FC Barcelona Thread

last hurdle... Let´'s go !!!

hallo-berlin-barcelona-final-champions-league-2015.jpg
 
You have Messi which is like a cheat code at this point, you've got unbelievable team even without him but with him its not even fair to others :LOL:
 
Congrats, you guys are on another level right now. Best front 3 of all time I believe.

Anyone of them could carry a team, but all 3 at once? Incredible.
 
As I said at the start of the season, with Messi fit we're able to win everything.

I must say I never believed in Luis Enrique and thought he was a terrible coach until January. But from then on, he has been truly great and the team has won layers of strtategy and we're now the deadliest team on the counter. So I eat my words and bow to him. I feel like a terrible teen fanboy changing so much of oppinion, but most of my friends have experienced the exact same thoughts through the season.

We added Aleix Vidal to the squad and Alves renewed. Great news! Now we only miss some midfield star like Pogba, Verratti or Gundogan for the next season, and probably another low profile striker who can sub Suarez or Neymar if they are injured. Right now we depend too much on them (and Messi, of course).
 
Yes Gerd, I like him and I wish we were chasing him, but according to rumors in the press we're after one of those. I think all of them are equally good to strengthen the midfield.
 
It's very interesting how you signed Vidal from Sevilla while still being "banned" from the transfer market. So you aren't allowed to sign anyone up until January 2016 but you still go on and sign a player...? Yes, he won't play until then but that's not what the ban is all about, is it? You basically get him in your team despite the ban so no other teams can sign him... that is very shady. Shouldn't be allowed imo.

On top of that, you paid around £7.5m for him with him having 3 years left from his 4 year contract. That is insane.

Didn't Rakitic cost only something like £15-16m too? He was one of the hottest prospect on the market last year... And you got him for peanuts.

It just seems very shady and suspicious to me... I would appreciate some inside info Drekkard, if you have some of course. And I'm not taking the piss - I'm genuinely interested.
 
De Bruyne fits better in Bayern or Premier League teams than in southern clubs, I guess.

About the transfers: Barcelona is totally allowed to sign players, the ban is to inscribe/register (don't know the exact word) new players into any competition. So Aleix Vidal has been signed but won't be able to play until january 2016, and any other signed player will have to wait in order to play or be loaned.

The only shady thing here is the ban itself. There are 1.500 youth players in Europe in the same exactament conditions than the youngsters that Uefa considered ilegal at Barcelona. A lot of top clubs have done exactly the same for years, yet only Barcelona is banned? Besides, the aim of the ban is to enforce the rules that try to preserve youngsters from being lied and treated like market meat, something that is unfortunately happening in most low level clubs that sign players from poor countries and if they arent good they leave them in the streets.

Yet again, they ban the club with the best conditions and care for young players. The only club that forces players to study and give them the best prospects for thrir future. It's not me saying this, is the Uefa itself who said that before the ban.

So it is a political ban that someone ( Uefa didn't say who it was) asked for. If this isn't shady, my friend....

About the price of the signings, Barcelona is signing some players for a lot of money and some for less, but Vidal costed 20 m€! What did you expect, 60m€??? I don't get what's shady about the transfer of Rakitic either, the club payed 24m€ plus the loan of our best 2 youngsters for 2 years.

Not al players must cost 50m€, and signing at low prices is just the sign of a good work. Besides, Barcelona surely is in the top 5 clubs thst spent more in the last years, I don't get what you are talking about signing for peanuts!
 
Thanks for the clarification of the ban issue. There's almost no point in such a ban then since the banned team can sign whomever they wish. But I agree that to enforce such measures on Barcelona alone was not right, because as you said it's almost public knowledge that many rich clubs in Europe have done the same over the years.

To be honest, I'm not even surprised about this "political ban" fiasco - when you think about it, UEFA will apparently loosen up the FFP restrictions so that PSG could compete in Europe (there was a ridiculous quote of Platini saying something like this, just not so directly).

The part I don't agree with is the last one - while Barcelona certainly conducts their business well, it baffles me to see the great players they usually buy go for peanuts. Yes, peanuts is the right word - the prices you've posted aren't exactly correct: Rakitic cost you 18m EUR or 13.2m GBP (I don't know about the young players but they aren't worth more than 2m EUR for a 2 year loan for sure), and Aleix Vidal cost you 17m EUR or 12.5m GBP, while being on a NEW CONTRACT (3 years left) - this in turn means that the transfer sum should be way higher.

These prices are crazy in a market where Lukaku goes for 35m EUR/25m GBP, Luke Shaw goes for 37.5m EUR/28m GBP, David Luiz 50m EUR/37m GBP and so on. I can't get my head around how Barcelona and Madrid SOMETIMES manage to poach the best players from other teams for absurdly low amounts of money (for today's market of course). Talk about Toni Kroos or De Gea (Madrid even want to sign him for LESS money than United paid Atletico!), Rakitic, Sanchez, Ter Stegen, Isco... Of course there are players like Suarez and James Rodriguez who go for much more but that's not the point - the former are also worth as much as the latter.
 
Something shady is happening at Barça , but FIFA has no leg to stand on imo. It seems Barça didn't pay FIFA what they wanted or Platini didn't get what he wanted. It's all to surreal to know the truth and realise it would be better not to know nothing at all. We cross that bridge already! Barca ban should be removed it's embarrassing , Suarez was ban unrelated to The club and they learn from such.

I want to ban Pique for cutting up a perfect net! He looked knackered cutting the net too. He's a wanker trying to start a trend -_- in the wrong sport. He couldn't even carry the net , he's made of class! Barca should take the net and give it to countries around the world - a worthy trend with a positive message. ..Pique is a tool! I dislike him very much. His own son didn't want to go with him lol poor kid was force to go with his strange dad. The boy's body language said ' I don't like being around you around ppl you act differently ' . Rant over!
 
Like Alex I am truly shocked by Enrique and what he has achieved.

I have not been his greatest fan and had an I told you so attitude after the Sociedad loss or poor results around that time. What he has achieved and got out of the players has been truly astounding. Not many coaches have that resilience and ability to get players to produce their best.

Will be interesting to see what he and the team do next season. How can a club that has won everything in such a shortperiod win everything again and stay motivated to achieve? Gong to enjoy the fact that we have the second triplets hope we can be the first team to retain the UCL
 
retaining the Champions League probably, we came ever so close and Real and Bayern looked likely this and last year but its still alluded everyone.
 
hey Alexis, u remember our conversation about luis enrique last summer? i told u he would have won u over eventually (just like he did with me).
i'm usually wrong when it comes to this sort of predictions, but it's nice to know even i get it right every once in a while! :D

btw, very impressed with the blaugrana's performance during the final. such composure and personality! displaying a 3 men midfield against one of the best 4 men midfield setups in europe (that midfield is basically what makes juve a top team) and not even breaking a sweat.... WOW!
 
-------------------------Ter stegen
alves/"aleix vidal"---pique-----masche---alba
------------------------busquets
rakitic--------------------------------"dennis suarez"/Iniesta
messi------------------suarez---------------neymar

in january: I hope gundogan o similar MF
 
lo zio said:
hey Alexis, u remember our conversation about luis enrique last summer? i told u he would have won u over eventually (just like he did with me).
i'm usually wrong when it comes to this sort of predictions, but it's nice to know even i get it right every once in a while! :D

btw, very impressed with the blaugrana's performance during the final. such composure and personality! displaying a 3 men midfield against one of the best 4 men midfield setups in europe (that midfield is basically what makes juve a top team) and not even breaking a sweat.... WOW!
Click to expand...

Yes I remember and you were absolutely right. I usually make bad calls when it comes to coaches (I thought Guardiola would be a terrible fail when they announced him) but at the same time I am quickly convinced with facts. Since January to May, the team played at a very high level, probably the highest since Guariola's golden era, but the effort and ambition of the players and the coach staff. Even if the team had won nothing, I was already convinced by the work.

That said, the loss against Real Sociedad was a turning point in the season. Luis Enrique had two options: continue to do things his way (which would have resulted in a terrible season) or pledge a bit to the players desires. And players had two options: continue to do things their way or pledge a bit to the coach desires.

Luckily for us, both chose the 2nd option and ther'e when everything started to click. I think Luis Enrique learned a big lesson to coach big temas, so now he's a much better coach.

Special consideration to:
- Now we have plan B, and C.
- Players run and press
- We are very good defending dead ball situations.
- We are very good attacking dead ball situations.

All this credit to Luis Enrique and his team (very specifically former goalkeeper Unzue who's responsible of all the strategy plays) for that.

I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG WITH YOU, LUIS ENRIQUE
 
The political prosecution and the black hand behind the Fifa (I hope one day we will discover who's behind this) continues its attack on the club. Now FIFA determines there's an extra list of 11 young players that can't play becuase they consider their transfers ilegal. Let's see...

Erick Steven
Born in Ecuador, moved to Spain when he was only a couple of months. Spent in Spain more than 8 years before signing for Barcelona.

Labinot Kabashi
Born in Kosovo, his family moved to Barcelona because of the war when he was a baby. Signed for Gimnàstic Manresa and spent there some years before signing for Barcelona.

Anssumane Fati
Born in Guinea, when he was noly some months of life his family moved to Sevilla. Spent there years playing for Sevilla before arriving to Barcelona.

Konrad de la Fuente
Born in the USA, his family moved to Spain because they believed their son was very good. After some months of trials, he was signed by Damm, a well known catalan club. Years later signed for Barcelona.

Ilaix Moriba
Born in Guinea, moved to Spain to play for... Espanyol! Barcelona signed him some years later.

Xavi Simons
Born at Amsterdam, played for Alicante before moving to Barcelona.

Acording to Fifa, Barcelona is guilty in all those cases. It doesn't matter if they moved to Spain being babies, or if they were playing for other clubs before, which is absolutely awkward, considering Barcelona is the only club punished by this.

And considering the rest of the cases for which Barcelona was punished, it doesn't matter that the players and their families wanted to move to Spain to play for Barcelona or played for some other clubs before.

The only thing that matters to Fifa is to apply the law with a very skewed optic and prosecute our club. The only reason why I can think of is that someone is very interested in this to happen. I really, really can't imagine any other factor, considering the facts.

The worse of all is that those corrupt mobsters have punished not only the club, but also innocent kids and their families, that now can't play football anymore and are living a very difficult situation and can't understand why.

According to Fifa, any Sirian refugee that a decade from now wants to play football can play at any European club... except Barça.
 
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Maybe because you've been doing tons of shady dealings before that made them focus more on you guys than anyone else? I honestly don't know. Just speculating.

But a serious question, why do you say those kids you mentioned can't play football anymore and in a difficult situation? Because they can't play with Barca anymore? Surely they can play at other clubs easily since they have Barca in their CVs?
 
About the transfer/expoloitation of young football talents, you should read "Golden Boys" by Juan Pablo Meneses. He is a writer /journalist who presented himself as a manager of third world youth footbal prodigies. I have the book, but haven'tread it yet...
Meneses is a Colombianwho boughta youth prodigy himself and the book describeswhat happened afterwards. I read a review of the book and accoriding to that review, the book isn't very falttering for Barcelona.

This said.

I've always had a soft spot for Barcelona. I will Judge them after reading the book (and even then, who knows if this is the truth).

And that said.

Do people really believe that Barcelona is worse than other big clubs. Look at what Wenger/Guillou /Arsenal did with the Ivorians in Beveren. People like the Yaya Touré and Gervinho will not complain, but the dozens of Ivorian other players who never made it where scarcely better off than cattle...

I love football, but i'm not blind for it's excesses.

And at long last.
What about the parents of all this boys?

It is less difficult to say no than most people think and this even for poor people...i understand that poor people see a big opportunity but i would like to see the ratio of players like Drogba, Eto'o and (even) Adebayor who make it, compared to all the kids that are wasted and exploited... I wonder if all these young boys are having such a good time at those big clubs...

It is a litle bit easy to put all the blame with Barcelona. Other clubs are to blame aswell and one can say the same thingabout (some) parents...

Sorry for the long post.
 
Lami said:
Maybe because you've been doing tons of shady dealings before that made them focus more on you guys than anyone else? I honestly don't know. Just speculating.

But a serious question, why do you say those kids you mentioned can't play football anymore and in a difficult situation? Because they can't play with Barca anymore? Surely they can play at other clubs easily since they have Barca in their CVs?
Click to expand...

They can't play for other clubs because Barcelona have the rights for them. You have to consider that what Barcelona did is totally legal. It's FIFA who interpret that it isn't. A private organization that exists beyond the law, consider ilegal what is totally legal in Spain. Do you get the paradox?

So, they can't play for any other club until the ban it's over because Barcelona has legally their rights as players. Besides, in many cases the players don't want to go away, they and their families WANT to play for Barcelona, but some private organization don't let them. How can this happen?

There were cases of young players that run out of contract with barcelona and went away, so they had to return home. This means they had to go to another club in their country, even if that meant worse perspectives for their progression. And the punchline is that some of them were transfered to other foreign clubs. So, it's ok if they go to England and not if they are at Barcelona? Nobody understands a thing.

Look at the cases I mentioned in my original post. It's scandalous that Fifa is condemning boys who arrived to Spain as babies. They consider them foreigners even if they have spent 99% of their lifes here? Come on.

Hey, I don't doubt AT ALL that Barcelona has done some shady business... as ANY other club out there. No more, no less.

At the end of the line, kids in Barcelona youth teams have way better conditions and treatment that 90% of young players out there.

As we talk there are Spanish teams crowded with foreign players beating the youth teams of Barcelona. It's laughable. It makes no sense at all.

gerd said:
About the transfer/expoloitation of young football talents, you should read "Golden Boys" by Juan Pablo Meneses. He is a writer /journalist who presented himself as a manager of third world youth footbal prodigies. I have the book, but haven'tread it yet...
Meneses is a Colombianwho boughta youth prodigy himself and the book describeswhat happened afterwards. I read a review of the book and accoriding to that review, the book isn't very falttering for Barcelona.

This said.

I've always had a soft spot for Barcelona. I will Judge them after reading the book (and even then, who knows if this is the truth).

And that said.

Do people really believe that Barcelona is worse than other big clubs. Look at what Wenger/Guillou /Arsenal did with the Ivorians in Beveren. People like the Yaya Touré and Gervinho will not complain, but the dozens of Ivorian other players who never made it where scarcely better off than cattle...

I love football, but i'm not blind for it's excesses.

And at long last.
What about the parents of all this boys?

It is less difficult to say no than most people think and this even for poor people...i understand that poor people see a big opportunity but i would like to see the ratio of players like Drogba, Eto'o and (even) Adebayor who make it, compared to all the kids that are wasted and exploited... I wonder if all these young boys are having such a good time at those big clubs...

It is a litle bit easy to put all the blame with Barcelona. Other clubs are to blame aswell and one can say the same thingabout (some) parents...

Sorry for the long post.
Click to expand...

Well, the way I see it, as a parent you know that football is a gamble. You son may reach success or may fail. And if you move to another country, it's because you think it's better for the family. I don't think we can't judge the parents decision, because each parent is free to take whatever decision they want, as long as they take it freely and nobody is lying to them in the process.

Now imagine your daughter is a piano virtuoso. You want to move to Viena so she can study at a very prestigious school. You don't know if your daughter will make it to any orchestra or make a career of that. But she definitely wants to be a violinist and that is the best move for her career. If violinists were managed by Fifa, you couldn't.

I don't doubt there's people out there taking benefit of poor kids. I don't doubt Barcelona may have acted wrongly more than once, as any other club out there. And that the lure of the big market may blind most of the parents.

And mostly, the thing is that 95% of those boys will never make it to the big leagues. And all those boys find themselves with their big dream crushed and no major expectationsin their lives.

As it happens, I spent 3 years in the youth teams at Barcelona. I know how things were back then and how things have evolved later on. I LIVED that from the inside. And I was one of those young kids whose ambition in life was to play for Barcelona.

When you make it to that level, you don't play for fun, you compete. The competition is extreme, because only the best ones go ahead. And parents know it! In my case, after spending most of the 2nd season in he bench, my parents decided to take me out of the youth team, and from then on I always played at another level, just for fun, which now that I'm a grown up, I really admire because it was the best decision, and I enjoyed football as a fun entertainment for years while I could play.

I know not all the parents take this decision. And clubs take profit of having hundreds of kids while they know only some of them will make a career. When you don't make it, there's only fustration and sour feelings. And this is what most probably that book is about. Because the moment they think you're not good enough, that club (put here the name of ANY club) will forget about you and leave you at your own when you're out of contract.

Football is the most popular sport so everything gets magnified. But hey, the story I just described is happening in all the clubs in the world. And even more, it's happening with all kind of sports! All the athletes out there: tennis, athletism, basketball, F1, baseball, skating, playing piano, skying...

Any solution to this problem should affect all the clubs, not only one. And should never punish the kids, because then you're just making a luagh of what you're promoting.

Honestly, I don't know which is the best solution for this. I wish there was!
 
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Good post Alex, of course i know that you know this system from the inside and your parents took a very good decision...

I know a young player who wasvery good, ended up at Racing Genk (being form the vicinity), was outstanding there and was invited to play for PSV Eindhoven. The kid had to go to a boarding school and absolutely hated it (he was 10 or 11). In the end his parents took him out of the system and that was that...

I wonder if players can stop at all moments (and with every club). It seems it was the case for you...
 
Thank you for the responses guys.

But I still have a genuine question, if these kids who've spent years at a big club like Barca are left with no chances to play for Barca in the end and thus out of contract, why can't they try the numerous other clubs from primera liga to 2nd or 3rd or 4th divisions and work their way up? Why just have all your hopes on one massive club with extreme competition and when that doesn't work you're out of football? Kids should still have a great chance trying at all these tons of other clubs and surely a few would work? Then these kids can prove themselves.
 
Well, they can't play for any other club as long as they have a contract running with Barcelona, obviously.

And even if they are out of contract with Barcelona or the club frees them, they can join whatever club they want... from their origin country! They can't go to Chelsea, for example, or Sevilla, because that's what Fifa rules say for kids:

1) They can't move to any club that's not in their country or less than 500KM from their country.
2) Unless the complete family moves to another country for work reasons of their parents and get the nationality of the new country.

Actually they could go to any Premier club from 16 years old onwards but that's due to a legal hole and a long and different story.

The thing is, barcelona won't cut the contract of the best guys because that would mean losing all the young talent they have, and most of the kids and their families don't want to move elsewhere, they are already at a big club that treat youngsters quite well and bring them higher chances of success. In fact, they are exactly where they WANT TO BE. But Fifa says no, they must go back to their country if they cut the contract, but at the same time they can't play for Barcelona because the ban says so, which is an absolutely stupidity.

Will a kid move back to Corea, Senegal, Guinea, etc... when they are already at Barcelona? How can Fifa determine what's good and what's bad for those kids completely disregarding their decisions as families? I know there's a big debate here, with many things to take into account, but at the very best, it's a blurry situation and this ban does nothing to improve anything, it's only a political punishment to Barcelona and those kids because someone from Fifa wanted to.
 
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If it's all the kids' and parents' decisions then FIFA are punishing them, not the club, which is harmful.

I understand most of these kids want to be at Barca, but in all honesty if I was in their shoes and Barca told me after a few years that I don't have a chance there and will cancel my contract, I wouldn't stop playing and would go approaching different clubs. Like what happened to Alba from what I watched, he was told he's too small and skinny (the usual), left to another club, proved his point and Barca went for him. I know he's Spanish and it's a different story. Obviously I'll be hit with that FIFA wall of not being able to play anywhere but my country, but surely there would be a way around it? Approaching clubs and if any likes me I might get into boarding school, which would then settle the situation?

But I understand where you're coming from. It's FIFA punishing these kids more than the club, and it's unfair just to impose strict rules on one club and ignore the rest. There must be a better solution to this; at the very least punish every club involved in any shady/dirty business and allow the kids to approach other clubs within the same country since they're already there.

Poor kids though.
 
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yeah, this situation is a bit grotesque to be honest. either u show some consistency and punish every club who "poaches" yongsters from other academies (in which case almost every top club in europe should receive the same treatment barça did) or u just do nothing about it.
this situation kinda reminds me of that "diving-ban" an arsenal player got years ago (was it eduardo?). it was obvious it was gonna be simply a one-off and it ended up being an unacceptable discrimination (i remember Bobby making a pretty good case in this forum).

in theory this set of rules is aimed to protect small clubs academies from having big clubs academies poaching their youngsters... but this regulation is obviously flawed, as all u need to do to circumvent it is to "have the kid's parents being offered a job" in your city (english clubs have been doing this for years, and they're probably not the only ones doing it).

and it's not just top clubs, which "harvest" young talents anymore. i'm told most italian academies nowadays (even the small clubs academies) train foreign kids, so they most likely poached them from some other club aswell.

over the last few years i even started questioning the ethical legitimacy of theese regulations.
on one side i perfectly understand the importance of protecting a club's investment on a youngster. if we were to allow big clubs to "harvest" young kids from small club academies, those small clubs would have no incentive whatsoever in building up a good academy and developing young players abilities.
and that's particularly important for small clubs, as their financial survival often relies on the capital gains generated by selling their "home developed" players once they reach 18, 19 or 20 years old.

on the other side though, this "commodification" of the players is a bit disgusting. over the last 35 years or so we witnessed a very weird process; the creation of a legal fiction according to which a player (who is undenyably a human being) is treated as a commodity to be traded between companies.
and at the end of the day, i believe this is the core of the issue. is protecting small clubs and the whole academy system worth such a distortion of reality? are the clubs' interests more important than the players' interests..... because quite often big clubs can also offer a young kid (and his family) advantages a small club could never afford (think of messi for instance, who, thanks to his move to barça, was able to afford very expensive medical treatments, which were extremely important for his growth).

i think an ethical conundrum lies at the core of the issue... and to be honest, i wouldn't know how to solve it.
 
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lo zio said:
yeah, this situation is a bit grotesque to be honest. either u show some consistency and punish every club who "poaches" yongsters from other academies (in which case almost every top club in europe should receive the same treatment barça did) or u just do nothing about it.
this situation kinda reminds me of that "diving-ban" an arsenal player got years ago (was it eduardo?). it was obvious it was gonna be simply a one-off and it ended up being an unacceptable discrimination (i remember Bobby making a pretty good case in this forum).

in theory this set of rules is aimed to protect small clubs academies from having big clubs academies poaching their own youngsters....but this regulation is obviously flawed, as all u need to do to circumvent the ban is to "have the kid's parents being offered a job" in your city (english clubs have been doing this for years, and they're probably not the only ones doing it).

and it's not just top clubs, which "harvest" young talents anymore. i'm told most italian academies nowadays (even the small clubs academies) train foreign kids, so they most likely poached them from some other club aswell.

over the last few years i even started questioning the ethical legitimacy of theese regulations.
on one side i perfectly understand the importance of protecting a club's investment on a youngster. if we were to allow big clubs to "harvest" young kids from small club academies, those small clubs would have no incentive whatsoever in building up a good academy and developing young players abilities.
and that's particularly important for small clubs, as their financial survival often relies on the capital gains generated by selling their "home developed" players once they reach 18, 19 or 20 years old.

on the other side though, this "commodification" of the players is a bit disgusting. over the last 35 years or so we witnessed a very weird process; the creation of a legal fiction according to which a player (who is undenyably a human being) is treated as a commodity to be traded between companies.
and at the end of the day, i believe this is the core of the issue. is protecting small clubs and the whole academy system worth such a distortion of reality? are the clubs' interests more important than the players' interests..... because quite often big clubs can also offer a young kid (and his family) advantages a small club could never afford (think of messi for instance, who, thanks to his move to barça, was able to afford very expensive medical treatments, which were extremely important for his growth).

i think an ethical conundrum lies at the core of the issue... and to be honest, i wouldn't know how to solve it.
Click to expand...

I just cannot stress how much I agree with the bolded part. I can't help but feel it's some sort of modern slavery. Bring them in young, feed them, train them, raise them, and sell them strong and healthy and on a great profit.
 
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