Not for me, no. Peak Barca, besides other things, had one of the best players of all time at his peak tearing teams apart day in day out.
Bayern Munich
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I don't think so, personally. That peak Barca side not only played amazing football, it was also able to stop the opposition from playing any kind of football whatsoever at the same time. How "good" the other team was became moot as a result, because nobody was ever able to get their foot on the ball. They did what Bayern can do now, only slightly better.
I don't think any other team could have coped with Barca going forwards or backwards... not this Bayern team, not the Galacticos, not Stoke on a Wednesday and not the Milan side of the 90s.
I don't think any other team could have coped with Barca going forwards or backwards... not this Bayern team, not the Galacticos, not Stoke on a Wednesday and not the Milan side of the 90s.
Agreed. in that 2/3 year period I never saw a team even get near to challenging them properly. It showed how what level Mourinho and Madrid had to stoop to, to even earn a draw against them.
The amount of times they scored 5+ in their games was just ridiculous.
Well when you're blood doping it's much easier to have the stamina required to maintain a system like that Barca team.
IMO, no. Add Messi to this Bayern side, then maybe.
I don't think Bayern have any individuals as good as Messi, Xavi or Iniesta at their peak.
Barca circa 09-11 were the best team ever, this Bayern team have a lot to do before being held in the same esteem.
It is a team sports and not a sports of individuals. I do not need a Messi if I have a couple of great players - it is even a lot better not to have a Messi who is the centre of everything. Actually in my eyes Barcelona was better before Messi really peaked... When Messi really started to make his "series" etc. meant Barcelona was already on the way down.
You cannot really judge Bayern already now. They are in the middle of something - maybe not even on the peak.
And Barca were never dependent on an individual, as good as they were. In terms of "being a team" they were far ahead of any modern team including Bayern, before or during Messi's peak.
I don't they are better than peak Barca, they haven't done enough to separate themselves from our 06-09 side yet IMO. Robben ia a good coup, he always misses around 10 games a season but you get a quality wide player.
What type of player do you see Kroos as right now Balu ?, like Gundogan he can play a variety of midfield role's to a good standard but I would want him pick out passes in the final third. Terrific technician too, I assume he will end up staying anyway.
What type of player do you see Kroos as right now Balu ?, like Gundogan he can play a variety of midfield role's to a good standard but I would want him pick out passes in the final third. Terrific technician too, I assume he will end up staying anyway.
I thought that Bayern looked better last year in the Champions League. Pep's Bayern just don't play with same intensity as his Barcelona team did, that and they lack a Messi type player, or even a Xavi or Iniesta.
The Barca team that beat us in the 2011 CL final is the best that I have ever seen, at club or international level. They were like a storm. My only question is if they were doping or not.
As it is highly unlikely that this Bayern side will ever play against peak Barca - next question. I dare say that this side is superior to 1975 Bayern, though.
Last year the team was driven by the lost home final and also, it seem, they all ran their lungs out to send Heynckes off with the triple. That extra edge is missing this year, but has been replaced with more confidence, more technical finesse (Thiago, Götze) and more versatility.
Don't think so. It doesn't have the wow factor of Messi, or the individual brilliance of Xaviesta. Watched that 5-0 they inflicted to Real Mourniho this past weekend, what a complete and utter dominating performance.
Best team ever? Have you done a full analysis of the 100 years before? Including teams like Real Madrid who won the cup 5 years in a row in the 50s?
well comparing the milan team to that barca team is just silly... the game has changed so much since then the tackles allowed - the interpenetration of the offside rule etc makes it so difficult to compare teams from different eras (and that late 80's milan side for example was probably better than the mid 90's imo and all that with the foreigners rule in place! but again its impossible to quantify). Not to detract from what barca achieved but just to question the logic in throwing the milan team into the debate.
Strong claimed. That 1975 side had Sepp Maier, Muller, Beckenbauer, Roth, and Hoenes. And only two season ago, Dortmund was the Bundesliga champions.
A lot to do? They won the treble last year, pretty much have the league title this year already, the favourites to win the DFB-Pokal and Champions league again and have the most complete squad in the world. What more is there to do then?
Pass the ball 700 times a match
If we go by just the trophies then Inter also won a treble few years ago. This Bayern team has been pretty good but have they dominated teams while also playing the level of football Barca? Not for me. In terms of performance individually and more so as a unit it's virtually impossible to overcome that machine that was Barca.
Basically this, I doubt the style Barca did it in will ever be replicated. At their peak it was either a win or draw, a loss was genuinely taken out of the options for the match. This Bayern isn't as dominant though, it is only their first season together.
2 Losses in their entire season so far, one against City when the CL groups was wrapped up and the Supercup vs Dortmund, along with a 62 GD in the Bundesliga after 25 games tells me they aren't doing too bad in the dominating part.
The most impressive thing about Bayern is that they don't have any legendary players. Unlike all teams we talk about who reached heights similar to what they are currently reaching.
United had Ronaldo, Barca had Iniesta-Xavi and Messi, Ajax had Cruff/Neeskens/Krol. Real Madrid had Puskas, Di Stefano, Gento, Kopa and Santamaria.
It means Bayern has plenty of room to improve, were they to get a legendary level'd player, but also that they are much more likely to see consistency as no player is irreplaceable.
United had Ronaldo, Barca had Iniesta-Xavi and Messi, Ajax had Cruff/Neeskens/Krol. Real Madrid had Puskas, Di Stefano, Gento, Kopa and Santamaria.
It means Bayern has plenty of room to improve, were they to get a legendary level'd player, but also that they are much more likely to see consistency as no player is irreplaceable.
Yeah, the very fact that we are having this comparison means that Bayern are nothing short of a great team, but again with them it is a lot more about getting the result while with Barca it was taking the opposition out of the game by complete domination in every part of the pitch, and the result just came automatically. It is efficiency versus excellence and as far as performances go it would always be Barca who would come up top. What they had, was years and years of training together and unparalleled coherence, something you cannot buy.
That there is the main difference for me.
The 1975-77 side was a bunch of cynical arrogant SOBs who finished in 3rd, 10th and 7th league place
Not sure what's so special about the '75 side? We finished 10th in the league and Breitner was playing in Madrid. Yeah, we defended the European Cup, but we weren't really great that season. All our top players were tired after winning 3 league titles, one European Cup, the EURO and the worldcup in the three years before that season and no one gave a feck about anything but the games in the European Cup and even those were often late winners against the run of play.
I'd argue we peaked in 72/73, our most dominant Bundesliga title in the 70's and we walked through the early stages in the European Cup, but we faced Ajax in the quarterfinals and they were clearly a level above us. Our reign in Europe started the next season after that Ajax team fell apart, when Cruyff left, and despite also winning 3 consecutive European Cups and beating the Netherlands in the world cup final, we never reached the same heights they did the 3 years before.
Our team last season was closer to that level of greatness than the team in the 70's, at least if you look past the names on the teamsheet and judge the performances.
I agree that they're not as good as barca were. I mean they just embarrassed everyone they played. Messi, xavi and iniesta would make everyone look like amateurs and they'd win possession back like terriers. Maybe bayern can do what barca couldn't and retain the champions league but at their very best, barca absolutely frightened me in terms of what they could I do whereas with bayern there's more respect without necessarily being very afraid.
Really? I don't think they embarrased Chelsea in '09, Inter in '10 and the ties against Arsenal and Real in 2011 could have gone the other way as well. I won't argue against Barca at their peak being the greater team, I completely agree with that. But they never walked through the top teams in the knockout stages like we did against Juve and Barca last season, which is where Aldo's point about efficiency comes into play.
I think this Bayern side are more than capable of retaining the cup. Barca, for all their attacking brilliance, did look beatable against a fast counter attacking side prepared to go toe-to-toe in the middle of the pitch. A good example of this was Rooney's goal at Wembley which we failed to capitalise on. Bayern, at the back, are more compact and they have Neuer in goal. I hope we don't get Bayern in the quarters because over two legs, I think they'll marmalise us. In a one-off game though, anything can happen.
If a loss was not in the equation, why did they lose on average 5 times a season?
In reality, if you want to look at actual facts, you'll see that the Bayern side of last season were much more dominant in terms of results. (They're better in everything, literally)
Barcelona, 2008-09: 42 wins, 13 draws, 7 losses, +103 goal difference (67.7% win rate)
Barcelona, 2009-10: 45 wins, 10 draws, 4 losses, +99 goal difference (76.3% win rate)
Barcelona, 2010-11: 44 wins, 11 draws, 5 losses, +111 goal difference (73.3% win rate)
Bayern, 2012-13: 46 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses, +118 goal difference (85.2% win rate)
Bayern, 2013-14: 35 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses, +94 goal difference (87.5% win rate) - ongoing
You look at historical records, and you'll see the two most dominant treble-winning sides. One is the Ajax team of 1971-72. The other is the Bayern team of 2012-13.
Bayern's current winning rate this season puts them on par with Ajax of 1971-72, but there are 20 (?) games left in the season to change that rate.
Would I take efficiency over excellence? Definitely. It's not like Bayern are playing like donkeys either. The fact that they are doing so well without real stand-out players only helps the claim that they are a more dominant "team". You ask a bunch of people who their best player has been this season, what's the most probable answer? A right back/holding midfielder?
I've seen Milan in 1992 dominate teams with less than 50% possession, because there were some sides that wouldn't dare play through the middle. And that's because you don't need tiki-taka and 700 passes to dominate opposition, or to take a loss out of the equation.
Stats out of context could be misleading. You have to take into account that La Liga is a stronger league than the Bundesliga.
And you should take into account that Barcelona's best version of the team came after winning La Liga two times in a row, whereas Bayern did it after losing the league twice in a row.
Not to mention that Bayern dominated some of Europe's best sides in the same way they dominated the likes of Freiburg and Hannover.
If I was including league form only, that would be a valid criticism. Almost a quarter of Bayern's matches came in Europe's elite competition.
Not to mention that Bayern dominated some of Europe's best sides in the same way they dominated the likes of Freiburg and Hannover.
If I was including league form only, that would be a valid criticism. Almost a quarter of Bayern's matches came in Europe's elite competition.
Was that Mourinho's team? I thought Pellegrini was in charge. Might be wrong here.
Mourinho lost his first Clásico 5-0.
Pellegrini lost 1-0 in Barcelona and 2-0 at the Bernabeu.
Ah, cheers.
You mean the one where usually it is only about 2 teams?
It is difficult to compare two teams.
They do not have "individual" brillance in a Messi or a CR7? They have 4 or 5 players that have a goal or assist every 60 to 90 minutes. Is that better than having one doing it every 50?
They have the speed dribbler in Arjen Robben, the more artist and provider in Ribery, the classic forward who can do headers in Mandzukic and the ghost in Müller. And they have Götze even if you do not really know right now what role he will find in that team.
They can form in a 4-3-3 but can change that in the match to 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 without big changes of personal.
Guardiola is trying out a lot - but he does not mind to even use two strikers when necessary or play matches with a hanging striker or switch into it.
Somehow they are still on a way this year - it is not the end product. They had key players with injuries. They can play Barcelonalike - but Jupp's or van Gaal's Bayern style are still available when needed to win matches.
And the Bundesliga is only about one team over the last 2 seasons?
It is obvious that the average level of La Liga is higher than the Bundesliga. Look at Leverkusen and Schalke, they got spanked at home in the CL.
Anyone who has eyes could see that Barcelona at their very best, say in the final vs Unted 2011 or in the 5:0 win against Mou's Real, were better than this Bayern team.
Is it? I don't think it's that definitive, and depends on what you mean by "stronger" league. Better teams overall? On average I would say the Bundesliga have a stronger top 10 this year and previous ones than La Liga; If you look at top 3 teams then La Liga would have it. If you also look at the number of title winners in the past decade for both, La Liga have had 2 the entire team being first and second bar one Valencia win ages ago, whereas the Bundesliga top 3 has been very sporadic over this period, with Bayern consistently being up there much like United have been in the past 2 decades.
So for taking into account that La Liga is a stronger league, how is it exactly in your opinion?
using CL results should not necessarily be the barometer for the strength of a league. what did you say when madrid beat tottenham 4-0? does that mean the EPL is weak? of course not