1 lost, 7 goals scored, 7 goals conceided. This season, thanks to the fact we also conceided against almost every other team.

Mourinho's record against Barca isnt as good as anyone raving about, 4 win, 11 losses.

 

It doesn't look like we have a psychological edge over them anymore though. I feel we play too cautious against them these days and that seems to play right into their hands. We don't exude confidence against them like we used too. Them simply getting better has something to do with that of course.

 

Inter beat us 3-1 in first leg in 2010.

 

I thought you were only talking about Mourinho with RM. My bad.

 

I really meant to say 1-2 years...

They don't have that fear factor as before and now it seems like a 50/50 occasion tbh..

But I believe Barca will beat them in the return cdr.

 

You have to also consider how many chances we blow on a regular basis in the Clasicos nowadays as opposed to 2-3 years ago when we played them.

Some of the goals they've been getting against us have been giftwrapped and handed to them as well.

They've gotten better and the fear factor is gone, but they are still not at the level you'd expect them to be by now after playing us so many times in these last few seasons.

 

This, I agree on the fear factor which has gone, but I think that base on the fact they manage to beat us at Camp nou in last classico of last season. It shows during this season Super cup and also the last 2 classicos. Another problem for us is our killer instinct apart from Messi in first half of the season. But thing has improve alot in recent weeks with Iniesta, Pedro, Alexis,Villa and even Pique and Tello finding the net, and Iniesta's throughball is almost as deadly as 2009-2011 Xavi .

Near the end of last season till now our defence has becoming weaker and weaker, we scored great goals and dominated the whole game and opponent scored just like that within 1-2 chances. Stats dont lie, we conceided more goals this season than Real madrid, Atletico and Malaga.

 

Why is it you think with the defense??

The back four has been the same for a while right??

I think puyol was out for a while and pique too right?

Maybe some regulars have been missing for too long? So it creates too much inconsistency?

 

There are three problems in my opinion:

1) We now have two very offensive minded fullbacks since Alba joined as opposed to just one in previous seasons with Abidal being a bit more defensive minded.
2) We are prone to at least one lapse in concentration or mistake at the back which at least 2/3rds of the time punishes us.
3) Mascherano at centerback isn't as reliable as the previous two seasons he played there.

We've gotten much better defensively I'd still say since Puyol and Pique returned from injury back in November so it's becoming less and less scary when our opponents have the ball, even though it is worrying when they score pretty much out of every opportunity they get. Getafe and Osasuna scored with just one chance each all game and that just won't cut it in the Champions League.

I hope things keep improving because we have a very difficult stretch in these next five games, all against difficult opponents. But our attack is as good as it's ever been in any season under Pep so that's why I'm not panicking yet.

 

4) You are a little more direct in attack, which means more goals for you but less relative possession, so teams actually have the ball to be able to attack you a few more times per game.

 

That's another good point. Being more direct means playing a bit quicker with the players we have which means its easier to turn over for other teams, win the ball, and counter.

But I think most of the goals we've conceded have come from mistakes/lapses and from wide areas because Alba and Alves go so high on the pitch than it has been through a team counterattacking after stealing the ball from us (like when Falcao scored at Camp Nou after Diego Costa stole it from Messi in midfield, can't remember many other instances).

 

5) Madrid sucks and the league is over

I think the defense has been a little shakier, but since that crazy 5-4 win over Depor in mid-October (which may have been the last Mascherano-Song CB partnership, I don't remember), Barça have given up an average of 1 goal per game in La Liga over the course of 15 games. That's not so bad. I do agree with your points though, Azulgrana. The most worrisome part is not being able to keep a clean sheet.

But I think maybe the Real Sociedad and Valencia games of the past couple of weeks might not have happened if Barça felt like the league was up for play.

 

I do think we need to take into consideration our guys not necessarily being 100% focused because of our current league standing. I don't blame them as long as they don't take it all for granted and also turn it up in big games.

 

I think that's the easy way out of this, blaming it on our league standing and saying it's because we're so comfortable that we concede all the time.

If they get into that kind of comfort zone, how will they get out of it once a big game comes around? You're so used to playing no pressure games and being in a comfort zone that when a big game comes, conceding goals like you have been can hurt you much more than they do in the league.

It's been happening all season anyways so it's not just something that's been happening for a short period of time. But it's normal when you consider some of the reasons stated earlier.

 

I think also adding Cesc into the mix brought us more directness in the attack too, he's a type of midfielder that likes to run up and get in position to score.

I agree with your point about defense, Alba is definately not as good defensively as Abidal. When Alves made his usual runs up front Abidal settled in the back making a line of 3 with Pique and Puyol to kinda make up for that. Now that both Alba and Alves are constantly running up the wings we are somewhat more exposed, specially to counter attacks. (That can hurt us against LPB)