We beat a team with Salah, a team with Draxler and a team with De Bruyne, Aguero, Fernandinho, Silva and Kompany on our way to the final, where we bear the team that beat youse
It was a veritable murderer's row!
And a harsh red card for torres, and suarez having a moment and trying to pull Pepe's Casquero move and the refs either not seeing or ignoring it...
What does it say, that you could be in that position while having 3 of the 4 best players on the planet?
And the 4-0 against PSG?
They run over you. Tactics might have been wrong but the issue was one of energy and intensity
That never happened. In fact, without hilarious amounts of sheer dumb luck you might have lost thay game outright, too
Similar story, they run you down and you couldn't cope. At least in this one Messi showed up am created a couple big chances to put the tie away
But again, it was a similar story in the first leg. Copious amounts of luck and Messi got you an undeserved lead. Similar to the Roma tie. Also the big difference with 16/17 was the order of games was reversed
You got mullered by Wolfsburg who are nobodies at Euro level, who then utterly bottled the second leg. Roma are nobodies at Euro level, and by the time you played Man City Pellegrini had lost the plot and knew he was out the door. When we played them the previous year it was earlier and they were the reigning champions of England Then you did indeed beat the world's most famous "Bottle it against Madrid" team, fresh from the 2014 blunder of leaving the back post undefended at a corner, this time ask a centre back instead of a forward to take a penalty and shocker he is the one to miss. Over the course of that season Barca won 4 trophies and won the Clasico head to head comfortably. There's zero doubt in my mind who the better team was that season.
It says that the managers are important, which is the overriding point of this conversation RE Valverde's inability to get the best from the Barca squad and relying on Messi to do everything. Enrique's performances were slowly sliding downwards. But the PSG tie we won, so it's hard to be too harsh with the first leg. Yes, it was a million to one comeback, but it was also extremely rare at that time to lose 4-0 the first time as well. Plus, like I said in 2017 the team wasn't as good, Madrid were better. I believe the first time they have won the league and the CL together in the modern era.
I agree the intensity wasn't there, but again who is in charge of that? Who motivates the players? Who gets them in the right frame of mind to bust a gut, chase every ball, track runners in the 85th minute or whatever?
As for the first leg, we won 4-1 bro. More shots, more possession. Yes, it might have been unfair in the eyes of Roma, but we still had a 3 goal lead, which was the point.
It's largely due to Messi that Barca have kept winning trophies, because Valverde isn't getting the best out of the squad and, like Enrique indeed, there is a visual downward charting in terms of outcomes.
