PSG started to attack more, because they didn't have to fear or control Messi anymore, which made them more adventurous, confident etc., and that's why they got into scoring situations a lot more. Now this actually creates space in their defense also, and that's why Barcelona still had couple of chances, because the space in the defense was made greater. It's not because they didn't loose quality, it's because the defense opened the play. Now don't confuse yourself with the beginning of the game, because Barca is notoriously bad at starting games, who ever plays, which will always give chances to opposition. Now when Messi scored the first goal, Barca actually seemed to steamroll PSG, but that actually stopped when Messi got injured, and that's is exactly the difference between couple goals of win, and a draw. Messi.
Based on what? PSG was 0-1 behind so of course they had to attack more to equalize the score in own stadium. T.Silva varane'd Messi in the first half, but your right back watched too many Quaresma videos on YouTube and gave that great pass to Messi, who scored. Before the pass Messi was not dangerous at all.
Really good post on your part and I don't disagree -- but since both teams win it continues to seem to me to be a case of collective excellence where Messi's influence as such is not the main story. But I have never disputed his brilliance or greatness as a player.
12-13 La Liga without direct contribution of top players (goals+assists-own goals) After round 29 1. 47 Atletico Madrid (Falcao -14p) 2. 45 Real Madrid (Cronaldo -17p) 3. 40 Barcelona (Messi -35p) As a reference last season Messi contributed 35p and Cronaldo 25p.
It begs the question what makes him way superior to any other player. This is btw not an entirely fair conclusion. Average GPG Champions League 2008-2012 = 2.61-2.78 Average GPG La Liga 2008-2012 = 2.71-2.90 Average GPG european championships 2004-2012 = 2.45-2.48 Average GPG World Cup 2002-2010 = 2.27-2.52 [2006WC: 2.30 ; 2010WC: 2.27]
This guy Billy Beane is seen as some kind of guru, even had Brad Pitt play him in a movie, but as I understand it he has yet to win a World Series championship. I"ll take Joe Torre anytime over him.
This is all not related to the quote you reacted to. Yes, I'm telling you that he was supposed to achieve success because the circumstances were better. You know, there is a .90 correlation between wealth and success. When Laporta (plus Rijkaard) took over in 2003 the club was in shambles, financially. In 2008 it was the second richest on the planet. That's why they bought Dani Alves, the second most expensive defender ever. In a way Rijkaard was to an extent an overachiever while Guardiola ironically wasn't - from a certain perspective. But how is this all related to the initial quote you reacted to? "Cruijff built the Sixtine Chapel, Rijkaard restored it". Guardiola said that. You replied with, in subtle fashion, "Guardiola surpassed what the two Dutchmen did." Very relevant, not. This is though: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qUups3UCxS4J:www.goal.com/en/news/3846/barcelona-making-of-the-greatest/2011/12/30/2811446/without-him-there-would-be-no-lionel-messi-xavi-andres xavi cruyff&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler This week's exclusive extract from Graham Hunter's new book on Barca looks at perhaps the most influential figure in the history of the Catalan club If the 175,000 FC Barcelona members, or socios, queued up in an orderly line, night after night, to massage his tired feet, cook his dinner and tuck him into bed; if they carried his golf clubs round Montanya’s hilly 18 holes; if they devoted 50 per cent of their annual salary to him … it still wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to repay the debt that those who love this club owe Johan Cruyff BARCA: THE MAKING OF THE GREATEST TEAM IN THE WORLD EBOOK AND HARD COPIES OUT EARLY 2012, PUBLISHED BY BACKPAGE PRESS Without him, there would be no Pep Guardiola, no Leo Messi, no Xavi and no Andres Iniesta. They would have been judged to be too slow, too small – table footballers. The genius from Amsterdam created the conditions which allowed these incredible players to be recognised and to become central to FC Barcelona’s values. Without Cruyff, this story simply wouldn’t exist. Even the latest, greatest, Barcelona era has his DNA running through it: the way they train and play, how they recruit players and staff and why entertainment falls only slightly behind victory in their list of priorities. Twice he made a splash at the Camp Nou – in 1974, when Barcelona made him the first $1m player and in 1988, when he returned as coach with unprecedented success: leagues often won on the last day of the season and usually at the cost of massive humiliation to Real Madrid, the Goliath to Cruyff’s David; four Uefa trophies, the most important of which came in defeating a Sampdoria side starring Luca Vialli and Roberto Mancini to win the 1992 European Cup – Barcelona's first. From player to coach to advisor | Cruyff is a Barca legend in all three roles No Cruyff, no Dream Team. No Cruyff, no co-ordinated and prolific cantera trained to play thrilling football. No Cruyff, no Joan Laporta (the club’s most successful president). NoCruyff, no Frank Rijkaard and the resuscitation of a club suffocating in its own stupidity. NoCruyff, no Guardiola. The player-turned-coach maintains he wouldn’t even have been given the chance to stake a claim for a first-team spot had it not been for the visionary faith of the Dutchman and his lieutenant, Charly Rexach. FC Barcelona is stocked with Cruyff disciples at coaching, development and administrative levels: Guardiola, Andoni Zubizarreta, Guillermo Amor, Eusebio Sacristan, Juan Carlos Unzue, Oscar Garcia, Tito Vilanova and Rexach are key examples. Another, Sergi Barjuan, left in July 2011. Make no mistake, the world is still watching the fruition of seeds planted in 1988. When Cruyffreturned as coach he disagreed, fundamentally, with the way in which the Barcelona youth system was run. He insisted that it was nonsensical that all the age-category teams were being trained in a playing system which was particular to their specific coach. There was no FC Barcelona credo. What was then 13 youth levels under the first team could mean 13 different playing styles and kids having to re-learn every year. Cruyff told his employers that a) every youth level must be trained based on the same concepts and in the same 3-4-3 formation, b) the top kids needed to be pushed out of their comfort zone and played at an age group one, or even two years ahead, and c) that those 'perlas de la cantera', the jewels of the youth system, needed accelerated promotion into the first team. No Cruyff, no Dream Team. No Cruyff, no cantera. No Cruyff, no Joan Laporta. No Cruyff, no Frank Rijkaard. No Cruyff, no Pep Guardiola They worked on positional play, one- or, at most, two-touch circulation of the ball, the concept of the sweeper-keeper, squeezing space – all principles which have thrived under Guardiola and Rijkaard. This strategy, plus an adherence to all his teams playing attacking, creative, rapid football based on pressing and accurate passing, is his most enduring legacy. Cruyff reshaped the structure and content of FC Barcelona’s youth development and some alumni, who would go on to win Champions League medals under Rijkaard and Guardiola, were already in the cantera recalibrated by Cruyff when he was controversially sacked, in the dressing room as his players filed in for training on Saturday, May 18, 1996. Without Cruyff, there would have been no Leo Messi, no Xavi, and no Andres Iniesta. They would have been judged too slow, too small - table footballers On that day, 16-year-old Xavi Hernandez was part of the Barca youth system and already had five years of La Masia training under his belt. Andres Iniesta was being scouted. Victor Valdes had already spent four years in the youth system at the Camp Nou, and a 17-year-old called Carles Puyol had just been scouted and signed – to play as a winger. Cruyff’s system was not only able to train players brilliantly once the right ones were selected, but the criteria Barca used while scouting had changed. As a result, the club was now consistently choosing the best young players, or certainly the most appropriate for their philosophy, who would one day provide the spine of the greatest team in the world.
Talkin' about that, that movie does everything wrong. Starting with the first name of the vilian. It is spelled as 'Johann' but that's more like Norwegian or Prussian. The proper one is with a single N. The name 'Johan' is the short version of 'Johannes'. Which, like many common names, has a religious origin. 'Johannes de Doper' means "John the Baptist". A proverb is derived from that as well: "a shouter/caller in the desert", like John the Baptist did. Which means a visionary ( ? ) guy who isn't heard by others. A prophet without followers. And here the definitive proof that I don't talk nonsense, only 2200 people have 'Johann' as first name. http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nvb/naam/is/johann 54000 men have 'Johan' as first name in the Netherlands. http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nvb/naam/is/johan This was the small lesson
Firstly I kinda agree with you in the sense "TOUGH" play at UEFA cup (older format) before 2000's Second bold, I thought I was clear, liga from MID 2000's to now = 2 horses race. (before that they were the best) Also SPAIN NT from same period (06 to now) = Barca + Real ... if you want to check the main starting XI from Euro08, WC10 to Euro12? Most like 7 from Barca, and 6 from Real in the team to make the BEST XI.
Quite a few had a similar or even better record at the 'old' UEFA Cup though. http://www.rsssf.com/players/players-in-ec.html Starting with Heynckes, all the way down.
1- No. If that would be the case, I am very sure Sir Alex would "STRENGTHEN" his squad and make them compatible ... and so are others The situation in SPAIN is so different to EPL in term of economic crisis. ManU, ManCity, Liverpool, Cheldsea (and even Tottenham , Arsenal ) all HAVE MONEY to buy good players. In Liga besides those two, the otehrs are struggling with DEPT and deficit .... no cash whatsoever to buy a "good enough" players. 2- Another food for thought ... Barca did not have a very good stats against EPL top teams any way ... (especially Chelsea) "RELATIVELY" to their smashing stats to other teams in liga - including Real (LOL)
I would like to return to my original point in the thread, about the concept of greatness. To me it is linked to the idea of heroism, and I think my point before was that, leaving aside Messi's stats and looking at the human element of the game, I don't see him as an especially heroic player. Consider, for comparison, the stories of Ibrahimovic and Messi. Zlatan is an ethnic Croat born in Sweden, he starts his life as a thuggish street footballer, is forever an outsider wherever he goes, but breaks his way into the first team at Ajax and eventually becomes a star at Juventus, Inter, Milan, and now PSG, and for the Swedish national team, after learning field soccer and applying himself to the task of becoming a successful modern player. Zlatan's story, expressed in I AM ZLATAN (his autobiography) is incredible ; everywhere he goes, he wins trophies, unites dressing rooms, lifts teams on his back, scores load of goals and plays in a spectacular style. He is motivated, he says, by "the desire for revenge," the desire to better himself after beginning life in such rough surroundings. What, by contrast, is Messi's story? He is a coddled boy of the Massia academy, groomed at a young age to be the perfect footballer, surrounded by great players, protected from any negative influence (to the extent even that Ronaldinho was shipped out of Barca after the latter started taking Messi out to the night clubs), and forever given the best of medical, financial, emotional, physical, coaching, etc., support. When has he ever taken on new challenges? What are the obstacles he's overcome? There is something so engineered about his career (not even getting into the question of his suspiciously perfect health and physical development ...), so that he's won everything and compiled the most stupendous CV, without, at least for this viewer, being particularly inspiring. I've always found Barca a somewhat negative team, self-righteous, obsessed with discipline and system, and defensive in a way that is different but not necessarily better than putting men behind the ball, and if there's hero in that club, it's someone like Cruyff who gave them their footballing ideas. This is all just to say that Messi's a great footballer, but he has to be understood in human context, not just through statistics.
What has Ibrahimovic done in Europe (Champions League) to be great though? Also, the majority of great American athletes didn't have bad childhoods. Should Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, etc. be considered less 'great' because they didn't have shitty upbringings?
I agree somewhat with your point on Messi in the sense Barca fans or the most younger fans put him up high beyond his 'true achievement' However to name Ibra (a very very good player though) next to Messi is a BIG push. We can name old Ronaldo for example as typical "heroic" image and was great for every team he played for, but Zlatan is far from that point of yours.
For me Messi's normal persona and appearance is actually the most magical part of the equation itself. If you didn't know him, you would see a normal young man, you would never guess there goes an athlete, never mind one of the greatest footballers and athletes, ever.
Messi is too mechanical, it could be said it is because he is so much better than anyone, but the times when he has struggled, e.g.: against Germany at WC10, against Bolivia at CA11, I was waiting for him to reach deep within himself and give us something magical...alas, no such luck yet. Who cares about American athletes, they have shitty sports and no one knows their names outside of the USA. True Zen enlightment subverts statistics, like Zidane or DiStefano.
Just because you think American sports are 'shitty' doesn't mean the players who play them aren't great athletes. The best american athletes are just as good as the best athletes of other countries who play other sports. Don't be one of those douchebags who disses other sports. It makes you look like an idiot. Unfortunately, many Americans do that with soccer, but it doesn't justify soccer fans doing it in reverse. Don't stoop to the level of your enemies.
Statistics are not what makes Messi the most revered athlete on Earth. Adults and children in every nation in the world are in awe of him and love him, and it's not because of numbers. You want human context and heroism, well, people have spoken with their dollars about their ideal heros, and it's Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter. In Frodo's case it's the small guy who surprises everybody. In Harry Potter's case it's the ordinary kid who is a natural born wizard, who maximizes his powers at a school for wizards. Messi with his medically underdeveloped childhood and freakish talent nurtured at la masia is a real life combination of the two stories. By contrast a thuggish, extremely tall man with 10% of Messi's accomplishment is not very interesting to the larger world.