New Barcelona coach Radomir Antic has questioned whether Juan Roman Riquelme is suited to the club. "Barcelona loves champions and Riquelme must make an effort to improve," he was quoted as saying. "He isn't choosing his passes well at the moment and is always looking for the killer ball. "We're looking for a balance in the work of Riquelme, but players who cannot handle the pressure are not players for Barcelona."
I don't think that challenging a young player via the media is a wise move. Riquelme's confidence already seems to be down the tubes. Some players do respond to that kind of motivation, but now isn't the time to test him. He still needs time to adapt, plus he needs to get fit. Aimar's first season at Valencia was pretty forgettable, but he managed to turn the corner. I think the big difference is that Valencia could afford to let Aimar get adapted to Spanish football in actual games, as opposed to JRR, who is unfortunately playing on a team who dug themselves a very large hole during the first half of the season and now have no room for experimentation or cultivation of younger players. Antic needs to have some patience. Riquelme's not costing Barça any points right now. How can he when he's never given a chance to play 90 minutes?
This is a good point that has been somewhat overlooked in the press. And it applies to all the young players, not just Romy. You have to wonder if they'd handled that summer of crazy acquisitions (Geovanni, Rochembach, Christanval) just a little differently if one of those guys would be farther along at this point. Of course, the Andersson / Overmars / Enrique injuries were something that couldn't have been predicted, and that pushed the youngsters into the spotlight as well. It all added up to spell trouble, I guess. Getting rid of Sergi, Rivo and Abelardo and other somewhat 'loyal' guys probably made everyone in the locker room a little nervous too.
The two worrying aspects to Antic's comments are that it was the same thing that LvG was saying and that you would hope its been said to JRR privately, by the coach, coaching staff, and his team-mates before Antic went public with it. Chris does make a good point, its not just spanish soccer, but it takes a young player a while to get up to speed. Rexach brought Saviola along slowly; Yallop brought Donovan along slowly, both coaches stood their ground and its paying off in the long run. However, if what Antic is trying to say is, "You, JRR, are wasting your talent by not working hard enough both in training and during the match" then maybe it was time to go public with the criticism. Please note that I have no idea how hard JRR or anyone on the squad is working, but I do have my VCR set for today! Tony
riquelme has been a dissapointment this far, nothing wrong with what Antic has said. maybe Riquelme will play harder now.
There are people who say some southamericans are lazy and reject to train, I hope JRR is not that kind of player, I followed him very close in Argentina and never read about that. Hopefully, I dont expect him to be a player that let his morale goes to the ground just for that kind of comments, I want him to demonstrate his value with outstanding performances