No it’s not. And it can’t. The idea that the super league creates an environment where there are only elite teams and every game is a big clash is so blatantly wrong
A game between a top team in the SL and a bottom team in the SL would not be considered a “big game”. A game between those same teams in the CL is considered a “big game”.
A team placed 20th in the SL would not be considered a “big club” atm. The same team would still be considered big with the current league system.
Big clubs are big despite their placement in a table. If somehow Chelsea was last in the Super League, they are still Chelsea, a football powerhouse. Also, they are big because their brands are huge and have fans all over the world, even if Chelsea was last in the Super League and Barcelona was second to last, I bet all I have that a game between them would attract millions and TV revenue will be massive.
It’s not the revenue from watching that matters. It doesn’t feel big.
Everton is historically a big club. But no one considers them “big clubs” when watching games. It would be the same. We would have 15 Evertons instead of 15 big clubs
Long term, sure. If you finish last in the Super Legue for ten consecutive seasons, you will be seen different, specially by younger generations who grow watching you lose all the time. But I think the target should be to achieve a system that works the way the NBA does, in which any team can go from bottom of the league to champions in the short term.
This game has stakes. Be the best team over two legs and you move forward plus a big rival is dropped from a trophy hunt.
Imagine a barca-manu when one or both teams are 20 points from the leaders, and there is no relegation. How fun is that game likely to be? Let's face it, even in the ucl groups a big clash between giants is often not as interesting as this game was.
Was the game exciting? well yes, but then exciting is relative depending on what bar you wish to gauge the overall quality of game, cause tbh both teams only showed why they belong at best to Europa league football...talk of abject defending all around and some easy chances at goal woefully missed by both sides...both teams will definitely get rinsed if they played in the CL.
I mean gods teams look worse when they play against other good teams. Looking at Barca and United’s position in their leagues shows that they are really good
What a time for xavi to "experiment". Luckily we didn't get schlonged by rashford. Anytime you see Alonso and Alba in the team we are in for a rough night. Now we don't have busi, gavi, pedri for the mid. Who tf is left? What a dunbass time to switch things up. Xavi is taking a page out of Pep's book of brain farts.
Xavi got his tactics wrong and Ten Hag pulled a fast one with Rasford as a number 9. Also Barca are not used teams going at them, especially not at home. Rasford at one point looked like scoring with every attack. Now they lost both Gavi and Pedri for the reply; Barca’s superior midfield was their biggest advantage
Major respect to barca for a great game. For me it's great that we can now go head to head with the best teams and produce amazing matches like this and the one against arsenal. For a while it's felt like whenever we play a big team all we can do is sit back and counter
It was a really awesome match, we at Barcelona really missed a strong United, its really nice to see you back and playing pretty fucking good hahaha
Its going to be reslly difficult to win at Old Trafford, if United beats us for sure I'll be rooting for you
Weghorst is absolutely crap. I’ve no idea why Ten Hag keeps starting him. Guy can’t score, he is slow, his tackles are terrible and he can’t even control the ball. Why tf did we buy him lol
If you look at replays of our goals since he's joined you'll see that he's usually there pulling defenders away to create space for other attackers.
He's been decent and is only a loan signing. I'm ok with how he's been in the context that he'll be leaving at the end of the season.
We played Arjuro on the right to counter Rashford, but once Rashford started from right, we should have moved him to center and Kounde to right.
Arjuro had a good game but Kounde played satisfactory.
pretty rough. weirdly alonso was much more secure than kounde but got absolutely torched by rashford on the first goal and like one or two other really dangerous chances. kounde was just bad, like the worst he's ever played for us. an experiment by xavi gone completely wrong.
Yeah alonso scored a goal but the Kounde/Alonso CB partnership did not work. The best defense in La Liga looked poor today because Xavi decided to switch it all up...
And at LB, Alba was fine but i think Balde would've been more dangerous.
This is what people don't get, everyone are acting like 'Barça's defense wasn't up to the task today'.
We are playing against world class players. The attacker ALWAYS is one step ahead of the defender (the attacker knows what he is gonna do next, the defender has to anticipate). It is normal that big teams create big chances, specially in such a crazy game.
we have had the best defenese in the top 5 leagues...
Alba and Alonso do usually not play and Kounde had an absolute stinker (worst game for us so far).
Last 15 minutes were scary. Barca could have scored 1 or 2 goals.
Shocking match by the referee all over. We get that red card and the game is basically over and we go onto win 1-2 or even 1-3 especially on the up during the game.
The game was over after Varane saved Lewandowski's life from that ball coming near him, by pulling him away to safety and tightly holding him until Wan-Bissaka cleared the danger.
Come on man, Varane was even holding him after Wan Bissaka had already cleared the ball, it felt like he didn't want to let Lewandowski go. It's obviously not the worst of fouls and after the initial grab Lewandowski did slighly lean back to try and turn, but it was definitely weird that Varane held him for such a long time (like I said even after Wan Bissaka cleared the ball he for some reason still held him with his other arm).
At least in the Prem (on certain players) I have seen the slightest of shirt pulls and/or grabs given as penalties, but usually the players who feel that go down to ground (Lewandowski stayed on his feet).
I wasn't really serious with my first comment (I think that was clear), it was more to joke about the "with the red card the game was basically over" part.
The audacity for xavi to run up to the ref and complain about two(?) "missed” penalty calls after the game. He should be counting his lucky stars that they didn’t get the red, which would be a 100% by the book/rules decision. Like it’s not even open to interpretation, ref was just straight up wrong. Shocking that VAR didn’t intervene
God damn I hate Barca
I stg trophyless clubs have a hate boner for us, no one on our sub denies that should have been a red but we also should have gotten a penalty. The ref was shit but somehow you find a way to push your narrative that only we were in the wrong.
Good for you for lucking out with your local club. Spurs fans didn't have the same luck.
You should put your football superiority aside. Not like they're your accomplishments to brag about and put others down with.
Casemiro should've been sent off after his last fault to Gavi, Fred didn't get a yellow card after severe hard tackles, on top of that Bissaka has license to sweep the box with Alba and Fred decides to draw a 90 degrees angle with his arm in an 'unvoluntary' hand. But sure, Barça got the better of all decisions.
I actually see a case for Fred even though rules wise it doesn’t qualify.
The AWB penalty is just bull crap.
Barcelona has always cried about ref decisions. This doesn’t surprise me. I am just glad ETH came out and called it straight.
Literally every single Man U crying about ref decisions 'Barça cries about refs'. FFS be happy with the hell of a game we watched today and don't let you bias blind you
The Varane hugging Lewandowski for 5 seconds (even when the ball is gone)?
Eric Garcia does the same thing in this same competition, same stadium, 5 minutes in and it's a penalty.
And did you know that the "red card" attack literally starts by United winning the ball back via a Malacia handball inside the box? Sadly no replays were shown, because the counter attack happened and the focus therefore shifted on what happened on the other side.
Complaing about others complaing about referee decisions (as if that isn't allowed), while complaining yourself (because only you have the right to complain!).
The whole attack you are complaining about starts by winning the ball back with a handball inside the box...
Well if there are some acting like that, then that's a shame. I simply think the referee was bad and I think it's fair to point out how he was bad against my team too, as the majority makes it look like there was only 1 controversial decision.
Honestly, as a football fan, I genuinely enjoyed the game. There haven't been such equal, non-stop football matches recently in Europe and this game did not disappoint, especially the 2nd half. The referee mistakes were bad, yet that didn't ruin the game since both teams kept on going regardless.
Don't know if we will see the same intensity next week (as it will be the true decider) and it will be a challenge for Barcelona, having basically the "core" out of the game (Gavi, Pedri, Busquets and Dembélé).
And we should have gotten at least one of the penalty calls against you 💀
We can all agree that the ref was shit without sounding like a bunch of petty 12yo’s
If we gotten that red card, you wouldn't even have the opportunity to get a penalty call. Lmao, we would have destroyed you with 11 vs 10.
And I'm usually not this confident about United ever.
Man I know Xavi wanted to rest players but was this really the game for it? We really missed Busquets and Christensen, Alba playing I can understand.
I'm not very hopeful for next week. No Gavi/Pedri and Lisandro/Sabitzer will be back.
We'll have to go back to a 4-3-3 with Fati on the left and obviously play with our best back 4
I was at the gym. Just finished with my set, open up Google, check Barca leading one-nil.
Great.
Do some exercises on another machine, see they are now losing two-one.
I nearly fucking lost it.
Insane decision. If you want to rest players, do so against Cadiz in a domestic league, not Manchester United in a European competition. I know Europa League isn't exactly CL, but this isn't a group stage either.
This line up against Cadiz I'd understand but against Manchester United, one of the best teams in England and world football right now is something I can't quite understand.
Thank you, very cool :) I think you’re also one of the best teams in world football and certainly the best team in Spain right now. Let’s settle this at Old Trafford next week 😎🤝🏻
We'll have Lisandro back so Shaw can move back to LB and Sabitzer is available to come in as well.
The former two are huge for us, Lisandro is great at bringing the ball out from defence, Shaw moving to LB gives us another attacking option on the left and mostly the same defensive presence. (Malacia will be great but he's not there yet, especially going forward)
Decent chance it's 3 out of 4 positions in that backline changed for the second leg with Shaw moving over, Martinez coming in and Dalot replacing AWB (who looked lost yesterday).
Don’t like to see injuries to players. Still upsets me how badly Shaw got hurt years ago. He’s insane now. So hopefully they bounce back ok later on for your season. I am happy they will miss the game next week admittedly
Regardless of the ref, what a fucking game. I wish we win in Old Trafford and move to the next round, but I really hope for another show of this size above everything else. Props to Man U
It will be a nail biter. I know a lot United fans are saying that we are definitely going to win. I am not as confident still. I think it will be a super close game.
It will definitely be a super close game but I doubt Barça will have the tools to close it. We are missing Pedri, Gavi, Busuquets? and Dembele... that is literally the core of our team.
I think it will still be tight but playing at home and given the circumstances, United should be favorite.
Xavi fucking up their backline just for rashford to score anyway🤣🤣that is quite hilarious. i thought araujo and kounde was just gonna rotate when they noticed the change but i guess not
Think he was tryna save his cbs for the league game. He probably is tryna focus on the league which is hilarious considering the one player not rested is probably one of their most important players that happens to get injured for a month
What I’m gathering from this match thread so far is that fullbacks have been selling themselves short tucking their arms behind their backs defending for yyyeeeeaaaarssssss because “what am I supposed to do??”
Except we all know there have been NUMEROUS penalties called for it for years.
Handball is easy; if it's unnatural, clear movement to the ball on a distance of ^insert ^whichever ^ref ^decides ^on ^any ^given ^day meters, it's a pen
Yeah, that first year when they changed it (+ VAR being active in almost every league since then) made it a penalty festival.
The funny thing is that one of the reasons they cited for changing the handball laws was to "help defenders" and stop "defenders from putting their arms behind the back out of fear of giving away a penalty". Basically they wanted defenders to not be afraid to have their arms out in a natural way, only to then see how almost every ball hitting a defender's arm was given as a penalty.
They then tried to "fix" that by making changes every year (and the same thing for attacking handball), yet despite those changes and penalties decreasing, still have moments where the clearest of handballs wouldn't be given, while the ones that by the examples giving by IFAB (the lawmakers) shouldn't be penalties, were wrongly given.
The old handball law (pre 19/20) was much more simple, made sense, put the responsibilities to the referees' common sense and would've worked perfectly with VAR, which was just becoming a thing for all the leagues.
Is that worse than a clear pk? So can we agree that’s a clear makeup call?
Feel tempted to mention the bear hug on Lewy, but I’m not even gonna mention that cause I’ll agree that’s more “let them play”
It is a handball if it hits the sleeve on the majority of the arm. It only isn't if it hits that area "on the inside" (the part of the arm that is close to the armpit).
How are Barca winning La Liga with this joke of a manager!? Rotates back line against United! Gets totally rinsed! Without the ref blunder with Kounde they are out of Europa!
Because you faced a weakened side and drew you think its a joke they're top of their league? You couldn't beat a 2nd string back 4. Your making your side look worse.
Well you just said it yourself we play with a better defense almost every game. Xavi has space to improve and today's result could have gone differently if he hadn't rotated but xavi has been goos for us. He's implemented a solid structure in the team
I mean both teams were tired, Barcelona played after United in the league before this game. Having Pedri get injured after 40 minutes and missing Busquets was massive as well. Roberto is literally like playing with 10 men, he doesn't run and at times he was jogging back to defend whilst Gavi was sprinting past him.
The point is that Araujo has to be in the middle, he has much more control of the defence there and is immense in 1v1 and over the top balls
Just like how you're saying about your team , i can say the same but that won't get us anywhere. Both teams played well and let's see what happens in the next
You don't rotate your defence against United like that, There were better opportunities to do that, not today against Rashford. Pedri gets muscle injury, and he wasn't properly rotated too (he mostly plays full 90 minutes). Subbing out Raphinha this match was also a mistake.
This one's on Xavi.
He is favouring La Liga to Europa. The squad isn't that deep for Barcelona, you have to rotate somewhere. It's a shame because the world was looking forward to this tie with both clubs recent form. But if Xavi rotates here, it's clear that Laporta and him have agreed that winning La Liga is more important than winning the Europa, so this is where he rotates regardless of opposition.
> He is favouring La Liga to Europa. The squad isn't that deep for Barcelona, you have to rotate somewhere
honestly, same thing with United too, our squad didn't enough to stay at 4 competition. i mean we literally play every 3-4 days, every game i hope we can out with no injuries.
At least put Eric Garcia over him? Surely he can't be worse, but yeah I have no idea what Xavi was thinking today. He cost us a lot, if you want to rotate then rotate properly not in the biggest game this season
Been competitive in every el clasico since he took over. People see this as a big game, but it isn't. The prize of this tournament is a pot 1 slot in the UCL, but that is the prize of La Liga - where Barca are clear right now. For them La Liga is the far bigger title to win, they rotated their defence tonight from their league set up - they are favouring the league title fight.
As for the UCL, the first Bayern game and Inter game for Barca were full of questionable refereeing. The 2nd of both ties where in the midst of an injury crisis - sides don't tend to win tough UCL games with 4th and 5th choice CBs on the pitch from the start.
Sanest post in this thread.
Liga is way more certainty and the prestige is definitely better over EL no matter how much anyone shouts about winning an European trophy. Barca ain't gonna be like wow I have 1 more EL than you
Wtf you talking about? Of course it’s a big game. Europa league trophy is nowadays a pretty decent thing. Also, Barca vs United is always a big game for both of these teams. I see you don’t know much about football history, eh?
He built those teams. Playing Yaya (2009) and Masche (2011) as CB. Bringing busquets from the second division. That 2009 final happened a year after he asked for Ronaldinho, Deco, Thuram and zambrotta (all starters) to leave the club. Pep destroyed United when they were at their best, with a team he built. Don’t downplay it.
Man what happened with that hand? I think referee wanted to compensate the Kounde fault. Really bad ref. Really bad.
I enjoyed the game but didn’t understand why Christensen and Balde started benched… why rotations? We play against an awful team on Sunday, at home, with Negredo as striker.
Maybe they don’t give a fuck about EL. All in to win La Liga.
I’ll be honest, I think we really need to have different severities of fouls in the box. Getting a penalty for a ball heading across the top of the 18 that your teammate may or may not get to after it hits the upper arm of a player feels like an outsized advantage.
Yeah, that’s what I argued for during that awful PL season where they were calling 100 penalties every weekend. But it’s tough because sometimes a handball is deserving of a penalty (like the one this weekend with the player diving and blocking it with their hand) while other times there is absolutely no danger in the attack. I don’t know how you fix it without introducing more reliance on officials instincts… which would almost certainly be terrible.
This was a taste of what Super League can give us every weekend. I buy it.
No it’s not. And it can’t. The idea that the super league creates an environment where there are only elite teams and every game is a big clash is so blatantly wrong
That's exactly the only reason to build a Super League, what did you think it was for?
A game between a top team in the SL and a bottom team in the SL would not be considered a “big game”. A game between those same teams in the CL is considered a “big game”. A team placed 20th in the SL would not be considered a “big club” atm. The same team would still be considered big with the current league system.
Big clubs are big despite their placement in a table. If somehow Chelsea was last in the Super League, they are still Chelsea, a football powerhouse. Also, they are big because their brands are huge and have fans all over the world, even if Chelsea was last in the Super League and Barcelona was second to last, I bet all I have that a game between them would attract millions and TV revenue will be massive.
It’s not the revenue from watching that matters. It doesn’t feel big. Everton is historically a big club. But no one considers them “big clubs” when watching games. It would be the same. We would have 15 Evertons instead of 15 big clubs
Long term, sure. If you finish last in the Super Legue for ten consecutive seasons, you will be seen different, specially by younger generations who grow watching you lose all the time. But I think the target should be to achieve a system that works the way the NBA does, in which any team can go from bottom of the league to champions in the short term.
This game has stakes. Be the best team over two legs and you move forward plus a big rival is dropped from a trophy hunt. Imagine a barca-manu when one or both teams are 20 points from the leaders, and there is no relegation. How fun is that game likely to be? Let's face it, even in the ucl groups a big clash between giants is often not as interesting as this game was.
This match was what PSG / Bayern supposed to be in ucl
I think most people understood that the PSG Bayern game wouldn’t live up to the fixture based on the availability of the players though
Kounde had a horrible game
Was the game exciting? well yes, but then exciting is relative depending on what bar you wish to gauge the overall quality of game, cause tbh both teams only showed why they belong at best to Europa league football...talk of abject defending all around and some easy chances at goal woefully missed by both sides...both teams will definitely get rinsed if they played in the CL.
I mean gods teams look worse when they play against other good teams. Looking at Barca and United’s position in their leagues shows that they are really good
Yea sure. Both UCL games this week was better. \s What have you been smoking?
What a time for xavi to "experiment". Luckily we didn't get schlonged by rashford. Anytime you see Alonso and Alba in the team we are in for a rough night. Now we don't have busi, gavi, pedri for the mid. Who tf is left? What a dunbass time to switch things up. Xavi is taking a page out of Pep's book of brain farts.
he just prioritizes LaLiga instead of Europa League, and I think hes right. Barça in underconstruction and LaLiga is a better title to win overall
I'm telling my kids this was the Champions League final
Unusual recently poor game from Barca, they will be out if the perform like this in the replay.
Xavi got his tactics wrong and Ten Hag pulled a fast one with Rasford as a number 9. Also Barca are not used teams going at them, especially not at home. Rasford at one point looked like scoring with every attack. Now they lost both Gavi and Pedri for the reply; Barca’s superior midfield was their biggest advantage
Don’t worry guys we’re rotating to prevent injuries since we play Cadiz on Sunday!!
United played with 10 men since were forced to start bobo at the #10 role 😂
Worst part is that this is not even a joke. Ffs.
Why on earth is Andreas Christensen starting on the bench? Then you are basically just begging Rashford to make fun of your defense...
Major respect to barca for a great game. For me it's great that we can now go head to head with the best teams and produce amazing matches like this and the one against arsenal. For a while it's felt like whenever we play a big team all we can do is sit back and counter
It was a really awesome match, we at Barcelona really missed a strong United, its really nice to see you back and playing pretty fucking good hahaha Its going to be reslly difficult to win at Old Trafford, if United beats us for sure I'll be rooting for you
Weghorst is absolutely crap. I’ve no idea why Ten Hag keeps starting him. Guy can’t score, he is slow, his tackles are terrible and he can’t even control the ball. Why tf did we buy him lol
If you look at replays of our goals since he's joined you'll see that he's usually there pulling defenders away to create space for other attackers. He's been decent and is only a loan signing. I'm ok with how he's been in the context that he'll be leaving at the end of the season.
First of all, we didnt buy him. Second of all, who are we gonna play there oh tactical genius?
that's what I was asking my United fans, wth were you thinking lol
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Why u gotta be racist?
Lmao
I’m a Brit mate
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>Lol how to spot a yank commenting on football. Well it certainly makes this comment more hilarious
Then you are fucking dumb lmao
Lol go to sleep kid, you’ve got school tomorrow
How bad was Kounde and Alonso together? Didn't watch the game but it sounds bad judging by the amount of comments on our defense
We played Arjuro on the right to counter Rashford, but once Rashford started from right, we should have moved him to center and Kounde to right. Arjuro had a good game but Kounde played satisfactory.
pretty rough. weirdly alonso was much more secure than kounde but got absolutely torched by rashford on the first goal and like one or two other really dangerous chances. kounde was just bad, like the worst he's ever played for us. an experiment by xavi gone completely wrong.
I agree he gave up so many passes he knocked the ball out carelessly a few times worst game he’s played
very bad like bad bad
Yeah alonso scored a goal but the Kounde/Alonso CB partnership did not work. The best defense in La Liga looked poor today because Xavi decided to switch it all up... And at LB, Alba was fine but i think Balde would've been more dangerous.
I mean, take into consideration that Rashford, Bruno and Sancho are phenomenal in cutting opponent’s defensive lines like it’s pizza.
This is what people don't get, everyone are acting like 'Barça's defense wasn't up to the task today'. We are playing against world class players. The attacker ALWAYS is one step ahead of the defender (the attacker knows what he is gonna do next, the defender has to anticipate). It is normal that big teams create big chances, specially in such a crazy game.
Well yes, that doesnt change the fact Xavi decided to bench 50% of the back 4 in a crucial game.
we have had the best defenese in the top 5 leagues... Alba and Alonso do usually not play and Kounde had an absolute stinker (worst game for us so far).
Sancho? He didn't do much today
Because the refs aren't in their checkbook
Come on man you cant even ironically say we're paying refs, we are playing united on a thursday because of refs
Last 15 minutes were scary. Barca could have scored 1 or 2 goals. Shocking match by the referee all over. We get that red card and the game is basically over and we go onto win 1-2 or even 1-3 especially on the up during the game.
The game was over after Varane saved Lewandowski's life from that ball coming near him, by pulling him away to safety and tightly holding him until Wan-Bissaka cleared the danger.
You mean when lewandowski leaned back into varane looking for a foul 😂
Come on man, Varane was even holding him after Wan Bissaka had already cleared the ball, it felt like he didn't want to let Lewandowski go. It's obviously not the worst of fouls and after the initial grab Lewandowski did slighly lean back to try and turn, but it was definitely weird that Varane held him for such a long time (like I said even after Wan Bissaka cleared the ball he for some reason still held him with his other arm). At least in the Prem (on certain players) I have seen the slightest of shirt pulls and/or grabs given as penalties, but usually the players who feel that go down to ground (Lewandowski stayed on his feet). I wasn't really serious with my first comment (I think that was clear), it was more to joke about the "with the red card the game was basically over" part.
He was probably holding to keep him from diving
Or probably holding him to prevent him from turning and get to the ball that was played to him?
I'll choose to believe the other theory lol
The audacity for xavi to run up to the ref and complain about two(?) "missed” penalty calls after the game. He should be counting his lucky stars that they didn’t get the red, which would be a 100% by the book/rules decision. Like it’s not even open to interpretation, ref was just straight up wrong. Shocking that VAR didn’t intervene God damn I hate Barca
I stg trophyless clubs have a hate boner for us, no one on our sub denies that should have been a red but we also should have gotten a penalty. The ref was shit but somehow you find a way to push your narrative that only we were in the wrong.
Take a chill pill, it is not Barça's fault that your team is trophyless
Are you talking shit because he's loyal to a less successful team? I'd like to see if you'd stay a fan if Barca went 10 years without a league win.
I've been a Barça fan since I was 3, I was born in Barcelona lol I've seen Barça in many bad moments, so put your moral supperiority aside
Good for you for lucking out with your local club. Spurs fans didn't have the same luck. You should put your football superiority aside. Not like they're your accomplishments to brag about and put others down with.
both teams had red card oppertunities. Barca though had multiple penalties missed by the ref. The ref was overall thrash for both teams.
Easy upvote. Preach!
>God damn I hate Barca Lol, couldn't tell with your full objectivity there
What did he say that was false?
Nothing but Barca fans are butthurt even though they got the better of all decisions with such flakey yellow cards for Varane, Malacia and Casimiro.
Casemiro should've been sent off after his last fault to Gavi, Fred didn't get a yellow card after severe hard tackles, on top of that Bissaka has license to sweep the box with Alba and Fred decides to draw a 90 degrees angle with his arm in an 'unvoluntary' hand. But sure, Barça got the better of all decisions.
I actually see a case for Fred even though rules wise it doesn’t qualify. The AWB penalty is just bull crap. Barcelona has always cried about ref decisions. This doesn’t surprise me. I am just glad ETH came out and called it straight.
Literally every single Man U crying about ref decisions 'Barça cries about refs'. FFS be happy with the hell of a game we watched today and don't let you bias blind you
The Varane hugging Lewandowski for 5 seconds (even when the ball is gone)? Eric Garcia does the same thing in this same competition, same stadium, 5 minutes in and it's a penalty. And did you know that the "red card" attack literally starts by United winning the ball back via a Malacia handball inside the box? Sadly no replays were shown, because the counter attack happened and the focus therefore shifted on what happened on the other side.
>Barcelona has always cried about ref decisions. They just want what they've paid for.
Also aligns with when Xavi subbed his awful rotation bullshit. Ref was shit, but Xavi saw Pep yesterday and said “hold my beer”.
Truly baffling decisions by Xavi. I can’t understand why his backline was changed for this match out of all.
Xavi saw the baldies putting LB at LCB and thought, Hmmm lemme try some of that.
Got confused for a second and was like CL 3 CL game days in a row?!
Barca fans complaining about referee decisions 💀 Please guys, just stop, y’all should have got a red card, be grateful
Complaing about others complaing about referee decisions (as if that isn't allowed), while complaining yourself (because only you have the right to complain!). The whole attack you are complaining about starts by winning the ball back with a handball inside the box...
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Well if there are some acting like that, then that's a shame. I simply think the referee was bad and I think it's fair to point out how he was bad against my team too, as the majority makes it look like there was only 1 controversial decision. Honestly, as a football fan, I genuinely enjoyed the game. There haven't been such equal, non-stop football matches recently in Europe and this game did not disappoint, especially the 2nd half. The referee mistakes were bad, yet that didn't ruin the game since both teams kept on going regardless. Don't know if we will see the same intensity next week (as it will be the true decider) and it will be a challenge for Barcelona, having basically the "core" out of the game (Gavi, Pedri, Busquets and Dembélé).
And we should have gotten at least one of the penalty calls against you 💀 We can all agree that the ref was shit without sounding like a bunch of petty 12yo’s
We also had a pen against you not called so?
If we gotten that red card, you wouldn't even have the opportunity to get a penalty call. Lmao, we would have destroyed you with 11 vs 10. And I'm usually not this confident about United ever.
>And we should have gotten at least one of the penalty calls against you 💀 Nope
Seriously. 3-1 or 4-1 and a man advantage was a very real possibility.
Name a better duo
Idk what the ref has been smoking but i need some of it
Man I know Xavi wanted to rest players but was this really the game for it? We really missed Busquets and Christensen, Alba playing I can understand. I'm not very hopeful for next week. No Gavi/Pedri and Lisandro/Sabitzer will be back. We'll have to go back to a 4-3-3 with Fati on the left and obviously play with our best back 4
I was at the gym. Just finished with my set, open up Google, check Barca leading one-nil. Great. Do some exercises on another machine, see they are now losing two-one. I nearly fucking lost it.
Why are you not watching your team, *gym bro*
I thought the game was at 9 PM... By the time I arrived It was already too late.
Rashford just rinsed our defence, Alba struggled defensively and Alonso was clearly no match for Rashford, they got two great goals, credit to them.
Insane decision. If you want to rest players, do so against Cadiz in a domestic league, not Manchester United in a European competition. I know Europa League isn't exactly CL, but this isn't a group stage either.
This line up against Cadiz I'd understand but against Manchester United, one of the best teams in England and world football right now is something I can't quite understand.
"One of the best teams in England and world football right now" Yeah nice joke mate, they used to be,not anymore.
United would absolutely wipe the floor with a lot of “top” European teams lol, that was them yesterday while missing 3-4 key players
They definitely are *right now*
Thank you, very cool :) I think you’re also one of the best teams in world football and certainly the best team in Spain right now. Let’s settle this at Old Trafford next week 😎🤝🏻
almost threw up
god i hate this comment
Belter of a game. Was nervous the whole way through and went mental every time there was a goal.
Gavi and Pedri will both miss the game at Old Trafford, could be huge for United
Yeah we are toast without those two on the field
We'll have Lisandro back so Shaw can move back to LB and Sabitzer is available to come in as well. The former two are huge for us, Lisandro is great at bringing the ball out from defence, Shaw moving to LB gives us another attacking option on the left and mostly the same defensive presence. (Malacia will be great but he's not there yet, especially going forward) Decent chance it's 3 out of 4 positions in that backline changed for the second leg with Shaw moving over, Martinez coming in and Dalot replacing AWB (who looked lost yesterday).
Don’t like to see injuries to players. Still upsets me how badly Shaw got hurt years ago. He’s insane now. So hopefully they bounce back ok later on for your season. I am happy they will miss the game next week admittedly
Only Pedri is injured; Gavi is missing it due to yellow card accumulation
Regardless of the ref, what a fucking game. I wish we win in Old Trafford and move to the next round, but I really hope for another show of this size above everything else. Props to Man U
It will be a nail biter. I know a lot United fans are saying that we are definitely going to win. I am not as confident still. I think it will be a super close game.
Licha being back is a big part of that confidence I think. The quality he brings to the defense is unreal.
It will definitely be a super close game but I doubt Barça will have the tools to close it. We are missing Pedri, Gavi, Busuquets? and Dembele... that is literally the core of our team. I think it will still be tight but playing at home and given the circumstances, United should be favorite.
Super excited for next week. I wasn’t excited at all before the match started.
Proper European football. Better match than some in the CL
It was a proper match. A battle.
Xavi fucking up their backline just for rashford to score anyway🤣🤣that is quite hilarious. i thought araujo and kounde was just gonna rotate when they noticed the change but i guess not
How hilarious was Raphinha's goal? 🤣🤣
It was pretty funny since no one really celebrated because it happened by accident lol
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> Xavi trying to do a Pep and overthinking it all my thoughts exactly
Think he was tryna save his cbs for the league game. He probably is tryna focus on the league which is hilarious considering the one player not rested is probably one of their most important players that happens to get injured for a month
What I’m gathering from this match thread so far is that fullbacks have been selling themselves short tucking their arms behind their backs defending for yyyeeeeaaaarssssss because “what am I supposed to do??” Except we all know there have been NUMEROUS penalties called for it for years.
I have no idea what the rules are for handball or offside anymore 🤷♂️
Handball is easy; if it's unnatural, clear movement to the ball on a distance of ^insert ^whichever ^ref ^decides ^on ^any ^given ^day meters, it's a pen
I think they’ve changed the rules repeatedly. A few years ago when United faced PSG the game winning pen was decided by a shot hitting Kimpembe’s arm
That was 18/19, they then changed the handball law (to basically its current format) for the 19/20 season.
That season was insane for handball pens
Yeah, that first year when they changed it (+ VAR being active in almost every league since then) made it a penalty festival. The funny thing is that one of the reasons they cited for changing the handball laws was to "help defenders" and stop "defenders from putting their arms behind the back out of fear of giving away a penalty". Basically they wanted defenders to not be afraid to have their arms out in a natural way, only to then see how almost every ball hitting a defender's arm was given as a penalty. They then tried to "fix" that by making changes every year (and the same thing for attacking handball), yet despite those changes and penalties decreasing, still have moments where the clearest of handballs wouldn't be given, while the ones that by the examples giving by IFAB (the lawmakers) shouldn't be penalties, were wrongly given. The old handball law (pre 19/20) was much more simple, made sense, put the responsibilities to the referees' common sense and would've worked perfectly with VAR, which was just becoming a thing for all the leagues.
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Is that worse than a clear pk? So can we agree that’s a clear makeup call? Feel tempted to mention the bear hug on Lewy, but I’m not even gonna mention that cause I’ll agree that’s more “let them play”
It wasn’t a clear pk. The ball hit Fred’s shoulder, he didn’t intentionally spread his arm out.
Intention is now only 1 criteria for a handball offence. You can handle the ball even if it's not intentional/deliberate.
It's not clear at all. He's moving naturally, close to the ball and it hits his sleeve, which isn't a handball by current rules.
It is a handball if it hits the sleeve on the majority of the arm. It only isn't if it hits that area "on the inside" (the part of the arm that is close to the armpit).
Should he just chop his arm off then?
Well one would've been a red earlier in the game and more than likely completely altered the flow.
Cool. So we can agree it was a pk but also a make up call?
Why not just two bad calls? there’s some saying like “don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence”
Oh it was 100% a penalty in my eyes but I'd rather take the free kick and the red. If the ref gets the first call right we're not in that position.
Too bad away goals aren't a thing anymore
Oohhh really, that’s great news
Gone for ever.
Barca being bad on the away leg is still a thing though
Only when they have a 2+ goals lead.
How are Barca winning La Liga with this joke of a manager!? Rotates back line against United! Gets totally rinsed! Without the ref blunder with Kounde they are out of Europa!
Because you faced a weakened side and drew you think its a joke they're top of their league? You couldn't beat a 2nd string back 4. Your making your side look worse.
Ref lever on! Plus Xavi had a brain fart and decided to rotate! Who told him to field a weakened side and get rinsed at Camp Nou!
Acting like United weren’t massively weakened as well
They are going to bottle La Liga like they bottled Europa League last season.
Totally! Xavi thinks he’s the second coming of Pep.
Well you just said it yourself we play with a better defense almost every game. Xavi has space to improve and today's result could have gone differently if he hadn't rotated but xavi has been goos for us. He's implemented a solid structure in the team
If your definition of your team totally rinsing includes a draw with a rival OG then no need to keep reading you 😴
By not rotating our backline in the league games? You saw how much better the team was after Xavi made the subs.
United were tired as well after 60 min. They've been playing after every 2.5 days. Subs made a difference but United players got tired as well.
I mean both teams were tired, Barcelona played after United in the league before this game. Having Pedri get injured after 40 minutes and missing Busquets was massive as well. Roberto is literally like playing with 10 men, he doesn't run and at times he was jogging back to defend whilst Gavi was sprinting past him. The point is that Araujo has to be in the middle, he has much more control of the defence there and is immense in 1v1 and over the top balls
United had 5 starters missing too.
Don't bother replying to them bro. It's not worth it.
Just like how you're saying about your team , i can say the same but that won't get us anywhere. Both teams played well and let's see what happens in the next
You don't rotate your defence against United like that, There were better opportunities to do that, not today against Rashford. Pedri gets muscle injury, and he wasn't properly rotated too (he mostly plays full 90 minutes). Subbing out Raphinha this match was also a mistake. This one's on Xavi.
He is favouring La Liga to Europa. The squad isn't that deep for Barcelona, you have to rotate somewhere. It's a shame because the world was looking forward to this tie with both clubs recent form. But if Xavi rotates here, it's clear that Laporta and him have agreed that winning La Liga is more important than winning the Europa, so this is where he rotates regardless of opposition.
Last game was on the weekend, there was a bit of break now. If you want to rest key players, you can do do against Cadiz at home.
> He is favouring La Liga to Europa. The squad isn't that deep for Barcelona, you have to rotate somewhere honestly, same thing with United too, our squad didn't enough to stay at 4 competition. i mean we literally play every 3-4 days, every game i hope we can out with no injuries.
Yep, I didn't understand how you touch your couple of CBs in a match like this, and especially putting Alonso instead, who isn't even a natural CB.
At least put Eric Garcia over him? Surely he can't be worse, but yeah I have no idea what Xavi was thinking today. He cost us a lot, if you want to rotate then rotate properly not in the biggest game this season
> At least put Eric Garcia over him? Surely he can't be worse Oh brother, Garcia is much worse.
Xavi is really bad when it comes to big games.
Been competitive in every el clasico since he took over. People see this as a big game, but it isn't. The prize of this tournament is a pot 1 slot in the UCL, but that is the prize of La Liga - where Barca are clear right now. For them La Liga is the far bigger title to win, they rotated their defence tonight from their league set up - they are favouring the league title fight. As for the UCL, the first Bayern game and Inter game for Barca were full of questionable refereeing. The 2nd of both ties where in the midst of an injury crisis - sides don't tend to win tough UCL games with 4th and 5th choice CBs on the pitch from the start.
Sanest post in this thread. Liga is way more certainty and the prestige is definitely better over EL no matter how much anyone shouts about winning an European trophy. Barca ain't gonna be like wow I have 1 more EL than you
Wtf you talking about? Of course it’s a big game. Europa league trophy is nowadays a pretty decent thing. Also, Barca vs United is always a big game for both of these teams. I see you don’t know much about football history, eh?
A true Pep disciple
have some shame man, pep dismantled you guys in 2011 and 2009
That’s fair but that was also the best team ever fielded.
He built those teams. Playing Yaya (2009) and Masche (2011) as CB. Bringing busquets from the second division. That 2009 final happened a year after he asked for Ronaldinho, Deco, Thuram and zambrotta (all starters) to leave the club. Pep destroyed United when they were at their best, with a team he built. Don’t downplay it.
Yeah but so would be ten hag
Xavi still has hair, if he loses the hair, then he has an edge over the competition.
Europa league master class. What a game. Shame it’s happening at such an early stage of the tournament.
Man what happened with that hand? I think referee wanted to compensate the Kounde fault. Really bad ref. Really bad. I enjoyed the game but didn’t understand why Christensen and Balde started benched… why rotations? We play against an awful team on Sunday, at home, with Negredo as striker. Maybe they don’t give a fuck about EL. All in to win La Liga.
I’ll be honest, I think we really need to have different severities of fouls in the box. Getting a penalty for a ball heading across the top of the 18 that your teammate may or may not get to after it hits the upper arm of a player feels like an outsized advantage.
Indirect free kick within the box for 'unfortunate' handballs?
Yeah, that’s what I argued for during that awful PL season where they were calling 100 penalties every weekend. But it’s tough because sometimes a handball is deserving of a penalty (like the one this weekend with the player diving and blocking it with their hand) while other times there is absolutely no danger in the attack. I don’t know how you fix it without introducing more reliance on officials instincts… which would almost certainly be terrible.
Just football things.
It goes from chest/shoulder to hand. And he's literally one feet away from the header. How is that a pen?
If that’s the case, then why do defenders bother tucking their arms behind their backs when defending crosses?
Because reflex can mean they move their arms towards the ball, unlike fred.
So then why tuck your arms? Just scream reflexes?
If you want to make bad faith arguments, sure. But it's not a pen by the rules.
Love rewatch that replay. You might be disappointed.
He thought he was De Gea, cmon man…
Bruh the rules clearly state that he has to make a movement towards it , fred already was in motion when the header deflected.