The 2012-13 Season Thread | The Tito Era begins!

For stats nerds:
1. What's the most Barca (or other team) has ever had a possession in a single match?
2. What's Barca's record for passes without losing the ball?

I'd guess the record must be somewhere 80%, and the amount of passes somewhere around 70-80.

 

Zlatan is still butthurt.

http://www.soccerway.com/news/2012/December/02/ibrahimovic-messi-shouldnt-win-ballon-dor/

 

it would be interesting to look at how many times xavi had the pass before the actual assist.

 

Sure I can do that -- because the rest of his post was spent arguing against a position I never adopted. I never once said anything about whether any of the players mentioned deserved the Ballon d'Or. That's why my post began with "minor nitpick" and not "I think your point of view is wrong."

 

The "second assist" as in ice hockey. I would be curious to know the same thing. I'm sure it is often Xavi's pass that finds a player making a run who will cut the ball back to the goal scorer.

 

Well, apparently, we had 89% possession at Celtic Park the other week.

 

Interesting 4 minute discussion with Sid Lowe, Martin Ainstein and Filippo Ricci on the transition from Pep Guardiola to Tito Vilanova in the current Barcelona squad, Tito getting more out of Cesc but more defensive negligence.

 

I think the biggest difference is that Tito's Barca doesn't press nearly as hard to get the ball back, and they're a bit more direct going forward when in possession. Also the tempo of passing isn't as high as it used to be

 

How many goals does Ronaldo have this calander year?

 

I dunno about this. I mean, seems equally fast/slow to me.

Anyway, whatever the differences, they're very minor. Fortunately.

 

I've also noticed this, and I'm not happy about it. Pressing high and hard immediately meant we generated turnovers often because the opponents weren't yet ready to move the ball to safety, and those turnovers tended to be in dangerous places. Now, our backline is called upon more often, and IMHO our backline isn't as good as the backline was in 2010-2011.

 

The thing though is that more and more of our opponents are just ceding possession to us and clearing the ball into the channels rather than risk losing it through pressing (Though Cesc's fourth against Athletic came after a good press from Busquets). Our adjustment has been to become more direct and dangerous when in possession.

 

I wouldn't say our defense isn't as good as it once was. We've hardly had the opportunities to play our best ones because of injuries and constant health issues coming up. We've only played with Alves-Puyol-Pique-Alba twice this season I believe and it resulted in two clean sheets.

And I don't get why anyone would criticize that. Can't expect any manager that came in would have the team pressing as high as they were under Pep because no one is as dedicated in getting players' commitment to the club like Guardiola is and it's also a very high risk thing. Tito was the man right next to him for four years who was able to see what the team didn't do so well and correct it; he's done that so far.

 

I, for one, am happy that we're not pressing as much as we did under Pep. It's a lot of hard work to do that consistently. Of course there were many factors for our fatigue last year, but one of them could have been the relentless pressing. Imagine a basketball team full court pressing all game, all year. Our defense was left without Puyol and Pique for the great majority of two months.

I think we've become more dangerous with the ball, with a more direct approach and Fabregas I think adds another layer to that directness. Iniesta, Messi and Fabregas are more direct than any of the other forward/midfield players. I also notice that Xavi has taken more shots from outside the box or at the top than in years previous. Even if we don't get teams to turn the ball over in dangerous positions we're still averaging a hefty goals for average.

 

Also once we get Abidal back, it will be even stronger

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/barcelona-star-lionel-messi-i-want-1470244

Can you imagine Crissy saying something like that?