SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO: THE ERNESTO VALVERDE SITUATION & THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE OF CARDS EMPIRE PT. II (OF II)

PT II OF II

While Messi may "like" Valverde now. he won't if his manager's bizarre tactics cost Barca another UCL title

          Valverde is a complete coward. He cowers from the media, he is afraid of their probing questions and so he makes sure there are none: he gives us all a 2-0 bland victory where he forces his team to hunker into a shell like a frightened turtle after a rampant first half, instead of being the team with a 2 goal lead, the team with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez alongside Coutinho and Dembele...the club with a history that still plays out to this day on pitches all over the world from Manchester to Dortmund as managers and entire clubs alike look to our model, our beliefs, our philosophies in futbol and how we should be represented to the world and rip us off, becoming more like us...than we are.
         Instead, we opt for Wolverhampton-esque tactics (Wolverhampton have shown more bravery than Valverde this season, though) and play beneath ourselves, which only allows the opposition to grow stronger as the match goes on, something we've seen in the second leg against PSV in the group stage: we took a 2 goal lead and then proceeded to allow PSV to bombard our goal with shot after shot, our defense scattered and listless without the ball for so long...possession was almost completely bypassed and given over to PSV as Valverde hung on to his falling, shit and piss stained pants.
         We did the same against Celta Vigo, the last match out, a squad that had just lost Iago Aspas to a first half injury and wasn't even fielding their most dangerous, aggressive players.

         The talk of 80% of Barcelona Socis voting for Valverde to stay in an official FC Barcelona poll and rubbish Spanish media saying Messi is "wanting Valverde to extend his contract" (which was printed on December 28th, Spanish April Fool's Day, so ya know) is all a part of the smart Bartomeu plan to install his puppet as manager for a long time to come. Bartomeu is skilled at the arts of manipulation and power-humping: we saw him dismiss an entire transfer ban saga (caused by his best friend and former Barca president, Sandro Rosell) as if it were a bothersome mosquito in 2014, we've seen him act like Augusti Benedito's Vote For No Confidence campaign in 2017 wasn't happening to the point that most Barcelona Socis didn't even know it was occurring until the 11th hour of the campaign.
           Most, if not all of the Socis (who've become placated, elitist and bored of our success to the point they can barely fill the stands or get on their feet for a jaw-dropping Messi goal), also came to believe Benedito was a man of more insanity and an intensively more ghoulish character than Bartomeu.
              The man himself, the presidente, has been treated like a Barcelona god as of late, with everyone seemingly forgetting his horrific decisions and that of his board's with each big money signing, with each Messi goal, with every Barcelona success on the field, we all forget what unsustainable garbage is being perpetrated at the top.
          Just remember: most of these horrendous decisions from Ernesto Valverde aren't his own....he knows who he works for and so does anyone else paying attention...he does the master's bidding, sabotaging our club against Roma in the Champions League with a 4-1 first leg lead, playing this boring brand of score a few and then defend futbol, playing the same players over and over and over and over again while ignoring a La Masia academy chock full of blistering talent from Riqui Puig (an absolutely supernatural midfield talent who's shown brightly for the senior team, the one time he's played) Jose Arnaiz (who scored every time he played for Barca's senior team), center backs Jorge Cuenca and Chumi, Eibar loanee who ripped Real Madrid apart Marc Cucurella a player who's waited patiently for half of a decade now to play in relief of Jordi Alba, Juan Miranda; Oriol Busquets who, if we actually played him, could be the next Busquets; Carles Alena who finally was shoved into the squad thanks to Eric Abidal's pestering of Valverde to do it...etc upon etc....

When Barcelona were embarrassed and humiliated  in a 3-0 loss to Roma...after they led with a 4-1 1st leg lead and go out on the away goals rule 4-4. Due to a completely conservative 4-4-2 formation lineup from Ernesto Valverde, his obsession with non-rotation to the extent of injury or complete fatigue and his ignorance of Ousmane Dembele all setting the stage for a titanic collapse.

         Anyone suggesting these decisions are all up to Valverde are ridiculous...where is his power? Where is his control? He hasn't been given any rights or reservations as to anything outside of the team sheet and even that may be in dire question, such is its rigidity and bona fide lack of creativity when it comes to rotating a modern day, top tier futbol club's squad.
         Will Barca look back at this Samuel Umtiti injury and the Roma Champions League catastrophe from last year and say "what did we do? Why did we fuck this up?" when wondering why and how in god's name they've already wasted five or six prime Messi years to win the Champions League, but no, now they've thrown away two or three more...with a fourth season without a UCL title being on the cards without someone like Samuel Umtiti in the lineup.
           Can Clement Lenglet or new signing  Jeison Murillo (a pretty good and forgotten talent) hold down the fort and support Pique so the potential future Barca president doesn't have to run around in circles in his own box, putting fires out left and right while also receiving all of the blame for any goals allowed?

           Can they be Pique's speed-freak buddy to his left, just the role Umtiti filled? A role that helps  Pique drop deeper to survey and anticipate, while Umtiti presses and runs slightly forward, engaging and attacking defenders while the ball is in the air.
           Can Lenglet or Murillo do that efficiently and effectively?
           Can Barcelona even get passed a young, energetic and blitzkrieg type attacking team like Lyon without Umtiti? Or can Thomas Vermaelen do it when he gets back from injury, too? He was dominant with Pique over a twelve match unbeaten run that saw Vermaelen integral to a 3-0 demolition of Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.
           I hope so but as a Barca fan, you would have to be worried. With 4 straight clean sheets in our last 4 La Liga matches, we've begun to stop leaking the goals, all at the sacrifice of the ball, with second halves becoming time where Barcelona (with a 1-3 goal lead) just gives the team the ball and backs off (unless Messi wants the ball).
           Based on the strength of our all-world class midfield options, we shouldn't be out-passed and out-possessed by Celta Vigo without Sofiane Boufal and Iago Aspas for an entire second half....but there it was, the last match of 2018 and Barcelona are only making 74 more passes than Celta, only 51.5% possession to a team without a forward....with Messi, Suarez, Dembele all on the pitch...maybe it was due to Valverde substituting Dembele incredibly for Coutinho, which made absolutely zero sense when Ivan Rakitic looked like he just gave Rod Stewart a ten hour blow job (1 key pass, 59 total passes, 1 dribble out of 1 attempt, 1 tackle out of 1 attempt and even had 5 interceptions, such was Celta's idiocy on the ball) and should've been removed from the match in favor of Philippe Coutinho, letting MSDC actually take the pitch together for the first time in quite a while.
          But no....we have a manager who doesn't give a shit about what makes sense.
          It's about what Bartomeu, his boss wants.
          If we see this Barcelona team dominate and win the treble as they should this season, it will only be in spite of Ernesto Valverde and Josep Maria Bartomeu. It will only occur due to the magical powers of Lionel Messi, the earnest and hardworking savagery of Luis Suarez, the alien-esque dribbling, creative and goalscoring force of Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho, the hardcore defending of Gerard Pique, the always dependable, always ready Busquets, the tireless Jordi Alba racing up the left wing with a cutback ball, the riotous goal-saving antics and jaw-dropping distribution of Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. This team should be the greatest Barcelona squad we've ever seen, such is the otherworldly talent on display. We've seen flashes of it, whether it be the midfield dominance of Arthur and Busquets vs Tottenham and Real Madrid, the delicious combination play of Messi, Alba, Suarez and Dembele, or the outrageous goalkeeping heroics of Ter Stegen, this team is top to bottom, at its peak potential, the best team on the planet. And if they win it all, which they should if they can get the pieces together and if Valverde will either get out or get out of the way, it will be because Semedo is a fixed right back, our team is fresh and rotated, players aren't being forcibly started with injuries and young, exuberant talent isn't being neglected.
     

         But while I'm trying my hardest to withstand the rot of a negative state, the truth hurts and it always reveals: I wouldn't be surprised if through horrific substitutions, poor formations and the wrong starting XIs, players not being rotated to the point of injuries and Bartomeu's constant and consistent meddling costs us another Champions League title.
         To hell with La Liga, we have allowed a shitty Real Madrid team to dominate in the UCL for the last five years....something that (as a Barcelona fan, during the Messi era) will be hard to ever even fathom, let alone get over.
          This isn't even the total issue, most of Valverde's actual rotations hurt the team, including killing players who are on huge streaks or highs in form and sending them to the bench without explanation or any indication of injury or dip in form, all in the name of formulating formations and XIs to the opposition: completely tailored to the strengths of the opponent. And if he gets it right, he still screws it up with inane substitutions that hand the momentum and the trajectory of the match back to the opposition. We've seen this time and time again...
          We must set this straight. We must get this right.

          And for that reason, if I was Barcelona president, I would've never made this appointment. Valverde was all wrong for Barcelona from the get-go, we needed a Setien, a Lucien Favre....a manager with a calm, measured demeanor off of the pitch, with an intense, involved and labored personality on the touch-line, while demanding aggression, speed and possession at all times on the pitch. We needed someone who could manage egos and characters in the dressing room, not to be afraid of them.
         We need a manager who says "alright, we're Barcelona, we're going to go out there and run riot, we're not playing scared today, we're going to dominate the ball from second one to the last...we're going to play our best players in the biggest matches, we're going to use our youth academy and our great fringe players across the entire season so that when we need them, they are ready. We are Barcelona, we are afraid of no team! We are going to say 'fuck you' to a Barca president who demands us to be Real Madrid II,"..... a president in Bartomeu who has only ever sabotaged Messi's career and has been critical of Pique's quest off of the pitch for Barcelona control and a restoration back to our core values.
          Sadly, Valverde would never say that...he can't even pretend to believe in half of that...
          I feel as if Valverde's every decision is guided by Bartomeu's hands:
          Pique is questioning the direction of the club?
          Okay, well.... play him, even when he's injured, so the world won't think of him as a great defender anymore, they'll see a washed up, hardly able to move old man flying around his own penalty box. Twitter will go nuts...
          I mean hell, this is a president who leaks stories about Dembele being sick, or two hours late for training to the media, only a day after being a club hero. Luckily, Dembele's mental toughness has shouldered this idiocy away, as we know for a fact Bartomeu was trying to shove Ousmane out of the club with these antics. A club as powerful, as big as Barcelona would never leak information like this about a player...unless it was decided by the president at the time. And for me, I've never heard of a Barcelona president doing this...especially to a player of Dembele's class and character. But this isn't your typical futbol club president....
          I can see this right now...and we don't even have to be that conspiratorial for it to make sense. This isn't a reach.  I've paid attention to the creepiness at our club for the last five or six years: a complete move to elitist values and wealth, power and corporate dominion over anything else; illegal activities involving transfers (the Neymar transfer was definitely illegal, as some of the money wasn't reported and was then used for Sandro Rosell's personal projects; but what was worse? The purchase of Brazilian right back Douglas, a player who never would've seen a futbol pitch in European futbol if it weren't for his father's Brazilian oil and drug cartel dealings)....something that Barcelona was not only wading in under the cocaine-fueled guidance of Sandro Rosell and his right hand man, current president Josep Maria Bartomeu: Barcelona was complicit.

        So, as the second half of the season beckons in January, we sit back and analyze where we are, what we've done, what we could do better and all I see is a team full of the absolute best, even at the back where without Umtiti we've been struggling; we still have Clement Lenglet,


one of the best La Liga defenders last year and someone totally deserving of a French call-up, and a defender that while looking suspect at his still tender age, has also looked frighteningly brilliant on the ball, in the air and in the tackle (see our first match against Tottenham for his greatness and last match against Tottenham for his worst), we have Arthur

in midfield who's become a colossus and a player we desperately could've used last campaign had we not sat back and let Robert Fernandez, Pep Segura and Bartomeu sit there and play with Jean Michael Seri's emotions and not only fail to sign him, but go back on a promise made personally to him at the 11th hour (Seri was just wanting to go to his dream club...this betrayal, this backing out of a promise was one of the grossest scenes in this presidency's rotting existence and emblematic of the dishonesty rooted at its core), making the Arthur signing not only paramount, but a demand.
           Instead of securing an all important, beneficial and valuable midfielder to go alongside Andres Iniesta for the Duke's final season, the administration signed Paulinho from Chinese club Guanghzou Evergrande...a completely washed-up player from both Brazil's disappointing international set-up and a Tottenham bust who disturbed the Barcelona way (the rhythm of the passing / the build-up play) by having goalscoring success, ushering in the thick manager Valverde to start him sometimes over Iniesta, too.
            We only finally signed Arthur Melo once a gun was seemingly held against the board's head and Eric Abidal came in to become the new sporting director, bringing some defiance, fantastic charisma and wisdom with it. Let's just say, he signed Arthur immediately and look what's happened.

Both Dembele (left) and Roberto (right) have been superb for Barcelona, despite Valverde not playing them (Dembele), being injured (Roberto), or being played out of position (Roberto).

        We've also seen  Ousmane Dembele silence the hatred, the lies and the sabotage pointed his way by the horrific Spanish media (tipped off by Bartomeu and co. of course), we've got Gerard Pique, Sergi Busquets, Jordi Alba and Sergio Roberto giving their all for their club, putting their bodies on the line time and time again, putting on absolute masterclass displays with their passing, goalscoring and assists and creativity (yes, we're including both Busquets and Pique in that part of the equation, too).
         And while the still recovering Coutinho hasn't flown to the heights he would demand and expect of himself, he's still scored 5 goals, dished 4 sick assists including 3 in the UCL (the best one was THIS ONE BELOW:) and Phil has also hit the post 4 times, too.

             And of course, there's Lionel Messi: the diamond in the rough...the jewel at the cue of midnight...the deputy who shot the sheriff..the trial by which fire failed...hell hath no quarrel with this man...yet it seems the world still doesn't get what a player they've got on their hands...and that's desperately sad and thanks to the triviality of Messi's club by his club's board and president. Bartomeu and Valverde still don't get what a talent he is and how undeserving those two are to be managing and presiding over him. Messi should be the president, the manager and captain.....he is Barcelona....and it doesn't matter what Bartomeu or Valverde do, Messi will always deliver. But every great player needed help and without that surrounding help come March, April and May, Barcelona will find themselves without another UCL title and what a shame that would be.

          And the shame would be all Bartomeu's and Valverde's.
          Though the people who would lose the most is us, the fans....