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Jumping off this thread to add a general point: there& #39;s a lot of talk about "institutional" and "systemic" problems at Barça, but at least based on typical social media chatter, many fans have not grasped what that really means, b/c the focus is still on player quality. https://twitter.com/TuanTzu/status/1293937185243136002">https://twitter.com/TuanTzu/s...
Someone (xaviesquement?) tweeted once about how misguided it is to still be talking about individual quality when the club has spent over 1 billion in transfers. Exactly. This is one reason why I& #39;m a bit tired of most discussions on problems w/ the club.
Even analyses of transfers still focus on almost entirely on quality & "fit," but here& #39;s the problem: you can put together an entire starting 11 of players who fit perfectly & that still won& #39;t solve the real issue, which is that Barcelona is no longer cutting edge.
Barça is like a superpower resting on its laurels instead of actively staying ahead of the curve. It boasts a highly productive sport-research arm but does not apply those results to their 1st team (see retweeted example).
It does not have a team psychologist when the pressure to perform is crushing & being mentally healthy demonstrably improves performance.
In the draw against Celta Vigo, Aspas commented that their technical staff told them Barça& #39;s wall is always set up a particular way.
In the draw against Celta Vigo, Aspas commented that their technical staff told them Barça& #39;s wall is always set up a particular way.
When was the last time a Barça player credited their technical staff for a planned move? Celta friggin& #39; Vigo does better opposition research than Barcelona, & rather than be outraged at that, fans were getting angry about Griezmann not jumping properly. Missing the point!
I remember people laughing when Liverpool hired a throw-in coach, & it really brought home to me how the average fan is working w/ knowledge that is at least a decade behind (no thanks to supposedly expert journalists perpetuating outdated ideas).
I had a tiresome argument w/ a fan after Anfield. They kept insisting TAA came up w/ that corner taken quickly by himself. They dismissed the involvement of Klopp/technical staff by saying TAA didn& #39;t have an earpiece to receive real-time instructions. But that& #39;s not necessary.
All that was needed was a pre-game talk: "Based on our opposition research, Barcelona is slow to defend set-pieces. Look for a moment when they& #39;re distracted & take a quick corner." It& #39;s on TAA to be alert & execute those instructions (that& #39;s player quality), but he had help.
After Anfield, Busquets said that Liverpool were faster & smarter. What he likely noticed was that no matter what Barça did, Liverpool was able to anticipate. And why? B/c behind the players in red was an entire competent technical department. https://twitter.com/MaaxiAngelo/status/1267423915330199553">https://twitter.com/MaaxiAnge...
Why did the likes of Alba, Rakitic, & Coutinho make critical mistakes at Anfield? Probably b/c Liverpool& #39;s technical staff/research team identified which players on the team weren& #39;t press-resistant & targeted them.
In contrast, Barça& #39;s players are left to flounder on the pitch. Their technical staff offers no solutions, leaning on individual quality that is increasingly read. Messi, Busquets, & Piqué have been pros for over a decade; they are some of the most studied players on the planet.
The fact that they aren& #39;t totally irrelevant by now is testament to their quality. But individual players, no matter how great, cannot counter the might of big data w/o help. Recall Messi& #39;s shots being saved? That& #39;s probably in part b/c they& #39;re being predicted by analytics.
Barça& #39;s technical staff could counter w/ their own analytics, identifying habits the player himself may not be aware of to help him be less predictable, but we see no on-pitch evidence that they are doing this (or are any good at it).
The club is happy to let media & fans descend on the players (good, bad, amigos, whatever) b/c they know this distracts from their real problem: Barça has fallen behind due to a lack of investment in the sport. Here& #39;s Bartomeu re: his priorities. https://twitter.com/elfals9/status/1276313038103199744">https://twitter.com/elfals9/s...
Guardiola& #39;s revolution at Barça wasn& #39;t just down to his tactics nor his eye for quality. It was innovation, proto-analytics (Alves recalled Guardiola coming in w/ reams of paper to convince players), emphasis on how lifestyle (diet, sleep) affects performance.
The importance of a proper lifestyle is so widely accepted now that ppl forget it was totally new then. In the 90s, players were getting drunk after games & partying constantly. You frequently hear retired players marveling at how much more professional modern footballers are.
There& #39;s a military saying: Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. In my opinion, Guardiola& #39;s major breakthrough was to emphasize, more than any other big club at the time, logistics as much as on-pitch tactics.
And that kind of innovation, the development of ideas that are scoffed at initially (stricter lifestyle, throw-in coaches) but then get widely adopted b/c they work, it should have kept happening at Barça. They should& #39;ve been the club surprising the football world.
