The 2011 - 2012 Season Thread | "Return of the moc!"

In all competitions:

Messi 65
Crissy 57

 

I'm not sold on Dos Santos...you are right if Keita leaves we might be short in midfield, which is where he'd fit in. I would like to see Mascherano play more in midfield and for there to be more CB cover.

 

Hopefully Madrid and Barca lose some ground against European competition and are forced to make the league (not just by TV revenue, but by the way both Barca and Madrid market themselves) more competitive. Use the Barca and Madrid brand to prop La Liga, not just yourself.

 

Whoa. Looks like the "Downtime for Upgrade" process has begun.
All threads that were started before 2011 are now closed. It's as if BigSoccer wants to get rid of the Guardiola era.
In due time we'll need to start a new Media thread and flood that mutha with memories of Pep's Barca collecting silverware.
Or should all that go to a new "Essential videos" thread.
Or have a seperate "Guardiola era" thread.
Argh, I'm just sad to see the 2010 World Cup threads all closed now.

 

Yeah, I was going to post this in the media thread but this is a fine place too, an interesting interview with Pep and Fernando Trueba (film director) from September 2011 with English subtitles. Miss you already Pep:



Edit by VeB to embed the video...

 

Interesting piece on goal scoring records:
http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2012/05/03/the-messy-business-of-soccer-records/

 

Sounds good. Maybe tweak the title a bit, from "Guardiola to step down?" to "Guardiola steps down" or something to reflect that it's a done deal.

 

guys i heard some barca fans had made a cartoonic video named thank you pep on youtube but couldnt find it , it was mentioned in sport news , if anyone would be so kind as to provide me the link to it id appreciate it

 

Update your Avatar Gil! It is hurting my eyes [/quote] Let me see what I can do, my daughter is now about the age of my son in that photo anyways, so probably time for an update in any event - avatar loading is just not my forte.

Here's a nice graphic which I hope I can upload, shows the Pichichi race over the last 2+ months:
http://estaticos.elperiodico.com/resources/pdf/8/6/1336335752268.pdf

 

http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/88/s...o-pit-his-wits-against-guardiola-in-barcelona I can't wait for this match!

 

In all competitions:

Messi 72
Crissy 59

Pichichi:

Messi 50
Crissy 45

 

Does anyone else hate the new forum? Why would they get rid of the vForum?

 

Maybe they are trying to modernize it; but I agree, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Messi will no doubt win the Ballon d'Or; can't argue against the most prolific individual season in the history of the game.

 

The fact he break Gerd Muller 40 years old record and surpase 70 goals mark, he will get another balon D'or. Remember Balon D'or is for best player not best team. Messi has the most goal plus most assist in all competition too.

 

Messi still win Ballon D'or without winning the world cup 2 years ago... now he has even more goals, even more assist plus he has 5 goals in 5 games for Argentina , scoring both in friendly and World cup qualifier. The fate has been sealed.

Even if you compare the team winning record against Madrid... they have 3 win , 1 losses, 2 draw.

 

I had to look this up because my mind was struggling to recall.
The last time a player won the Ballon'Or in a year his club did not win the Champions League or domestic league nor did not have success with his country's national team was Michael Owen in 2001. But Liverpool did collect a hat-trick of cups that year (Carling Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup).
Before that was Ronaldo in 1997 (Barca won the UEFA Cup Winners Cup and Copa del Rey, finished second in La Liga).
And before that was Roberto Baggio in 1993. Juventus only collected the UEFA Cup that year.

 

Hate the new forum? Can only give the more-or-less default answer: "I don't like the change but am gonna get used to it".

 

^^^
Yeah, it's taking time to get used to but I've gradually worked it out so that it's as convenient for me as the old forum was. For example, I've bookmarked the "Watched threads" page in lieu of "My BigSoccer".

 

So time for a season post-mortem.

I know most people don't think we need to change anything in attack because of the number of goals we've scored this season, but that's been inflated by the various 7/8/9 goal games.

I looked at all the games where we dropped points. I'd argue that about half were because we gave up too many goals (2 or more) and half were because we didn't score enough (1 or less):

Super Copa
Madrid (away): 2-2.

Copa Del Rey:
Madrid (home): 2-2
Valencia (away): 1-1

Champions League:
Milan (home-group): 2-2
Milan (away-QF): 0-0
Chelsea (away): 1-0
Chelsea (home): 2-2

La Liga
Real Sociedad (away): 2-2
Valencia (away): 2-2
Sevilla (home): 0-0
Bilbao (away): 2-2
Getafe (away): 1-0
Espanyol (away): 1-1
Villareal (away): 0-0
Ossasuna (away): 3-2
Madrid (home): 1-2

(We also had 4 games that we won despite giving up at least two goals, and three games we won 1-0).

 

Stinks about Puyol needing knee surgery. Hopefully Masch and Pique can hold down the defensive fort with Adriano and Alves in the CdRey. Perhaps more worrisome for Spain. Copa final aside the timing is not terrible for Barca - he misses 1 final and 1 meaningless game, plus numerous games and countless training sessions with La Furia Roja (he may have played his last game with them though I think he can still help us for a couple more years). So yes, we truly do need another central defender plus a leftback as I don't think Abidal ever plays again.

 

They relied too much on Messi, 72 goals + 28 assist just too much
Tello scored less than 10, Pedro and Sanchez less than 20. None injured Villa will at least bang 20-30 goals. Sanchez, Cuenca and Tello has yet to develop this kind of understanding



Puyol also need to be rotated more often