Barcelona under Xavi

[Pirlo]

I always enjoy the inference that guys like Messi, Iniesta and Xavi could find it tough to play their tippy tappy football against the hammer throwers of the SPFL.

They played Dundee Utd in a friendly in Guardiola’s first season and they hardly got a touch of the ball, got hammered about 5-0. You can’t crunch players you can’t get near them. Mind of of United’s players said there was one moment he was really confident of nicking the ball off Messi but by the time he’d put his foot in he was already round him and away

 

[WalterSmith72]

Technique and awareness need to be drilled into players at an early age, if you are 25 and you still cannot play the ball in tight spaces and think 3 passes ahead you are never going to be able to do it.

This has to be trained from an early age. Most of those players come through the Barca academy or have come very very good academies or just worked harder than everyone else to get to that level.

We could start training our youth teams to play like that and hopefully they get it but our current players, if they can't do it already there really isn't much hope for them.

I’m not sure that’s 100% as traore was never that type of player and he fits into the team well

But I’d agree like 90% of the team has to be like that