>Barcelona has a lot of aging players. Pique, Busquets, Rakitic, Messi and Suarez are all 30 and over. That's half the starting XI. Unlike many teams though; Barca's aging squad has tons and tons of technical quality. Forwards have excellent striking and passing technique, midfielders have elite level passing, triangulation and game-reading ability, and the defensive personnel are so adequate on the ball in addition to being defensively capable, that they could play further forward with minimal problems. Last night, Barcelona set up to maximize their strengths (technical excellence and game-readership) and mask flaws (lessened physical capacity for one). And boy, did they do it well.
>I was fortunate to follow Valverde closely when he was at Athletic Bilbao (a team I absolutely adore). I recall Ander Herrera saying that while he's played under Bielsa, Mourinho and Louis Van Gaal; the smartest coach he's ever played for is Ernesto. In his words, "he knows precisely when to attack and when not to."
>Valverde is a pragmatic manager who's very selective in the sequences he allows to play out on the pitch (both with regard to his team and the opponent). What most people don't understand is that being able to control the defensive and offensive sequences of both the opponent and yourself is perhaps the greatest form of control a manager can have. This is regardless of what the possession stats say. Mastering the art of baiting the opponent to concentrate their ball circulation is useless areas of the pitch, and thus have them build up a false sense of confidence and security takes genuine genius. It still hasn't dawned on Klopp and his horde of Liverpool supporters just how badly they were mugged off yesterday. And it's going to happen again next week.
>Wanna hear something else? Bar Pep Guardiola; Ernesto Valverde is the most complete and tactically astute manager in world football. He's a level above Klopp and the other hyped up managers.
Despite creating a three or four chances they should have scored it was largely a disfunctional attack.
Oliver Cook
>Bar Pep Guardiola; Ernesto Valverde is the most complete and tactically astute manager in world football. He's a level above Klopp and the other hyped up managers. Sarri is better than all of these frauds
Oliver Nguyen
NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN
PASS IT TO SALAH
HOOF IT TO MANE
RUN FASTER, FASTER, FASTERRRRRRRRRRRRRR
CHASE THE BALL MORE
FASTER
JUST KICK IT IN
MORE AIMLESS CROSSES
HOW DARE THE OTHER TEAM NOT LIE DOWN AND LET US WIN
I don't really rate Valverde but he made big brain decisions for the Liverpool game
Starting Vidal over Arthur, putting in Semedo for Coutinho and moving Roberto up which led to the 2nd goal
James Sanders
>Gets humiliated by zoomers man No.
Samuel Peterson
can't wait for barca blowing lelerpool on the counter with dembele and semedo on tuesday
Evan Lee
Barca away are pretty shocking. It really depends on how Valverde approaches this and if he's learnt from last Seasons disaster. Already in Copa this Season they've choked some Away games and Messi had to fix it in the Home leg. Even in the CL against United and Lyon Away, Barca were pretty poor. Valverde needs to make sure he gets his shit right and doesn't do this overly pragmatic, stale le sit back and defend away meme because it doesn't fit Barca and they flop
Ian Parker
nah its ogre. salah missed a great opportunity to make it 3-1. if barca gets matched against ajax in the finall too I think it'll be an easy barca win. they are quite a press resistant team thanks to messi and busquets.
Jacob Sanchez
against lyon and utd they played the first match away, and against utd controlled the entire game after that first goal, valverde just chose to play it safe vs livepool with a 3-0 advantage it will be too easy, klopp has to let TAA and Robertson go forward if he wants goals, which will most likely be punished from barca very very early on
Camden Cox
I don't know fella, let's wait until the second leg for this to unravel football is pretty much unpredictable
Joseph Brooks
If it weren't for dumbele barca would've been 5 or 6-0
Wasted all that planing and messi magic.
Brayden Gonzalez
Hopefully, if he's not set up stupid and trying to defend the whole game. Barca are genuinely poor Away though, so he needs to make sure they don't get rattled. I wouldn't say they controlled the game against United, much like they didn't against Lyon or in Copa del Rey. Liverpool's press could cause problems early because Barca like to play from the back but it's harder to do so on smaller pitches when they're accustomed to Nou Camp.
James Evans
imagine actually believing all this
Asher Nelson
It's pretty compelling. Do you think liverpool can turn it around in the second leg?
Hunter Parker
>harder to do so on smaller pitches when they're accustomed to Nou Camp. Been reading this shit a lot lately and only now bothered to check. Camp Nou is 105 X 68 m^2 and Anfield is 101 X 68 m^2. Is there really that much difference?
Caleb Brooks
Bump.
Luis Campbell
Oh thanks lad.
Zachary Parker
no camp nou used to be one of the big ones years ago but nowadays it's normal in size
Asher Brooks
>Mastering the art of baiting the opponent to concentrate their ball circulation is useless areas of the pitch, and thus have them build up a false sense of confidence and security takes genuine genius.
true , which explains why retarded scouser think they battered barcerlona 3-0
