best ever first half la liga start!!

malaga is quite a team, two more times facing them in cdr

wow.
who would have tought,
18 points gap.

Barca is on a wonderful run right now,I can't see them slipping the league title to Atl Madrid or Real Madrid now.

Pinto did a Valdez mistake

Pinto did a Valdez mistake

hmm..pep to bayern, not a bad choice at all..

Yeah...hope not this true.....we should change to Adidas or Puma....I'm always envy our rival Adidas jersey....each year they produce a jersey that make me wanna buy

hmm, seems like valdes's departure is imminent. so who's gonna replace him soon? any preference guys?

Only a few names come to mind:

Ter Stegen (Moenchengladbach)
Guaita (Valencia)

There's the De Gea rumour, but it doesn't looks likely that SAF will let him go that soon.

Anoeta comeback mode.

Barca's undefeated La Liga run came to an end in a 3-2 defeat to Real Sociedad. Stupid Pique sent off due to 2 yellow cards. ZzzZz/

why suddenly surrender 2-0 lead against real socieded?

Lucky that Valdes' leaving for good.

Valdes couldn't do better. It was poor defensive performance by Mascherano and Alves. They can't stop the source of the attack.

Reina is linked this morning. Wont be surprised if he joins you loads. Barca DNA

What on earth are you on?

Valdes is the perfect keeper for us.
He saved our asses many times before.
His 1on1 is one of the best (very important criteria since we play a high line so GK will have a high chance of 1on1 situation).
His foot skills are the best. (very important for build up play and possession).

Which other keeper do you think has those 2 important qualities that is oh-so important for our team?

You want to criticize him for blunders?
Fine. But do remember that every goalkeeper commits a mistake at least a couple of times in 1 season.
Casillas, Buffon and (insert any GK in the world) included.

Poor defensive performance?
It was a poor performance from the whole team.

Please don't blame a player.
Masch - it was an own goal. You want him to try to block the shot or move away?
Alves - he was trying to cover Puyol who tried to cover Pique who tried to head the ball away, far from his position.

If anything, Puyol should be blamed for the 1st goal for the reasons I mentioned above and 3rd goal for needlessly kicking the ball out when he has time and space to play the ball.

And please do not associate match performance with one mistake.

So in your books, Messi could be having a great match, scoring 5 goals but because he had an own goal, you call it a "poor performance" (Masch)?

If you don't get it, let's put Masch into Messi.
Smasch blocked a lot of shots and won a lot of tackles and recovered a lot of balls but because of the own goal, you call it a "poor performance"?

Is this your preference or just a name you plucked out from the media?

This post has been edited by barca96: Jan 20 2013, 05:54 PM

If his 1 on 1 is so good, why couldn't he bail Barcelona out of defeat last year when Ramires and Torres both ran wild at Camp Nou?

I can barely keep count of the mistakes he made in big games - most recent El Classico games come to mind immediately.

In last year's Spanish cup, he failed to recognize the danger and received the ball with a very poor control, leading to the dispossession by Angel Di Maria and conceded a goal. In the next Classico that ended 2-2, he was beaten near post by Cristiano Ronaldo, which was not even a fast ball to begin with, terrible reflex.

An even older El Classico game, he passed the ball to Angel Di Maria (yet again) and let Benzema score within a minute, then there's the Espanyol game some time ago where the same thing happened. What keeper in the right mind will commit these mistakes in a game of such dimension? His distribution is piss poor and his failure to maintain composure when pressured has failed him from time to time.

He was massively overrated or was he overrated to begin with? Nowhere near good enough for Barca as he was only made good by the 10 men in front of him.

No point in arguing here. Valdez opt not to sign the contract extension . We thank him for his services and wish him good luck. Meanwhile, we look for a new keeper. Players come and go. Life goes on

No offense to valdes fan, i respected valdes as he is our main goal keeper, he is a good goalkeeper but not a great goalkeeper. Yes cassilas, buffon are also makes mistake but most of the tym they guard their goal well. Valdes is kinda like barthez, he can be great one match, but terrible in d another.

This season tito playstyle make alot of goals for us but also leave rooms for opponent to counter attack. Judging how many goals we conceded this season, it is clear that valdes wasnt that great. Previous season under pep, we played much more tiki taka n hold the possesion of the ball better than this year, n during that tym valdes really dont need to do anything, but wit tito play style, he is exposed to more attack from the opponent strikers. N he proved himself by just being a good keeper but not great.

Btw i kinda frustrated with this lost as i was hoping we win the la liga title undefeated like juve did lst season. But past is past, hope we perform better nex match, this match luck wasnt on our side. We could hav score at least 4 goals during the first half n win the match. But too bad, n with pique red card, i knew we will lost n we did.

Ter Stegen is currently the preferred choice among the members of a Barca forum that I joined. Due to my lack of knowledge of Bundesliga, I am not sure how good is he.

Guaita is my individual preference, due to his La Liga experience and also the players we signed from Valencia tend to do well.

The one with the media speculation is De Gea.