He could walk into any starting XI in the world except the team he’s on now. Yes, Bale has some ridiculous strengths, mostly speed and jumping high. But when he’s not racing past Marc Bartra on a breakaway or jumping over dudes for a header, the ball gets passed to him and he has no idea what to do with it. Every…

It’s not his attitude or his face. I wasn’t impressed by his inability to score, pass, or play defense. It’s like the guy who was a stalwart in Atleti’s midfield for years got to Barcelona and decided to just coast.

Except for the part where you said Arda.

Point taken. Bellerin has done fine at Arsenal, but he’s never had to show the kind of dribbling and interchange play that Dani Alves had locked down for years. We all assume because he started at La Masia that he would step right into the Barca first team and link up with Messi, but that’s a big assumption.

Don’t forget about Thiago and Bellerin. If the current team had those two players, it would stack up against any team top to bottom. (Assuming they would be the same players they are now if they had stayed in Barca’s orbit of loans and buyback sales). If you consider those two players, La Masia is still doing pretty…

I agree with most of what you’ve said above except for this about the academy. The academy has been mismanaged for a while but still produces pretty good players. La Masia is suffering from the problem of having a golden generation of talent blocking new talent from getting real first team experience and a manager…

The fans are upset. And rightly so. Neymar is not only one of the top 5 attacking players in the world now, he was going to be the marketing and sporting star of Barcelona’s whole operation for the next 5 years.

That’s an interesting theory since Neymar doesn’t have any loyalty to these Euro clubs. He doesn’t have any real loyalty to Barca, and he really won’t after the Cules show their hatred to him when PSG and Barca are matched up in this year’s CL quarterfinals again.

This player can make this team a CL contender. They already were last year, although that was obscured by on game in which 1) the officials may have been bought off; 2) the coach’s strategy was so bad he maybe should have been fired at halftime; and 3) Neymar turned in a performance for the ages for the other team.

“Hard to blame him. Defense is tiring. Scoring goals is fun!”

Also, from a sporting perspective, he may have single-handedly made PSG favorites (or close to it) to win the CL next year. They absolutely destroyed Barca last year in the first leg, looking much more athletic and feisty. If they hadn’t decided to stop playing offense in the second leg, they would have sealed the…

Or how shrewd Neymar is. As BlindDude points out above, why should Neymar be loyal to Barca? He’s Brazilian and wasn’t raised in their system. They’ve been great to him, sure, but so what? He’s paid them back with a CL title and world-class play for 4 years.

All fine points.

I wouldn’t say that. Neymar was forced to track back quite a bit since Messi does absolutely nothing on defense. I wonder if part of Neymar’s desire to leave is so that he can be the one who doesn’t do anything in defense and just waits for service in the attacking half. If so, he has learned from the best.

Side issue: isn’t Gottlieb from Orange County, California?

Except for the fact that Messi is 30 and Neymar is 24. Messi will continue to be great for a while, but it is going to become apparent in the next year or two that he’s in decline and Neymar will be in his prime for the next five years. When Neymar is 26 and Messi and Suarez are 32, it’s going to be clear whose club…

You answered your own question: Gold Cup.

“He cares about getting his way. There is no higher principle.”

Everybody talks about Alvaro Morata like he is a superstar. Are we sure he’s good? He scored 15 goals for Juventus in two seasons and never became the first-choice striker. He scored 15 for a potent Real Madrid attack last year, but never threatened Benzema as first-choice. So now he’s worth 70m euros?

I remember prime Jason Kidd and the Lonzo comparisons are not that off. Kidd was more aggressive than Lonzo is, but Lonzo will surprise you with his athleticism. I think his NBA career will depend on his shot. When his outside shot is falling, he can destroy guys (I know, that’s true of almost anyone). At UCLA he…