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World Club Cup 2011
Topic Started: Nov 17 2011, 06:47 AM (721 Views)
Don Balon
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Very bad news for both Barcelona and Spain, Villa is headed back home for an operation on his broken tibia but there is talk he could be out for 6 months which would end his season and his hopes for Euro 2012.

Villa's injury obviously overshadowed the easy win over an outmatched Al Sadd. Barca were able to rest a few regulars, like Xavi, Dani Alves, Pique and Adriano took advantage of the situation to score twice but Villa ended up paying a big price.
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xeneize
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Santos-Barcelona, Neymar-Messi, should be an intriguing matchup on Sunday. barcelona are heavy favorites but two years ago Estudiantes made them work hard for the win, a late goal to tie it then Barcelona won it in extra time. If Santos can defend well, offensively they have ability to create problems. But as always the question when playing Barcelona is can you take the ball off of them?
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Don Balon
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Barcelona are like Mike Tyson when he was at his best. His opponents would enter the ring afraid of him, and full of nerves they would become even easier prey for Tyson who would often knock them out early. That describes this final, Santos were afraid of Barcelona, they dropped one of their best midfielders Elano to play 5 defenders and they showed too much respect to Barcelona who knocked them out early with Messi and Xavi scoring goals in the first 25 minutes. Cesc added another just before half time and that was that. In the 2nd half the game was more lik an exhibition and Barcelona cruised to the title, with Messi getting a 2nd goal for a final score of 4-0.

With Villa out and Alexis Sanchez nursing a leg injury, Guardiola added another invention as he played Messi with 5 midfielders-Busquets, Thiago, Xavi, Iniesta and Cesc. And did this work effectively. Another option to consider with Villa likely out for the season and a team rich in quality midfielders.
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Yogi
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That is a good analogy Don Balon, Barcelona are like the in his prime Mike Tyson and they certainly strike efar in their opponents. They were simply fantastic in the final and ended the game after 25 minutes. Messi may have been the lone forward but as he so often does he roamed the field, dropping deep to get the ball which enabled Fabregas, Iniesta and sometiems even Xavi and Thiago to fill the hole created. Santos' defenders did not know whom to mark and in the end they did not do much effective defending at all as barca pulled them all over the field.

We should all enjoy this Barcelona team because who knows when we will see another team like them again.
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Merengue
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That was an absolutely dominanting peformance from Barcelona, their ball movement is simply incredible, they had Santos chasing shadows all match long and Santos are no slouches. It seems that when they put their minds to it, as in last season's Champions League's final vs Manchester United, last week's game at the Bernabeu vs Real Madrid or Sunday's Final vs Santos, they just play at a level nobody else can reach, even good clubs just get left in their wake.

The Spanish daily, El Pais had some good articles about Barcelona’s preparations for the match with Santos in the Mundial de Clubes. Guardiola, ever the sharp tactician, recognized Santos had some physical but not too mobile defenders so he set about playing a system without any true forwards as even Messi dropped back into midfield. With the players moving and switching positions, they drew Santos out of position and carved open their defense. While Barcelona do have some extraordinary players, you also must give Guardiola credit for not only his tactical decisions but also how he never seems to rest on his laurels and always is looking to tweek their system of play.
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shelsoccer
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Has anyone seen a better club team than Barcelona in their lifetimes?
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Mr. Pither
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shelsoccer,Dec 20 2011
12:31 PM
Has anyone seen a better club team than Barcelona in their lifetimes?

A great question shelsoccer. The Ajax and Bayern Munich teams who each won 3 consecutive Champions Leagues in the 70s were a little bit before my time so I can not judge them nor obviously could I compare this current Barcelona team to the all conquering Real Madrid team of the late 50, early 60s.

Personally I had always considered the Milan teams coached by Arrigo Sacchi in the late 80s, early 90s to be the best club team I have ever seen. That team won a couple of European Cups, the precursor to the Champions League but when their Dutch trio of van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard got old and/or injured the team dropped a bit until they reformed under players like Savicevic, Boban and Papin and won another European Cup in 1994 all the while collecting domestic league championships as well. They won and did it with style which is why I always considered them so strong.

Another team which I also considered very strong but which did not have a period of dominance as long as Sacchi's Milan was Louis van Gaal's Ajax. They dominated a somewhat weak Dutch league in the middle of the 90s and then impressively won the 1995 Champions League, beating Milan by the way, then after selling a few stars from that team, they lost the following season's Champions League final to Juventus. That Ajax team which introduced to the world stars like the DeBoer brothers, Overmars, Seedorf, Davids, Kluivert, Litmanen, etc. played with even more style than Milan, using a playing style which was not too dissimilar to what Barcelona currently uses.

For years I thought those were the two best club teams I had seen play over the years but this Barcelona team is I think better than them both. They just seem to produce when it matters the most and like Merengue noted, when they need to they just turn it up a notch and annihilate even good opponents. They are dominating at home and abroad like no team I can recall in my memory and are maintaining their dominance over a 3-4 year period. With a base of players who have been together for years since their youth days, many of whom are also world and European champions at the national team level too, this is a team loaded with stars who play extremely well collectively. Oh, and there also is Lionel Messi, who at 24 is already showing he will be mentioned one day very soon along with the world's 2 or 3 best players of all time. Combine all of this and you have this current Barcelona team who are not only incredibly good but also a real pleasure to watch.
P-I-T-H-E-R ...as in Brotherhood, but with PI instead of the BRO and no HOOD
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Sergio
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Barcelona are the best club team I have ever seen. Those Milan and Ajax teams Mr Pither wrote of were good but they were not as dominant as this Barcelona team. Since Pep Guardiola became their coach, Barcelona have won almost every competition they have entered. Their one notable exception being the 2010 Champions League when they barely lost out in the semifinals to eventual champion Inter Milan. Besides that they seem to be winning it all, especially their league, the European Champions League and the World Club Cup. Those Milan and Ajax teams were good but even they were not as dominant as this Barcelona.
"You left as a champion, you will always be in our hearts. Rest in Peace Christian Benítez."
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Martin
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Since Pep Guardiola took over in the 2008-9 season, Barcelona have won 13 out of 16 competitions they entered which is an absolutely extraordinary record. The 2010 Champions League semifinal defeat has already been mentioned, the other two competitions which they did not win were the 2010 and 2011 Copa del Rey, although they only lost the 2011 Cup in extra time to Real Madrid. This record of dominance is almost unheard of. Let's look at some other noted teams of recent years to see if they compare:

AC Milan

The great Milan teams of first the Dutch trio, plus Baresi, Maldini, Ancelotti and Donadoni won the then European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup twice each, in 1989 and 1990 but did not win the Serie A scudetto in either of those years, instead they won it in 1988 and then as the team transitioned from van Basten, Gullit and Rijkaard to Boban, Savicevic and Papin they won the scudetto every year but one from 1992-1996. During that time they were in three Europen Champions League finals but won only one of them, that famous 4-0 crushing of Johan Cruyff's Barcelona in 1994. Milan also twice lost the Intercontinental cup in this period.

Ajax
The Ajax team spoken of above with Seedorf, Davids, Overmars, and the DeBoers also was a dominant team but not like this Barcelona. Ajax won the Dutch league 4 out of 5 years from 1994-98 and won the Champions League and Intercontinental Cup in 1995 and were Champions League runners up in 1996.

Flamengo
The Flamengo teams in the early 1980s also were something special. With Zico, Junior, Tita, Andrade, and Nunes they had a great attack which passed the ball around effortlessly. From 1980 to 1983 they won the Brazilian league title 3 times, the only year they did not win it, 1981, the club won its only Copa Libertadores and Intercontinental Cup titles. In that year's Intercontinental Cup they demolished the Liverpool team which had been dominating Europe at the time.

Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo won back to back Copa Libertadores titles in 1992 and 1993 and finished runnerup in 1994 with a team featuring Rai, Leonardo, Cafu, Toninho Cerezo, Muller and a young Juninho Paulista. Coached by Tele Santana, the mastermind behind Brazil's revered 1982 World Cup team, Sao Paulo also beat Barcelona (1992) and Milan (1993) in the Intercontinental Cup. But during this period they only won one Brazilian league title in 1991.

Boca Juniors
The Carlos Bianchi coached Boca teams were the best in the world at the start of this century. Featuring players like Martin Palermo, Juan Roman Riquelme, Walter Samuel, Jorge Bermudez and Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Boca from 1999-2004 won 3 Libertadores titles, were runner up another time, won two Intercontinental cups and won 3 Argentine league titles.

Like Mr. Pither, the dominant Ajax and Bayern Munich teams of the early to mid 1970s were just before my time so I can not really compare them but the clubs I just named above were the ones I thought were the best clubs I have seen play since the late 1970s. But to be honest I do not think any of them were as dominant as this current Barcelona team.
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El Profe
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That is a good list Martin of dominant clubs over the past 30+ years but I am coming to the same thought as many others here, this Barcelona team is as good, and probably better than all of them. Their accomplishments these past 3 years have been incredible, 13 out of 16 competitions they won since Guardiola became coach! That is unheard of. You can not take the ball off this Barcelona team, they have a killer instinct and so many big game players. Defensively they press you mercilessly, forcing turnovers and then to cap it off they have Lio Messi, on his way to becoming one of the greatest players in the history of the game and a player who is continually improving. As hard to believe as it may be but we have not seen the best yet from Messi.

Bottom line is, yes I think this Barcelona team is the best club team I have ever seen play.
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shelsoccer
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My question was somewhat rhetorical. I certainly think Barca is the best club team I've ever seen.

There is, however, a qualifier to that. With the almost total lack of soccer on TV in the US until the 1990's -- even later for telecasts of European and S. American league play -- I only caught glimpses of the teams others have mentioned above. You'd catch the occasional highlight or coverage of those teams in a championship game, but not week-to-week league play.

Purely looking at titles and cups for those great teams of the '70s, '80s and '90s (even the '60s -- yes, I'm old enough) isn't like actually seeing a team on a regular basis. In that vein, I've never seen anything like Barca.

I'll toss out another question. Has anyone seen a national team (e.g., Spain '10) so closely emulate the play and style of its dometic league's top team?
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Yogi
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I'll toss out another question. Has anyone seen a national team (e.g., Spain '10) so closely emulate the play and style of its dometic league's top team?

Yes, Italy 1982 and Juventus who were league champions around that time too. Much like Spain with Barcelona, Italy's 1982 World Cup champions were built around a core of players from one club, in this case Juventus-Zoff, Scirea, Cabrini, Tardelli, Rossi, etc.
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Onslow
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It was before my time too but Ajax and Bayern Munich's 70s championship winning teams were the base of Holland's and West Germany's national teams of that era. I would say both clubs play similarly reflected the 'total football' style of their respective national teams.
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Martin
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Purely looking at titles and cups for those great teams of the '70s, '80s and '90s (even the '60s -- yes, I'm old enough) isn't like actually seeing a team on a regular basis. In that vein, I've never seen anything like Barca.


That is true and the expansive TV coverage we now get may skew the view towards Barcelona being the greatest club of our lifetimes but that is also why I included some of the results of the other clubs which I have seen and who I consider among the best I had previously seen. None of those teams, however, consistently defeated their top opponents as decisively as this current Barcelona team does and that is to me an incredibly telling fact which favors considering Barcelona among the tops of all time.

I have only seen edited highlights of their games but the Real Madrid teams which dominated Europe in the late 50s, early 60s and the Santos teams of the 60s probably have to be considered among the best ever too. And like this Barcelona team with Messi, the 1970s era Ajax with Cruyff and Bayern Munich with Beckenbauer, those teams were led by immortal players, Real Madrid by DiStefano and Puskas and Santos by Pele.
Club Sportivo Desamparados
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Penya
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Quote:
 
Purely looking at titles and cups for those great teams of the '70s, '80s and '90s (even the '60s -- yes, I'm old enough) isn't like actually seeing a team on a regular basis. In that vein, I've never seen anything like Barca.


Well I may be a bit biased as a Barcelona fan but I too have never seen a club like this current Barcelona team. I did see the fine Milan team of the late 80s, early 90s and Ajax's mid 90's teams and they were each excellent but as some others already commenetd what makes this Barcelona so special is how they beat their top opponents. Crushing Manchester United in the Champions league Final, pounding Real Madrid away in the Bernabeu and then making Santos look like a Sunday park league team in the World Club Cup title game. That is not the acts of just a very good team, those are the reuslts of an extraordinary one.

Of course we have no way to really know how this Barcelona would do against van Gaal's Ajax, Sacchi's Milan or the Real Madrid teams of the late 50s or Santos sides of the sixties but what we do know is Barcelona is not just beating but convincingly defeating the major rivals put in front of it and that combined with what is now a 3 or 4 year run of dominance in all competitions makes this one of the great club teams of all time.
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