La Liga Superthread 2016/17

astonaidan

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

Can you see Barca going undefeated all things considered?

sugarman wrote: »

Barca have 2 teams fighting it out for survival, normally you wouldnt think much of it... but if they play like that again against a team with everything to play for they could easily drop 2 points somewhere.

They will never miss as much chances as they did today, the only reason they will drop points imo is if the Gods themselfs decide they arent to win it

gimmick

Poor ol Sergi Roberto reverted to his former self tonight. Very very poor.

Just shows how shallow Barcas squad is. There was no one on the bench they could have called upon to make a big impact going forward. Maybe Dani Alves but it's bad news if you have to bring on a right full to help your attack.

Suarez was as poor as I have ever seen him tonight. Ditto Neymar and Iniesta.

Away to Depor next. I wouldn't be putting any money on Barca winning that either.

blueser

recylingbin wrote: »

The last time Barcelona lost three league games in a row was under Louis van Gaal in 2002-03.

From the granuiad.

According to the bastion of truth that is Twitter, it was Radi Antic;
https://twitter.com/SkySportsStatto/status/721796758607695872

CSF

I don't even remember Antic managing Barca....

dfx-

Barcelona changed manager every few weeks from 2000-2003/4

MisterAnarchy

Spiethalona..

Cantona's Collars

La Liga goals

Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale = 69
Messi, Suarez, Neymar = 69

Didn't realise this,so much for the title race being over.This is turning into a hell of a finish.What I don't like is the head to head deciding the title if it comes down to it.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Seeing as people mentioned Barcelona when they were crap for a few years.La Liga was great from around 1998-2005.

Madrid and Barcelona always had a few really sh1t players in their teams and you felt that a wide number of teams could contend for the title. Mallorca finished third.Brilliant title race between Real Madrid and Sociedad, Valencia winning the league with their top scorer having 8 goals. Deportivo having a great team.Great days they were.

chopperbyrne

zerks wrote: »

La Liga goals

Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale = 69
Messi, Suarez, Neymar = 69

Didn't realise this,so much for the title race being over.This is turning into a hell of a finish.What I don't like is the head to head deciding the title if it comes down to it.

La Liga uses head to head before goal difference?

CSF

chopperbyrne wrote: »

La Liga uses head to head before goal difference?

Yeah

StringerBell

Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!

The hero's from Valencia will be celebrating well into the early hours of tomorrow morning! What a display of heart, of guts, of true warrior soul. To go in to the Lions Den in the face of such seemingly insurmountable odds and emerge carrying the slain foe's head raised in victory!! Incredible!!!

No chance they said!! No chance!!

They have had their words well and truly rammed down their throats tonight!!!

Fakman87

StringerBell wrote: »

Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!

The hero's from Valencia will be celebrating well into the early hours of tomorrow morning! What a display of heart, of guts, of true warrior soul. To go in to the Lions Den in the face of such seemingly insurmountable odds and emerge carrying the slain foe's head raised in victory!! Incredible!!!

No chance they said!! No chance!!

They have had their words well and truly rammed down their throats tonight!!!

He won't see this as he's no doubt out clubbing tonight.

If Barca do throw this league away he's going clubbing in Ibiza for the whole summer, so don't expect to see him until their first goal is scored next season.

Rayne Wooney

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Spiethalona..

Barsenalona

The_Kew_Tour

Messi and Ronaldo are the 2 greatest players I have ever seen.

Messi shades it for me but I love the hurt Ronaldo seems to give the people.

It's beautiful!

cowboyBuilder

chopperbyrne wrote: »

La Liga uses head to head before goal difference?

Yep! , remember in 2007 when Madrid won it on H2H despite Barcas far better goal difference

That was sweet ..

mickmackey1

sugarman wrote: »

Why not? otherwise its a case of who can hammer the smallest teams the hardest. GD is a stupid measurement, I wish more leagues would measure by head to head.

Maybe they could discount goals against the relegated teams, similar to the international qualifiers... I think the current system is too arbitrary, one team could have a raft of injuries at the particular time they meet their main rival for example.

MD1990

I feel when Ronaldo & Messi both leave La Liga (both are not in there peak anymore despite stats) that the gap will reduce between Barca, Real & the rest. Atleti could win there 2nd title in 3 years though.

MisterAnarchy

Interesting analysis by Gabrielle Marcotti about the Barcelona front 3 and fatigue

In the 12 months leading up to this past weekend, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar played a combined 16,058 minutes of football for club and country. That is substantially more than other top European sides. Compare it to the four Champions League semifinalists: it's 18 percent more than Bayern's front three (The three most frequently used attacking players), 42 percent more than Manchester City's, 57 percent more than Real Madrid's and 63 percent more than Atletico Madrid's.

There are obvious reasons for the discrepancy. Other than Messi last fall, Barcelona's front three have been fairly healthy all year, especially when compared to their brethren at Man City and Real Madrid. And other managers have shown a much greater propensity for squad rotation than Enrique has: between them, Suarez, Messi and Neymar have been substituted just four times this year.

Yet whatever the case may be, the fact is that Barcelona began their recent rough patch with forwards who had played more (far more, in fact) than any of their Champions League competitors. Note too, that they didn't just play more games, they often played more exhausting games, too. All three have to regularly travel across the Atlantic for internationals, unlike any of the other front men I looked at, with the exception of Douglas Costa and Sergio Aguero. Neymar and Messi played in the Copa America while South American qualifiers tend to be tougher, more draining affairs than European championship qualifying games. Plus, of course, they also traveled to Japan for the Club World Cup.

In the past 30 days, "the MSN" scored four goals in all competitions. Compare it to previous 30-day periods: they managed 21 from Feb. 17 to Mar. 18, 24 from Jan. 17 to Feb. 16 and 16 from Dec. 17 to Jan. 16. It's not easy to maintain the right physical conditioning in those circumstances, but that's why Barcelona (like most top clubs) employ an array of fancy sports scientists and fitness experts.

The fact that they ended up playing so much more than everybody else suggests one of two things. Either they told Enrique that everything was fine and there was no problem in virtually never giving the front guys a breather (in which case, they may want to re-evaluate their stance) or Enrique realized it could be an issue but was unwilling or unable to ration the minutes on the pitch to keep everyone fresh, possibly because there isn't much depth up front on the bench. If it's the latter, it's fair to wonder how much it has to do with the manager's own views and how much it related to not wanting to bruise egos.

Maybe there's a logical explanation for this discrepancy or maybe it's just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the fact that Barca played poorly for most of April, the most critical point of the season.

http://www.espnfc.com/blog/marcotti-musings/62/post/2853355/barcelona-slump-could-be-caused-by-fatigue

jmayo

MD1990 wrote: »

I feel when Ronaldo & Messi both leave La Liga (both are not in there peak anymore despite stats) that the gap will reduce between Barca, Real & the rest. Atleti could win there 2nd title in 3 years though.

Nope won't really happen because the big two will still have the money to lure the best players.
Barca, Real have earned three times as much from TV deals as the likes of Valencia and Athletico do and the Spanish parliament chickened out on move to change that.
Now there have been changes in new deal, but it is still stacked in their favour because it appears to rely on things like league results from the previous five seasons, number of club members and attendances.

Then add in how many fans they have not just in Spain and the now global reach means they have untold reserves in comparison to some of their major competitors.

Also don't forget that these clubs are hooked into government and state.
If normal financial rules were followed they would have been in serious trouble over the years.

The big two have a have more than just pure money going for them.
They have a lure of history and tradition.
Besides Spain has a nicer climate to live in than Manchester or Turin.

Back in 70s Barca bought Cryuff for world record, then in early 80s they did likewise with Maradona.
Then in the late 80s they had Koeman, Laudrup, Romário and Stoichkov and later in 90s had likes of Ronaldo, De Boers, Figo, Kluivert, Rivaldo.

In the late 90s early 2000s Real signed Seedorf, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luís Figo, Roberto Carlos, Beckham and Cannavaro
How many world record signing fees have Real busted over the years ?

And just look what happened to the teams that tried to compete against them.
Deportivo were up there for a few years but it busted the club.
Likewise with Valencia and Mallaga.


What Simeone has achieved with Atleti is fooking fantastic when you think what he has to fight.

Dirty Dingus McGee

jmayo wrote: »

Nope won't really happen because the big two will still have the money to lure the best players.
Barca, Real have earned three times as much from TV deals as the likes of Valencia and Athletico do and the Spanish parliament chickened out on move to change that.
Now there have been changes in new deal, but it is still stacked in their favour because it appears to rely on things like league results from the previous five seasons, number of club members and attendances.

Then add in how many fans they have not just in Spain and the now global reach means they have untold reserves in comparison to some of their major competitors.

Also don't forget that these clubs are hooked into government and state.
If normal financial rules were followed they would have been in serious trouble over the years.

The big two have a have more than just pure money going for them.
They have a lure of history and tradition.
Besides Spain has a nicer climate to live in than Manchester or Turin.

Back in 70s Barca bought Cryuff for world record, then in early 80s they did likewise with Maradona.
Then in the late 80s they had Koeman, Laudrup, Romário and Stoichkov and later in 90s had likes of Ronaldo, De Boers, Figo, Kluivert, Rivaldo.

In the late 90s early 2000s Real signed Seedorf, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luís Figo, Roberto Carlos, Beckham and Cannavaro
How many world record signing fees have Real busted over the years ?

And just look what happened to the teams that tried to compete against them.
Deportivo were up there for a few years but it busted the club.
Likewise with Valencia and Mallaga.


What Simeone has achieved with Atleti is fooking fantastic when you think what he has to fight.

It'll bring them back to the pack a little bit.

The psychological affect of Messi and Ronaldo on the opposition must be big as teams must get worn out knowing regardless of what they do it'll be impossible to keep them quiet and almost be beaten before they take the field.

although a lot of their key goals can be replaced by players a level below them as they score a fair few in comfortable wins but I think the fear they instill in most teams is the biggest advantage they give to Barca and Real.Both clubs in the last 15 years have had brilliant players who are just a slight bit below Messi and Ronaldo and although they still were generally the top 2 in La Liga it never led to quiet the dominance have shown in the last 7 or 8 years.

astonaidan

No wonder Suarez is so angry if he has spent that much time running around covering for Neymar and Messi chilling on the wings

NIMAN

Does anyone think the crazy money about to enter the epl from next season might affect the ability of La Liga to attract all the best players?

When you have bucket sides guaranteed £100 million per season, it can only but attract some of the world's best. Surely.

When all of the epl teams are among the top 21 richest teams in the world, it will get a lot of talent interested.

Dirty Dingus McGee

NIMAN wrote: »

Does anyone think the crazy money about to enter the epl from next season might affect the ability of La Liga to attract all the best players?

When you have bucket sides guaranteed £100 million per season, it can only but attract some of the world's best. Surely.

When all of the epl teams are among the top 21 richest teams in the world, it will get a lot of talent interested.

Or it will lead to a massive inflation in the price of players for English teams.

Great players only want to go to champions league calibre teams so reagrdless of money I can't see too many top class players deciding to play for West Brom,Southampton etc ahead of a team in the champions league (if they do then they are a pure mercenary).

The English teams have had a financial advantage for a long while and top class players are spread across Europe I'd imagine the mid table teams will be able to sign a better quality mediocre player but I'd say English teams will pay a massive premium for any players they sign now and they'll probably help line the pockets of clubs on the continent and perhaps they are actually licking their lips at the prospect of all this extra money they can extract from English teams.

Hopefully you don't get a situation where the top players only play in the EPL and it turns into a soccer version of the NBA as the great thing about soccer is there is more than one top level competition unlike almost every other sport in the world.

jmayo

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

It'll bring them back to the pack a little bit.

The psychological affect of Messi and Ronaldo on the opposition must be big as teams must get worn out knowing regardless of what they do it'll be impossible to keep them quiet and almost be beaten before they take the field.

although a lot of their key goals can be replaced by players a level below them as they score a fair few in comfortable wins but I think the fear they instill in most teams is the biggest advantage they give to Barca and Real.Both clubs in the last 15 years have had brilliant players who are just a slight bit below Messi and Ronaldo and although they still were generally the top 2 in La Liga it never led to quiet the dominance have shown in the last 7 or 8 years.

True, going out to face Messi et al or Ronaldo et al must give some players nightmares.

Then again it aint just these guys.
When people comment how great these guys are, one has to remember they are surrounded by pretty damn good players.
Both teams have some top quality players in their sides, the type of players that can tear any team apart on their day.

And even when Messi and Ronaldo hang up their boots, I expect the next Ronaldo and Messi to appear at some stage for one of those clubs.

Over the last 30/40 odds years the best players in the world have at some stage either graced Barca or Real.
In my memory one of the few truly gifted players not to was Baggio.

Maradona, Ronaldo (the first), Zidane, Messi, Ronaldo (the model), Kaka, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, etc and nearly all the FIFA players of the year over last 20 odd years have played in Spain at some stage.
The only very good players over last 30 odd years not to were Baggio, Gullit, Van Basten and Weah.

At the time they were strutting their stuff, Seria A was at it's height.

NIMAN wrote: »

Does anyone think the crazy money about to enter the epl from next season might affect the ability of La Liga to attract all the best players?

When you have bucket sides guaranteed £100 million per season, it can only but attract some of the world's best. Surely.

When all of the epl teams are among the top 21 richest teams in the world, it will get a lot of talent interested.

I think it is kinda swings and roundabouts.
I can remember when Seria A was the king, the got the world's best players even though a three foreign players rule in force and their teams were dominating Europe.
Then there was more money in Spain, then EPL and now EPL will be even greater.
Also the Arab money has had massive influence on some leagues, see France as example.

Speaking of which it is also getting to stage where some leagues are dominated by one or two teams i.e. Germany, Spain, France and the draw is very rich clubs and CL action.
Their domestic leagues are suffering and the gulf between the top and the rest is growing.

Actually EPL is still one of most competitive.

irishguitarlad

Betis had a nice 1-0 win last night against las palmas last night that guarantees them safety, it was definitely a season of ups and downs and hopefully they can now build for the future. Looking forward to the seville derby now!!

GreNoLi

Huge games tonight, tipping both Madrid teams to draw and barca to get a tight win, preferable if the big 2 lose and atletico win.

GavRedKing

GreNoLi wrote: »

Huge games tonight, tipping both Madrid teams to draw and barca to get a tight win, preferable if the big 2 lose and atletico win.

Ya, Barca have the easiest game on paper but in their current form you wouldnt rule out them choking this game and losing their lead at the summit.

Was hoping all 3 games would be on TV but its only the Real game on Sky.

Turtwig

GavRedKing wrote: »

Ya, Barca have the easiest game on paper but in their current form you wouldnt rule out them choking this game and losing their lead at the summit.

Was hoping all 3 games would be on TV but its only the Real game on Sky.

I thought they were. Barca and Real being on the SS3 and the rest behind red button.

astonaidan

irishguitarlad wrote: »

Betis had a nice 1-0 win last night against las palmas last night that guarantees them safety, it was definitely a season of ups and downs and hopefully they can now build for the future. Looking forward to the seville derby now!!

Always been kinda a fan of Betis since they signed Denilson plus they have a real nice kit

LuckyGent88

Early goal for Barca through Suarez should settle the nerves a bit for them

2 huge chances for deportivo in last 5 mins. Poor defending as per usual from Barca defence

LuckyGent88

2nd from Suarez. Lovely pass from Messi

astonaidan

LuckyGent88 wrote: »

2nd from Suarez. Lovely pass from Messi

A couple of mins after Depor should have equalized. Great pass alright

LuckyGent88

Suarez with a horrendous missed tap in for the hat trick

LuckyGent88

3 zip to Barca now through rakatic after a lovely assist from Suarez this time.

astonaidan

Changed over to Atletico, once Barca got two they were on their way to 4/5

elefant

Valencia 1 up. A win today will mean Pako has as many wins in the league in 20 days as Neville did in 4 months (3).

LuckyGent88

astonaidan wrote: »

Changed over to Atletico, once Barca got two they were on their way to 4/5

Ya hat trick from Suarez now. Catching up on ronnie for top goalscorer.

MisterAnarchy

astonaidan wrote: »

Changed over to Atletico, once Barca got two they were on their way to 4/5

Hopefully bilbao stuff em.
Atletico are a horrible team to watch.

speedboatchase

1-0, Torres. Delighted for him, making it count in the last few games.

MisterAnarchy

Six for Barcelona.
A pity that they couldn't have scored a few of them last week

LuckyGent88

4 goals and 2 assists for Suarez so far tonight.
Phenomenal season from him.

MisterAnarchy

Nice goal by bartra. Seven nil now.
Barcelona are back baby, eight nil

astonaidan

LuckyGent88 wrote: »

4 goals and 2 assists for Suarez so far tonight.
Phenomenal season from him.

Ive said it loads already, feel he should have won the Balon Dor last year, its just such a pity hes such a scumbag

cowboyBuilder

hollow hollow hollow hollow victory....

Gloryhunters trying their best to be happy ...

CSF

That is about as impressive an answer to the critics as you will see. Would be a huge win for Atleti also.

A Dub in Glasgo

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

hollow hollow hollow hollow victory....

Gloryhunters trying their best to be happy ...

You missed a hollow there :pac:

astonaidan

Said to myself they were going to kill Depor, thought 6 before the game, a very impressive performance

MisterAnarchy

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

hollow hollow hollow hollow victory....

Gloryhunters trying their best to be happy ...

Good week for you with Barcelona winning and King rafa winning too.
I bet you're delighted.

LuckyGent88

Yep, one of teams Barca had left to play were going to get a hammering after the recent results and criticism.

Barca got the job that needed to be done quickly. Suarez with 4 goals and 3 assists.

Dirty Dingus McGee

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

Hopefully bilbao stuff em.
Atletico are a horrible team to watch.

I disagree , Atletico are a great team to watch.