Re: Serie A Thread - 2009/10 Season
i think i gotta put my post into context. i wrote that post after watching in tv 30 minutes of
what was supposed to be a post match analisys, but turned out to be a wide range pointless conversation about "how great is messi".
now, maybe it's me, but i honestly can't stand this sort of tv conversations. they're boring, they're obvious. i pay for sky tv... therefore i expect some real post match analisys.... i don't need anyone to tell me how great messi is, coz i already know that. i want them to go through the match, i wanna see if they found out something i missed. that's what i pay them for.
i mean, that was a champions league quarter final! there was so much to talk about the match itself, but they wasted 30 minutes repeating the same obvious things. i would expect that from english football commentators, from the spanish ones, certainly not from an italian.
so i came on the forum for a quick read, and i found Gerd's thread. Now Gerd clearely has got nothing to do with this. he's not a professional football analyst, he's not payed by a tv broadcaster. he's just a guy sharing his views and feelings about a match on a forum, and he's absolutely entitled to express his admiration for a single player.
but i wrote that post out of frustration for that annoying and irritating post match analisys, and Gerd just turned out to be a victim of my frustration..... sorry, my friend, i didn't mean to sound rude
PLF said:
Xavi had an excellent game and many other Barca players did well too. But you see, I don't exactly think Xavi is under-rated. He's AMAZING and everybody knows it. It's not like he doesn't get enough credit. Puyol, Pique, him, Iniesta, Dani Alves, and even Victor Valdes who used to be the weak link but has actually improved a lot each get their fair share of credit! And also notice how nobody calls Barca a 1-man team even though Messi single-handedly rapes teams yet there are those who called Man Utd 1-man team bcuz of Ronaldo last year and others who do it this year with Rooney? or some who say that about Fabregas & Arsenal, etc. etc. This is very important evidence. Yet despite all his heroics, you don't really see anyone say Barcelona is a ONE-man team! Only the biggest idiot in the world would, perhaps.
i see it differently mate. u're right, no one defines barca as a one man team.... but i think they do it JUST because they know that if they would do that, they would make a fool of themselves (and that makes my father's comparison with pirlo pretty appropriate, as andrea had to deal with the same situation).
so to a direct question they'll tell you "
no, barca is a top class teams, full of great players, such as dani alves, puyol, xavi, iniesta and so on"
but right after saying that, the very same pundit will gladly spend the next 30 minutes praising a single player's performances. and that's where the contradiction lies. he might even refuse to admit he considers barca a one man team, but by praising messi's performance alone and ignoring those others who had a stand out performance, he's pretty much telling u his
REAL opinion.
that's what people wants: heroes. individuals who stand out. messi scores 4 goals and that MUST make him the hero of the day. funnily, that wasn't really a stand out performance from messi. he was far mor impressive against saragoza a few days ago.
truth is arsenal defense came out with a very very poor performance. i'm not blaming anyone for this. arsene had to keep the defensive line high, coz he wanted to apply high pressure at midfield over xavi... otherwise there would have been too much distance between midfield and defense.
but, exactly as i can't blame arsene for choosing such a plot, i can't even say messi was the only one who could score +2 goals against that defense, coz that's just not true. most of the supporting strikers in the world would have taken huge advantage of those mistakes in setting the offside trap.
arsene didn't focus his attention on messi. he wanted to make life impossible for xavi, pressing him as high as possible, trying to force him to commit mistakes, trying to prevent any chance for him to have and see a "clean" passing trajectory.
he knew that would have caused problems at the back, on the defensive line, because pressing high at midfield also means defending high. and defensing high against barcelona means exposing yourself to one of the quickests and most techinical players in the world (messi)..... but he thought this was the right call..... and actually i think he's right.... that would be the right call.... but unfortunately arsenal's defence can't handle such a stress and payed a price for it.
so, if everything i said so far makes any sense (i might be wrong of course), the barca player who really faced a tough challenge was xavi, not messi. messi faced a shaky defence and tore it apart. 4 goals are impressive, but seriously that defensive line was hardly a challenge. miccoli would have had a field day against that defence too (maybe he wouldn't have scored 4 goals, but he certainly would have scored 2 of those 4 goals).
xavi had to deal with a double coverage for the entire match. he never had more than 1 second on the ball... and yet i noticed just 1 misplaced pass in the entire match! now THAT is simply unreal! and imo much more impressive than what messi did. for the whole match he never had a simple "discharging pass"... never. dealing with such pressure for 70 minutes and making a single mistake is just beyond imagination. and no analist (at least none i heard) mentioned that. yeah, sure, if u would ask the same analist about xavi, he will tell you he's one of the very best registas in the world (if not the best), but they will talk about xavi only if u ask them. they won't spontaneously praise xavi's performance.... because they have eyes only for messi.
so yeah, they won't tell you barca is a one man team, coz they know that would make them sound stupid... but deep in their heart, that's what they really think...... otherwise they would praise xavi's unbelievable performances even more than messi's.
PLF said:
It's not like the spotlight in Messi is robbing his team-mates of the attention and praise they deserve. They're getting their fair share. And like I said, if there is ONE person who deserves that much attention, it is him anyway because his performances and level of consistency have been OUT of this world. Super-human
that's where we disagree, bro. i think that remarking only messi's performance
is robbing his teammates of the attention and praise they deserve. messi is a footballing God.... but he's not the only God in that team. and i don't think
he's the only one who deserves that much attention in that team.
and i think that's also what wenger thought. he had to decide who to put under pressure and he made his choice. he thought stopping xavi was even more important than stopping messi (that's what his tactical plot tells us). that stopping xavi was the main priority. unfortunately he failed coz that monster (xavi) had a great performance despite that pressure (and that allowed messi to cause havoc).
and i also believe mourinho will make the same choice. because if u try to contain messi, then u still have to deal with dani alves, iniesta, henry and ibra. but if u manage to contain xavi, then u stop the whole team.
PLF said:
Yep, Inter will be a much tougher test than Arsenal. I still think Barca will come through as they just seem in a different class than all the other teams but if there is ONE team that could give them the most trouble and make it the hardest for them, I think it would be Mourinho's Inter, so I'm looking forward to it.
yep. assuming sacchi's milan as a "perfection benchmark", this barca team is the closest team to that kind of perfection i've ever seen. therefore they should be considered as favourites against any opposition.
but if there's a team which might actually cause some troubles to barca, that team is this inter. too bad this won't be a final.
anyhow Sina, i know u're not a fan of any specific club, but is there a team u feel more "attached" to? just a curiosity
I can honestly say he's right now on par with the BEST players I've EVER seen. And if he maintains this for a few years longer or god forbid, somehow even manages to up his level by a notch or two 
says it all!
, and also I actually think that even IF you were to somehow manage this, you still haven't nullified Barca. 
Precisely! That's why he's refused to play as a midfielder all these years! Because he is one! Oh what fabulous insight Mr "I fink" Redknapp. Or Gerry Armstrong continually mispronouncing Alberto Lopo as "Diego Colotto".
Lets see what Roma can do now that they need to win every game. The pressure is two-fold when you're the league leader. Besides, I'm waiting for their 'luck' to run out because as evidenced by their first goal, 'luck' is clearly what they've been running on for a good long while, not to say they're undeserved league leaders, of course 
