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Barcelona Possession Myth

Discussion in 'Celtic Chat' started by ILoveTheCeltic, Nov 8, 2012.

Discuss Barcelona Possession Myth in the Celtic Chat area at TalkCeltic.net.

  1. MonitorBhoy

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    Barcelona's possession was spent passing the ball in triangles and left to right in the middle of the park, why should we look to chase it down and retain the ball?
    Let them ping it about as it was going nowhere. When we got the ball, we tried to get up the park as quick as possible.

    I find it funny seeing media and people referring to our performance as "anti-football". We replaced a defender with a striker against Barcelona, ffs!
     
  2. Bunk Moreland

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    And managed to score 3 times against them in 2 games :50: plus a look at the fouls committed stats in both games show them to be pretty even and pretty low, anti-football isn't just defending (which is part of the game) anti-football is basically kicking a team off the park whilst making little or no attempt to play football (Dead Rangers in Europe is a perfect example)

    Anyone who thinks tactical defending and playing a quick counter attacking game whilst playing to the rules at all times is anti-football should simply * off and refrain from ever having an opinion about football ever again because it's clear that they know absolutely nothing about it.
     
  3. McAvenniesBoots

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    They possessed the ball in their net more than we did. :50:
     
  4. KevvyBhoy

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    It's the Barca way of playing football. The philosophy of the style of play in its most basic sense is that if the opponents don't have the ball, the chances of them scoring more goals and thus winning the game are slim. And hey, it works - they've only been beaten once or twice this season and rarely fail to score but the key word is "chance" - they can still lose games like any other team.

    It's really not worth all the debate - they do it to every team in the world, many of which are far better than ours. Just so happens that on this occasion we handled their tactics and were able to take advantage of the meagre amount of possession we had; just as Chelsea did last season in the Champions League and just as other teams have and will in all competitions. It's just a way of bitter fans, coaches or media personnel discrediting wins over Barcelona and it happens all the time but both us and Chelsea took advantage of our chances and scored more goals so possession means * all. Truth is it's really the only way to beat Barca or any other side that uses this tactic. Teams that try to play open football against Barca often just get slaughtered - just ask Paco Jemez at Rayo Vallecano; criticized our tactics and instead tried to play, pumped 5-0 at home.

    This is the beauty of football - you do with it what you want. There will be teams that like to have less possession and prefer to play long ball/counter attack because it suits their strengths (poor technical ability/vision but tall quick squad etc.) and are uncomfortable moving their defensive line too far forward, and yet still win or at least take points in a reasonable percentage of their games.

    As for the stats it depends who provides them and how they're calculated. Could be a function of many things - ratio of pass completion, time on the ball (ignoring time during passes etc.) but it really doesn't matter. It's an indicator of who's attacking and controlling the game but not necessarily who wins it - how many games have we lost or dropped points in despite dominating possession? I'd hazard a guess that it's more than when we don't.
     
  5. Scotia Gold Member Gold Member

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    very nice their possesion was too .... ermmmm 2-1 only stat that counts !!
     
  6. Matt_20

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    I love the Barca philosophy. It's the only way to play in my opinion. Teams with that much money should be penalised for not attacking, Chelsea's Champions League "win" (actually draw and penalties) was the worst thing that ever happened to football.

    Jock Stein taught us to play the way Cruyff's Ajax later played that led to the Masia academy. Against Barca in both games we've adhered to that. You defend when you don't have the ball, you attack when you do. As it happened, given that we were playing the best team ever whose main tactic is keeping the ball, we defended the majority of the game but any football person knows we didn't sit back and play anti-football. When we got it we quickly tried to attack again, men broke forward, it was rarely one man up himself.
     
  7. KevvyBhoy

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    Chelsea drew in the final but did win over 2 legs against Barca without penalties but nonetheless I agree - attacking football is so much more entertaining. However I also think Barca are on another level from the majority of clubs, even those with millions when it comes to ripping defences apart. IMO playing on the counter attack and trying to nick chances from set pieces is the only "safe" way to play Barcelona, and even then they might still rip you a new one. They're so drilled and disciplined in their style of play it's crazy. I'd like to think bigger clubs wouldn't park the bus so much but if it can work for Celtic why not the Chelseas, Man Utds, Inters etc. who (at-the-very-least almost) man for man have better players? They'd always have a decent chance of a plan B - attack - to mount a comeback as they've the players at their disposal.
     
  8. murphy88

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    I only read as far as the goals scored statistic. When people all over the world heard the scoreline Celtic 2, Barcelona 1, i can guarentee you not one of them proceeded to say, what was the possession stats.
     
  9. kingkenny

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    Barcelona 50 attempts and 3 goals= 6%

    Celtic 9 attempts and 3 goals = 33.33%

    There, fixed that for them
     
  10. Barry Robson

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    Couldn't agree more myself. Never heard anyone ask 'What was the possession tonight', its always 'What was the score tonight'

    Watching Barca knock the ball about the other night was just mind blowing, amazing to watch and hard to follow at times as it was so quick. So for our players to chase it and defend like they did is a huge credit to them!
     
  11. kingkenny

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    Football is like the majority of sports, scoring at one end and preventing your opponents from scoring at the other. What happens in the middle is irrelevant.
     
  12. MonitorBhoy

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    I wonder how many of Barca's attempts were desperate shots from distance?
    There's seemed to be a fiar few of them from Iniesta and Xavi, in particular...
     
  13. kingkenny

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    And had one went in would we be saying they were lucky , they only scored because they have players who can shoot from far out?

    No, because you play to your strengths and use whatever advantage you have.
     
  14. Matt_20

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    Another thing I hate about all this * is that Barcelona have this much possession in every game they play, including against Madrid, yet the Daily * makes a big deal of how little we had of the ball.
     
  15. Hydrobhoy

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    Couldn't care less if barca had 99.9% possession and scored two own goals a wins a win and 3 points is 3 points for the hoops.

    hail hail
     
  16. murphy88

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    It was a fantastic defensive display. Over both games as well. The way i also seen it, if that game had been a knock-out phase, we were 3 minutes away from knocking them out. That is how well we played over both games. We knew as soon as the balls came out the pot, that against Barcelona it was going to take a monumental performance to even achieve a draw, so to do what we done on Wednesday was out of this world. When i got home from the game i watched some of it back, i have to say, Gary Neville and Jamie Redknapp were superb after the game. Couldn't speak highly enough of us.