News: (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻: The 2020-2021 Season Thread

The Spanish Olympic team have called up Pedri to play at the Tokyo games, along with Eric Garcia and Oscar Mingueza, and alarm bells rang in Barcelona. He has played a lot of minutes this season for Ronald Koeman’s side and is starring for Spain at the Euros too.
For that reason Barcelona asked the Spanish football federation to drop him from the squad and stop him missing his holidays and pre-season, due to the potential injury and overload risk.
Cadena SER radio say the RFEF have told Barcelona firmly that he will be going.
Sources told the radio station that Barca called a high ranking RFEF official but it had no effect and he told them that Pedri would not be excluded from the squad.
Pedri has been in spectacular form for Spain and will form a key part of their bid to win gold in Japan in the Olympic football competition now.

 

Fair comments from Barca

One of the most fouled at the Euros plus covered more ground than just about anyone else as well

 

Fixtures for next season are out. El clasico is Oct 24 (round 10). First one at Camp Nou.

Season begins in mid August at home to La Real.

 

Busquets leads the way !!

 

What is this though???

 

Top few hundred match rating scores averaged out over matches each individual has played .

Busquets has played the last two games and won the official Man of the Match awards in both ..

 

Which source though???

Busquest is class for Spain. Pedri should be higher, he is undoubtly great in this Euro as well.
The trio Pedri-Busquest-Koke really work.

 

I think it’s hinted we will terminate the contract.

 

If clubs are ready to sign him, then we could sell him.

 

Dembele is useless and a huge flop. Greizmann definitely could be sold and would be a great signing for the respective team. He also did well in the Euros tbh.

 

But the problem being that we get worse by losing Griezmann.

AG is not exactly playing like we hoped when Barca signed him but he is still reliable in that he never gets injured and we can count on him for 15-20 goals per season. And if Messi needs a rest we are not totally impotent with AG in there.

 

He been improving of late , as well

 

https://www.sport.es/en/news/barca/barcas-2021-22-pre-season-plans-revealed-11900239 Excerpts with bolding below:
Preseason starts
The first team players in attendance on Saturday were Ter Stegen, Coutinho, Ansu Fati, Dembélé, Dest, Piqué, Pjanic, Riqui Puig, Neto, Sergi Roberto, Wagué and Umtiti. The first four are currently injured, and will train separately from the group until they have recovered. Monchu, Ilias, Gavi, Comas, Ramos Mingo, Nico, Arnau Tenas, Álex Collado, Iñaki Peña and Yusuf Demir, all of whom are Barça B players, will also complete pre-season with the first team squad. Ilaix Moriba and Alejandro Balde, meanwhile, will undergo pre-season with the reserve team until their contractual situation is resolved.

The other first team players will return on a staggered basis following their participation in this summer's various international tournaments. Koeman has given each player a three-week rest following their last fixture for their respective countries. Pedri, Mingueza and Eric García, who are due to represent Spain at the Olympic Games, will be the last to join the group, who are set to be put through their paces on five days this week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Friendly matches
Barça's first two pre-season friendlies will be held at the Johan Cruyff Stadium. Just like last season, these matches will be against Nàstic de Tarragona (21 July at 7 PM) and Girona (24 July at 7 PM) as part of their preparations for the upcoming LaLiga season, which is set to kick-off with a tough match against Real Sociedad at Camp Nou on 15 August. Despite not being officially announced, the club are also planning to complete a training camp in Germany in early August, during which they will play an additionaln pre-season friendly against Stuttgart. They are also scheduled to play a friendly against Beitar Jerusalem, although the latter is in doubt due to the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip.

On 8 August, Barça will play Cristiano Ronaldo's Juventus in the Joan Gamper Trophy at Camp Nou. Koeman's outfit will then play one more friendly match in the week beginning 23 August, with the domestic season having started the weekend before. This will be against Manchester City in a charity match in honour of Juan Carlos Unzué, with the proceeds going towards ALS research.

 

Pedri has been a fan of Barca as a child. He was destined to play for us.

 

Barca drew LPB in the semifinal of the 2022 super copa.
So the second clasico of the season will be played on 12 January in Saudi Arabia.

 

Tebas is such a sell out. Imagine criticising Premier League and being a sell out to Saudi Arabia. Very disgraceful and La Liga’s reputation will further be terrible. This is definitely not the way to market the league. La Liga always had greater talent, more entertaining style of football, legendary players etc in comparison to the Premier League, but the shitty management couldn’t capitalise that.

 

Good and clear summary of the mess Barca are in financially, how they got here and how much still needs to happen in the next month or so: https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelo...t-the-clubs-financial-problems-arent-over-yet

 

Just noticed that Barca's first preseason match is on Wednesday. TF? What happened to the off season?

 

time to start up the new season thread

any title suggestions?

Ronald's Long Shot: The 2021-22 Season Thread