Spanish Primera Liga 2022/2023
- Thread starter FCBarca
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Great timing on Alfie's part with this video, it's something I was just talking about online about a week or so ago. I think Real Madrid and their fans put themselves in a bind of their own creation with this; they look at Barcelona's success with La Masia and some of the genuine world class talents that have been produced by their academy that now have success wearing the blaugrana shirt, but they also don't have the patience to deal with the growing pains that are going to happen when some of those youth academy products aren't instantly seasoned veterans playing in La Liga. In that sense, the 2021-'22 season ended up being a necessary evil of sorts for Barcelona; they were out of the league race from the first half of the season, but we all knew they were never going to be threatened with truly failing to finish in the Champions League spots, so it gave Xavi plenty of opportunity to give Pedri, Gavi, Araujo, etc. sufficient playing time to acclimate themselves to the level of competition they were playing at. As Alfie touches on, Barcelona's philosophy is a top-down one throughout their entire organization, which allows themselves to much more easily "plug-and-play" the kids as well because, whether they have the level to succeed with the parent team or not, they do at least have the teachings of what to do, where to be, etc. within the broader style of play taught at the club. (This does have the negative effect of making it harder to catch on elsewhere if they don't succeed at Barcelona as they are drilled inside a more distinct style of football and not taught as broadly; Real Madrid is the exact opposite of course.)
I can see it with Madrid fans already, seeing Yamal as a 16-year-old kicking ass. Lol, they're not thrilled about this.
I will say that Madrid has, in recent years, (and as Alfie touches on) gone with a heavy sell-with-buyback approach, but what's weird about that isn't that they are doing it now, it's why they didn't stay consistent with this from when they were doing it about a decade ago. Carvajal was a sell w/buyback to Leverkusen which they exercised after he had a successful year in Germany. They did the same with Morata and Juventus. I think they did a two-year dry loan with Hakimi at Dortmund, which was odd, but they tried the same with Reinier Jesus and that was a total failure. I'm not a fan of dry loans with young players who should be playing top flight minutes. Loan a prospect to a midtable side more concerned with avoiding relegation, and if that player doesn't gel with the team, the coach will easily bin them because "they're gone at the end of the season, what the fuck do I care?". If you sell them, you at least now force an incentive on the buying team to actually develop the player (otherwise, they just wasted money). And if the player develops, either you've got a real good player, or Madrid come calling in a year or two and you make your money back and then some after the re-sale...it's almost too obvious that's what to do. I think they did a sale w/buyback on Fran Garcia which they exercised, they did so with Kubo and Arribas recently...they've at least learned something of a lesson. Kubo's thriving with Real Sociedad and they have all three non-EU spots at their disposal...we might see him back at Madrid in a year or two, although given the complete unpredictability of Madrid's attack-minded planning, obviously I'm not making a bet either way on that.
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Yeah watched that one. Barca looks great, and they're gonna be tough in the CL. Atletico not gonna be happy about Felix looking that good either, which is kind of funny. Barca is loaded.
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10 years of FIF
FIF Special OnesJoao Felix is a baller. I’ve always said that and I will stand by that. I’m not sure playing him to the left is the best way to use him but in a team that plays an attacking style he will be a huge difference maker.
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10 years of FIFI have largely felt similar and he always impressed me for Atletico even if I felt he wasn’t being maximized with their tactics
The fallout and nearly giving him away for free as if he was Coutinho was odd and I assumed there were off the pitch or attitude issues at center of it
He seems happy but you never can be certain how it’ll play it out. The good is that this version of 4-3-3 is easier on the eye than the 4-4-2 bs
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It pains me but Barcelona really had a fantastic transfer window. Reinforced their depth, plugged a big hole at RB, add to that Torres looking reborn this year and the integration of Yamal into the squad...I really don't see how they don't win La Liga this year. They have a better team than the one that walked to the title a year ago.
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Sociedad looks really good.
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10 years of FIFa gk as bad as Kepa sure gets lots of chances
They are good but not tight defensively which Real M. didn't exploit this first half. We should do that on Wednesday
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10 years of FIFExploited and equalised.