FC Barcelona Discussion

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Except they aren't.

Ah, yes you are correct. They finished second. I read the honours table as "champions" when it said runners up

 

[Asura]

8 hours ago, The Rebel CRS said:

Yerry Mina is nuts. The new Alves of the dressing room?

proofs or it never happened

[SirBalon]

Ousmene Dembélé out injured again. This time for 3 to 4 weeks. Will be touch and go if he makes the Champions League first leg against Chelsea. 

[SirBalon]

Some hard hitting comments from Barcelona’s latest signing Yerry Mina on the day of his presentation...

“I define myself as a very calm person with a lot of patience. I know it’s a cliché, but I’ve come knowing that I have a lot to learn and I will be learning from the best at this club”

“My father was a goalkeeper in his younger days and my uncle was the head coach at our town’s club where he initially put me in as the team keeper. My father even bought me a pair of beautiful gloves... In my first game I let in 8 goals and I just kept on crying and crying all the way home. My uncle told me not to worry and that we would try a new position... That wasn’t the problem, I didn’t care about playing and only cared about having been a disappointment for my father who was watching from the stands.”

“On the question about who I owe my career in football to which has led me to the biggest club in the world, well again it will be another cliché but I can only speak about my personal life which is my childhood and the sacrifices my parents went through to bring up a family.  My father would be away for a month at a time working in the fields collecting fruit and my mother would work nights and arrive at 5am where she would sleep for 1 hour and then be ready for when my brother and I would wake up so as to do all the chores she’d have to do which was also to take me to football and be there for me.  We were all very hungry when I was a child and the very little there was to eat my father would put it on both my brother’s and my plate without my mother seeing it happen.  My father would be very tired from his long work stints in a very hard laboured job, but he said that he ate a lot of fruit and didn’t need that which obviously my brother and myself didn’t believe and would make us cry.  I owe everything to them and when I gave my father my first proesssional pay cheque so he could take our mother on their first ever holiday, he went down on his knees on what I deemed to be in a kind of reverence.  I cried and picked him up saying that no matter what I ever achieve, what they had done for both of us will never be as big.”

“We used to play in the road because they didn’t allow us to play in the local park due to being so poor.  I only had one pair of shoes which were for school so I would play barefoot so as to not make my parents buy me new shoes. The boys that did have shoes would laugh at me and step on my feet on purpose making them bleed.  But I loved playing so much that I would just wipe some saliva from my mouth to take the blood off and keep on playing.  One of my best friends gave me the first ball I ever owned... A truck had run over it and burst it, so his mum bought him a new one and he gave me that one which all the skin from the leather had been worn off from playing so much with it.  I didn’t care though because it was the first football I had ever owned and when my father came back from one of his long stints working the fields, he fixed the ball for me and we inflated it at the petrol station.  It wasn’t perfectly round anymore and my father was disappointed at his repair work, but I told him it was perfect which made him laugh as he knew I was lying.”

“What did my parents think when Barcelona contacted me?  Well my father ended up in hospital because he fell and hit his head on the kitchen table. My mother started to cry and I think she still hasn’t stopped crying since... The truth is that I have already helped my family a lot before this move, but moving to Europe and on top of that moving to FC Barcelona is something very big for South American players.  When you achieve this, you know your hard work has reached its maximum level.”

He then goes on to speak about Barcelona and the players he admires at the club.  We’ve all heard that stuff before so I won’t add it.  For me it was that heartfelt story about his childhood which is something you don’t tend to get in these things and only mere references which we’ve all heard before.  He’s not the first player that makes the big time coming from extreme poverty, but it’s the first time I’ve personally heard so much detail told on his presentation day.  I watched it live and it almost had me in tears to be honest... 

[Stan]

Gerard Pique has signed a new contract at Barca til 2022. 

[SirBalon]

2 hours ago, Stan said:

Gerard Pique has signed a new contract at Barca til 2022. 

That’s a bit of a strange extension to sign to be honest but it goes along with the thought that Piqué is going to retire early from football as he’s always alluded to. He already said that he would be retiring from international football after this oncoming World Cup in Russia and I doubt he’ll be staying on from 2022 as a professional footballer.  He has many businesses ongoing and is building a massive media empire at the moment plus he’s made it no secret that he wants to become the president of FC Barcelona. 

[Stan]

well he will be 34 by the time 2022 comes around.

Will he be staying at the club before he comes president (i.e. between retirement and where he wants to be) or is he going to leave football altogether before returning in the hope that position arises at the right time for him?

Will he be appearing in any Shakira videos cos I won't want to watch them if so. 

[SirBalon]

22 minutes ago, Stan said:

well he will be 34 by the time 2022 comes around.

Will he be staying at the club before he comes president (i.e. between retirement and where he wants to be) or is he going to leave football altogether before returning in the hope that position arises at the right time for him?

Will he be appearing in any Shakira videos cos I won't want to watch them if so. 

Hahaha... Don’t know about the Shakira videos stuff.  I think she’s been begging him to be in one for a long time but he has been hesitant to do so from what I’ve read.

As for leaving the club... I very much think so because he’s his own man with his own opinions in how things should be.  He is very creative and thinks out of the box with a great perception on what the future holds... In other words the perfect entrepreneur.  

In my opinion he’ll leave the club alltogether so as to build a team and structure before putting himself up for election.  He’s always said that he knows exactly how the club needs to be run and also where football should go in the future so as to be more in tune with the modern business ideal football lives in but also adding more of a fan inclusion into it all.  Obviously he’s been brought up in a club that’s actually owned by the fans in FC Barcelona, but when he speaks about football in a general form he always makes sure people understand that he’s thinking about the PLCs too which for him have detached themselves from the real club fan.

[Carnivore Chris]

 

[SirBalon]

Sergi Roberto renews until 2022

Sergi Roberto is player number 2 in the renewal spree FC Barcelona have started.  Sergi has extended by one year on his previous contract that was due to run out in 2021... It seems that the intention was to raise the buy-out clause which has gone from €100m to €500m. 

This particular contract renewal will please the Barcelona fans no end.

[SirBalon]

4 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Sergi Roberto is well worth €100,000,000 so this is a great piece of business. The extension of one year doesn't really change much, it's the release clause that will make people happy.

Apparently PSG were sniffing around in the summer and approached him while he was in Ibiza... I think it’s a defence mechanism against Qatar.

[Carnivore Chris]

The 'Anti-jeque' clauses. It's needed to prevent sides like PSG(again), City, or whoever else from buying these players' contracts out.

[UNORTHODOX]

Is Coutinho ready to play yet?

[SirBalon]

3 hours ago, UNORTHODOX said:

Is Coutinho ready to play yet?

He joined the group for the first time today for training which means that at least one more week will be needed before the club medical team give him the go ahead.

[Danny]

Is Roberto any good defensively? I watched the highlights of their 4-2 win and I'm pretty sure he was at fault for two school boy errors which gave them the goals.

[SirBalon]

Just now, Danny said:

Is Roberto any good defensively? I watched the highlights of their 4-2 win and I'm pretty sure he was at fault for two school boy errors which gave them the goals.

He has committed errors defensively because he is naturally a midfielder but he is very competent in the defensive areas due to his physical attributes and pace on and off the ball.  But he doesn’t commit as many errors as he used to.

[Danny]

41 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

Alright ladbible 

[SirBalon]

Pedro is another like that... Totally ambidextrous with batter qualities in one foot for some things and others on the other foot. I’m almost totally ambidextrous myself and I understand this confusion when asked questions that others find more confusing when watching me do something. 

[Carnivore Chris]

13 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

. I’m almost totally ambidextrous myself and I understand this confusion when asked questions that others find more confusing when watching me do something. 

Being equally as terrible with both feet doesn't make you ambidextrous mate

Edited January 23, 2018 by The Rebel CRS

[Carnivore Chris]

David Villa is also ambidextrous and can use either foot equally as well. 

[Philippe Coutinho]

Happy 38th Birthday to Xavi. I'll forever and for always consider this guy the heart and soul of FC Barcelona. It's a matter of time before he manages Barca. Can't wait. Guardiola 2.0

 

[SirBalon]

30 minutes ago, Cannabis said:

 

Trust a Toffee to be the first to post this! 

[Danny]

Coutinho looks like he'll fit in perfectly at Barce, I think he'll probably need to work on when to try and run and shoot and when to play the ball through as he's probably used to having the freedom to not worry about not feeding someone else in and just going for goal.

[SirBalon]

Coutinho didn’t get long due to coming on in the 68th minute, but you could already see that he suits the style of play at Barça and why the technical team fought so hard to sign him.  People must remember that Coutinho wasn’t a whim on the fact Barcelona got the Neymar money in the summer.  What I’m saying is that the interest in the former Liverpool player didn’t begin then and they have infact been following his progression all the way back when he was on loan at Espanyol as it has been consistently well documented in the Spanish sports papers over the years.

It also looks like the senior Barça players are really happy to have him on board as they feel he has the potential to be one of the biggest players on the planet.  It was a very good debut for him last night.

[SirBalon]

According to all four main Spanish sports newspapers (MARCA, MUNDO DEPORTIVO, AS and SPORT) André Cury (Arthur’s agent) are today negotiating the arrival of Arthur to Barcelona in the summer.