Gerard Pique : nobody can stop us , We are unbeatable

[Real Madrid]

Barcelona defender Gerard Pique has stated his belief that no team can beat the Champions League holders as long as they play their own game.

The Catalans recorded a 2-1 away win over arch-rivals Real Madrid on Wednesday evening in the first leg of Copa del Rey's quarter-finals, and the former Manchester United man is of the opinion that this has given Barca a big confidence boost.




http://www.fcbarcelona.com/football...ique-when-we-are-ourselves-nobody-can-stop-us

 

[saeed agha]

Can't argue with that until proven otherwise. This era is barca 's era and the rivals should wait their turn but no one knows when it would come

 

[ME]

there is no "We". Its Messi.

Can't stand the average filler.

 

[Pooya]

there is no "We". Its Messi.

Can't stand the average filler.

ME, can you please explain why Spain after 44 years won Euro and World cup?

Thanks,

 

[ME]

ME, can you please explain why Spain after 44 years won Euro and World cup?

Thanks,

I am not exactly sure. I am guessing your working theory is Barca as the prime reason and I partially agree with it. They certainly found the elexir but there are some counterarguments as well:
- France and Italy had the same sort of success in recent years.
- Spain is not entirely based on Barca. Other teams, particularly Madrid have a big share in success.
- Barca has been a great team in Europe for as long as I can remember. The same applies to Madrid. But this did not translate into success at the national level until recently.
- This has applied to other leagues too. AC Milan's supreme status in 90s did not give Italy unchallenged victories. English giants contributed almost zero to their natonal team in 70s and later on.

So, my best guess is this is probably multifactorial. That Spanish Fed found a way to manage its team better or its their current national coach who is doing it? or the ultimate Rivalry between Madrid and Barca has gone way unreachable while making it virtually much easier to combine the best of the two teams to make a national team.

I really don't know

 

[Pooya]

I am not exactly sure. I am guessing your working theory is Barca as the prime reason and I partially agree with it. They certainly found the elexir but there are some counterarguments as well:
- France and Italy had the same sort of success in recent years.
- Spain is not entirely based on Barca. Other teams, particularly Madrid have a big share in success.

Lets look at the World Cup 2010 final game starting line up for spain

Line-up
[1] Iker CASILLAS (GK)(C) - Real Madrid
[3] Gerard PIQUE - Barcelona
[5] Carles PUYOL - Barcelona
[6] Andres INIESTA - Barcelona
[7] David VILLA - Barcelona
[8] XAVI - Barcelona
[11] Joan CAPDEVILA - Benfica
[14] XABI ALONSO - Real Madrid
[15] SERGIO RAMOS - Real madrid
[16] Sergio BUSQUETS - Barcelona
[18] PEDRO - Barcelona

7 out of 11 from Barca (64% of the team) , 3 from Real Madrid (27%) and only 1 from other.

in the game Del Bosque made 3 subs one being Cesc who also plays for Barca now and other 2 Torres who is in chelsea and Navas who is in Sevilla. so in total 8 Barca players played in Final of fifa world cup while only 3 Real players did.

I hardly dont think France and Italy had similar dominance when they did it and when did Italy win Euro and World cup back to back? Italy won Euro once only in 1968 ! please correct me if i am wrong ! as you can see Spain success started around the exact same time barca picked up ! so it is VERY unfair to say they are all about Messi , yes Messi does give them the edge, yes i do believe they would NOT dominate like they are today if Messi wasnt playing for them but hey HE IS the best player in the world anything else would be odd. without Messi they would still be the top team in the world but for example i think instead of winning 3 CL they would win 2... u see what i mean?

- Barca has been a great team in Europe for as long as I can remember. The same applies to Madrid. But this did not translate into success at the national level until recently.

Barca has been a good team, but always remember they won their first Champions league in 1992 ! and then nothing until 2006 so Barca really have not had success like this ever until this group of player got together.

- This has applied to other leagues too. AC Milan's supreme status in 90s did not give Italy unchallenged victories. English giants contributed almost zero to their natonal team in 70s and later on.

Again i ask you to check how many of those in golden milan were ITALIANS ? also which English club today or back then had more than 8 players in National team?

Bottom line is, yes Messi is amazing, yes he is truly the best yet Barca success is NOT "ALL" about him. they have a great TEAM.

 

[byebyenow]

Spain won because of their midfield which was based on Barca players mostly. However France won WC and Euro Cup back to back also.
Since I like Italy Im ganna say this, Italy has been the team that lost in penalties to both spain and France when the won EC and WC each. It was also Italy who lost to France in final.
Milan attack was not Italian base but the midfield and defense was and they were the heart of Azzuri, they were the best team in 90 but unlucky against Maradona and Argentina in Semifinal which they lost in Penalties. In 94 they also made the final lost in Penalties to Romario and Brazil. Just saying...
This has nothing to do with this subject but Im ganna let it out and say Italy lost to Argentina, Barzil and France in penalties and then to S.Korea due to garbage refree. All of the sudden everyone cried over Italy winning in 2006 that Italy didnt deserve it and on...

 

[ME]

Lets look at the World Cup 2010 final game starting line up for spain

Line-up
[1] Iker CASILLAS (GK)(C) - Real Madrid
[3] Gerard PIQUE - Barcelona
[5] Carles PUYOL - Barcelona
[6] Andres INIESTA - Barcelona
[7] David VILLA - Barcelona
[8] XAVI - Barcelona
[11] Joan CAPDEVILA - Benfica
[14] XABI ALONSO - Real Madrid
[15] SERGIO RAMOS - Real madrid
[16] Sergio BUSQUETS - Barcelona
[18] PEDRO - Barcelona

7 out of 11 from Barca (64% of the team) , 3 from Real Madrid (27%) and only 1 from other.

in the game Del Bosque made 3 subs one being Cesc who also plays for Barca now and other 2 Torres who is in chelsea and Navas who is in Sevilla. so in total 8 Barca players played in Final of fifa world cup while only 3 Real players did.

I hardly dont think France and Italy had similar dominance when they did it and when did Italy win Euro and World cup back to back? Italy won Euro once only in 1968 ! please correct me if i am wrong ! as you can see Spain success started around the exact same time barca picked up ! so it is VERY unfair to say they are all about Messi , yes Messi does give them the edge, yes i do believe they would NOT dominate like they are today if Messi wasnt playing for them but hey HE IS the best player in the world anything else would be odd. without Messi they would still be the top team in the world but for example i think instead of winning 3 CL they would win 2... u see what i mean?


Barca has been a good team, but always remember they won their first Champions league in 1992 ! and then nothing until 2006 so Barca really have not had success like this ever until this group of player got together.



Again i ask you to check how many of those in golden milan were ITALIANS ? also which English club today or back then had more than 8 players in National team?

Bottom line is, yes Messi is amazing, yes he is truly the best yet Barca success is NOT "ALL" about him. they have a great TEAM.

Villa was a Valencia player then and of course everyone knows that Fabregas was not a Barca palyer during the WC. Nonetheless I agree with you that the backbone of Spanish team was from Barca. Yet, this doesn't support your theory strongly. Almost before, Spain was made of over 50% Barca or Madrid players, one was Spanish champion, and they were a both a European top 5 for as long as I remember. while they barely had any national success.
I also disagree with you that Barca is a newborn in the world football. Their lack of wining champions league was famous as a jinx despite their power. They always were and will be a top football powerhouse. Also after some periods of success, how many years it has been that Ajax, Juve, ManU, Bayern did not win champions league? does this make them ordinary?
Also, IMO, Spain won the WC based on superior defense, while their Barca stars are offensive midfielders. They only scored 8 goals in the whole tourney and conceded 2, the lowest records ever for a winner.

Bottomline is that Pique is ok, but he is not even close to players like Antonio Maceda, Hierro, or even Pep who played when Spain did not win anything in Europe or the world. We should search for success formula elsewhere.

 

[byebyenow]

I do agree that Barca since Ive been watching football has been the powerhouse. In late 90s they won the CWC with Figo and Ronaldo and later on very strong team with Rivaldo and Figo for while. But never been dominating like they do right now.
Spain in WC played possession football have the ball in midfield most of the time. Their best defense wasnt their defense actually, it was their midfield.

 

[Pooya]

Villa was a Valencia player then and of course everyone knows that Fabregas was not a Barca palyer during the WC. Nonetheless I agree with you that the backbone of Spanish team was from Barca. Yet, this doesn't support your theory strongly. Almost before, Spain was made of over 50% Barca or Madrid players, one was Spanish champion, and they were a both a European top 5 for as long as I remember. while they barely had any national success.
I also disagree with you that Barca is a newborn in the world football. Their lack of wining champions league was famous as a jinx despite their power. They always were and will be a top football powerhouse. Also after some periods of success, how many years it has been that Ajax, Juve, ManU, Bayern did not win champions league? does this make them ordinary?
Also, IMO, Spain won the WC based on superior defense, while their Barca stars are offensive midfielders. They only scored 8 goals in the whole tourney and conceded 2, the lowest records ever for a winner.

Bottomline is that Pique is ok, but he is not even close to players like Antonio Maceda, Hierro, or even Pep who played when Spain did not win anything in Europe or the world. We should search for success formula elsewhere.

I never said Barca was an ORDINARY team ! i said they were good but the success came when Spain started winning ! Villa was not a barca player THEN but he is now, so is Cesc so more reason why they are great TEAM , they got great players,

again i provided you exact FACT you keep saying spain was made of over 50% barca or Madrid players, care to share which year?

also you saying football works on JINX now? seriously? hmmm perhaps they should have contacted Ayatollah Behjat then!!!

Thanks,

 

[Pooya]

I do agree that Barca since Ive been watching football has been the powerhouse. In late 90s they won the CWC with Figo and Ronaldo and later on very strong team with Rivaldo and Figo for while. But never been dominating like they do right now.
Spain in WC played possession football have the ball in midfield most of the time. Their best defense wasnt their defense actually, it was their midfield.

and who is in spain midfield ?

 

[byebyenow]

Like I said in the post before my last post in this thread, Spain midfield was mostly Barca players. They like to play possession football that keep the ball for long time and how they do their best defending by keeping the ball in opponent half as much as possible so the other team wouldnt have good chances near spain goal.

 

[Mahdi]

- Spain is not entirely based on Barca. Other teams, particularly Madrid have a big share in success.

LOL!

 

[ME]

I didn't say I believed in a jinx, I just reminded you the famous saying to provide you the prespective of Barca's strength despite the lack of chamions league title. It is the same way that the Netherlands never won a WC, but does it really surprise you if they win one?

For Barca's contribution to Spanish team just wiki "spain world cup 2010 squad" and simply change the year to go as far back you wish.

I think you are using a flawed argument to difine cause vs. effect. The association between Spain peaking and Barca peaking is a no brainer, but this does not tell you anything about causation. Barca had many peaks before and so did Madrid while these two teams for as long as I remember were the skeleton of Spanish team. The substrate was always there but it was not enough.

Now I might spend whole day and push for my disbelief in your methodology, but at the end of the day, this is not really the question of our discussion anyway. The real question is whether Pique is irreplacable for Barca or not (the same way that Messi and probably two other players are)? My answer is he is fairly easily replacable, but obviously we might have a difference in opinion.

 

[brando]

Barca has been a good team, but always remember they won their first Champions league in 1992 ! and then nothing until 2006 so Barca really have not had success like this ever until this group of player got together.

After the defeat to Ac milan in CL final in 94, one great man said:
"We will be back. but this time back for good, with a whole generation of quality players."
That gap you are mentioning is reasonable for a next generation to be schooled.
As promissed it happend.
The product of that football school are so many, their among:

Fontas, Cuenca, Thiago, Roberto, Dos santos, Romeo, Rafinha, Deulofeu, Pedro, Bojan, Messi,
Pique, Sergio, Cesc, Valdes, Iniesta, xavi, Puyol, even Louis enrique and Guardiola.

Hmm.... i'm sure I still missed a dusin of names.
This generation not only dominate the Club world, but they also dominate the International world.
Thanx to only one man and his vision.

ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:ray:

​

 

[ME]

Sooner or later Messi will sustain an injury keeping him like 2 months away. I guess then we will have the true answer that who is great and who is not. Until then, it is so easy to jump on the bandwagon and declare yourself as the world's greatest.

 

[Real Madrid]