18 Sep 2013: FC Barcelona - Ajax

[Ayman]

Im watching the milan vs celtic game. Milan are poor but celtic must take their chances

[Ayman]

Shit its 2-0 messi again

[afcajax73]

Im watching the milan vs celtic game. Milan are poor but celtic must take their chances

celtic are a real tough team to play, they get so fired up from their fans. just look at what they did to barca over both legs last year.

[afcajax73]

3-0

[afcajax73]

4-0 :(:(

[Tom_]

Poulsen, eh?

[ofey]

We got done tonight.
No question.

I wonder why we started Duarte though.

[Van basten]

Reality check received.

[King Litti]

best player maybe van rhijn. Took care of Neymar and pedro. Serero was just a waste of space.

[Orange14]

The talent and experience differential is just too great. Team had a decent first half but could not sustain any type of consistent play in the second. First three Barca goals were of individual brilliance (Neymar's cross to Pique is the stuff wet dreams are made of). Fourth came off a bad give away deep inside the Ajax half. Sigthorrson's PK was especially weak and Valdes had a couple of tough saves to make to keep the clean sheet (Boilesen and Bojan). Next up is Milan who are up 2-0 against Celtic despite having lots of starters out injured. Can't fault FdB's strategy for this match but he doesn't have the players who can do it at this level.

Player ratings:

Vermeer (5.5) - really couldn't do much on any of the goals; his kicking was quite poor
Blind (5.5) - no chance to go forward and was OK on defense
Denswill (6) - decent enough but showed his inexperience and lack of strength on the Pique goal
Moisander (5.5) - could have easily been sent off after picking up the Yellow early on, lucky to get away with the push on Neymar in the box
van Rhijn (6) - given the wingers he had to face he did a decent enough job and saved one sure goal, too bad his header was saved
Poulsen (4.5) - too slow for this opponent and gave the ball away cheaply; good that he was looking to make forward passes
Duarte (5.5) - decent enough for his first CL match, had a chance on goal but was easily saved
de Jong (5.5) - had very few touches before coming off, no opportunities on free kicks (which were few and far between)
Boilesen (6) - rocket shot nicely saved near the end of the match; decent enough match
Bojan (6.5) - best offensive player; recognized van Rhijn and took a nice shot at goal near the end; he's better in the middle than on the wing
Sigthorrson (5) - poor penalty kick but did show some strength on the ball
Serrero (5.5) - decent coming on for de Jong and drew the penalty with a nice move
Schöne (5) - on for Blind but little involvement
van der Hoorn (6) - gets a better than average rating for standing strong in the wall on Messi's free kick

Off to Eindhoven on Sunday. I think the team will quickly put this one behind them. The lack of offense in the league is quite worrisome at this point and de Jong is not back to full fitness. We'll see what happens.

[Cruijff]

Im watching the milan vs celtic game. Milan are poor but celtic must take their chances

celtic are a real tough team to play, they get so fired up from their fans. just look at what they did to barca over both legs last year.

It's not only that they get fired up from their fans. Because to be honest, last season they played a much better game at Camp Nou against Barcelona than they did during their 2-1 win on Celtic Park...

[SPL]

I was quite happy at HT as Messi's free kick would have beaten any team in the world. The 2nd was down to not marking Messi , where were either of the 2 left backs as neither came back and Denswil should have picked him up he left him unmarked until it was too late . The 3rd was down to Denswil's inexperience in keeping them on side. The last we just let him have too much space to take a shot . Probably being hard on us but the better teams would never have let in those last 3 goals. I would have played Fischer and was surprised that Boilesen was in effect left winger but he is going to be a better left back than Blind.

Not many teams win at Nou Camp and the better teams only manage a draw so I am being a bit hard on us.

[saddlerian]

I was quite happy at HT as Messi's free kick would have beaten any team in the world.
Not many teams win at Nou Camp and the better teams only manage a draw so I am being a bit hard on us.

OK, not many teams win at the Nou Camp, but that was when Barcelona WERE Barcelona! This team aren't a patch on the quick passing team of Guardiola's reign....in fact their passing last night was poor. Yes, happyish at HT, but very worried at FT. If we can't get near a team who wouldn't live with Barcelona B 2 years ago, there's a lot of work to be done.

[Cruijff]

OK, not many teams win at the Nou Camp, but that was when Barcelona WERE Barcelona! This team aren't a patch on the quick passing team of Guardiola's reign....in fact their passing last night was poor. Yes, happyish at HT, but very worried at FT. If we can't get near a team who wouldn't live with Barcelona B 2 years ago, there's a lot of work to be done.

You forget one, very important thing. They still have got Messi who almost played his top game yesterday night. Barcelona their passing game wasn't as got as it used to be... but... that was also because Ajax was doing well in taking over the ball. Ricardo van Rhijn was defending like a tiger!

And you guys remember Moisander making Neymar look like a fool with a great Zidane turn in the final minute of the first half? If Barcelona doesn't have Messi and players like Dani Alvés doesn't use doping (believe me, he does) this game ends in 1-1 with big chances on a 1-2 win for Ajax...

[Philippe]

De Jong was our key player, and things fell apart when he left. Third goal is 100% due to Vermeer’s blunder. It gave signal for the sinking. What can be said of a striker who misses a penalty shot when there is not much pressure at 4-0 ?
Frank’s strategy to play Boilesen as left winger was a brilliant idea.
We need to try this again. With Cillessen as GK, and Hoesen upfront.

[Tom_]

Also, Barça are very good at pressing and we're not used to playing teams like that. For example on some of Blind's turnovers in the first half, he was pushed against the sideline with two or three defenders on him and no free players in the MF to pass to. Frankly, some of our MF players (e.g. Poulsen) aren't good enough for that kind of pressure. The turnovers resulted in goals in the second half.

I'm not complaining (actually I was happy with the way we played until we got sloppy in the second half) but this is the reality of being in the eredivisie—you only need to compare the wage bills of the two teams to see why the gulf in quality exists...

[Orange14]

De Jong was our key player and things fell apart when he left

Really? Just how many touches did he have while he was on the pitch? He did very little and showed the effects of his 'injury.' Things fell apart because Barca upped the pressure and we just don't have the handling speed to cope with that. When we pressed, the Barca players had a third sense of where the outlet pass was and they made it easily.

Third goal is 100% due to Vermeer’s blunder.

are we thinking about the same goal (Pique header)? This was a brilliant cross by Neymar and if anyone was to blame it was Denswil and not Vermeer, though I'm not blaming a 20 year old central defender who is playing in his first CL match here. He showed enough to me that he will be a very good player as he matures.

What can be said of a striker who misses a penalty shot when there is not much pressure at 4-0 ?

I am increasingly concerned about Sigthorsson's ability to play first team football. Maybe this goes down as a bad transfer though not of the magnitude of the Sulejmani purchase (though Micky would have converted the penalty last night).

Frank’s strategy to play Boilesen as left winger was a brilliant idea.

Agreed. It did leave van Rhijn exposed on the other side but he stepped up and had a very decent game.

The other thing clearly noticeable was the defense first approach to the match (though this was necessary). In league matches Moisander and Alderwiereld often would carry the ball into the attacking third with rotation back by the offside midfielder for defensive coverage. Denswil is very good on the ball, probably better than the aforementioned Duo (he frequently took free kicks for the youth teams) but neither he or Moisander did much at all in this regard. The result was a lack of an extra player in the attack. The club still has tremendous problems in the midfield and until we find a holding midfielder who has fast handling skills (Poulsen replacement) and a #10 who is quick (de Jong replacement) the struggles will continue.

By and large the club played as I expected they would last night. They were not embarrassed in the same way they were against Madrid in the past two CL campaigns. Some individual brilliance on the part of Barca players carried the day.

EDIT: one final comment, this was maybe the first team we played that looked smaller (size wise) than out team!

[King Litti]

Lot of our players didn't perform as well as we would have needed, but you just got to hand it to Messi. What an outstanding player he is. I guess our hope lied in Messi or/and Valdes having a bad day. Neither of them did.

[saddlerian]

Did I miss something????

http://www.footballmood.com/2013/09/fc- ... l+Time!%29

[Orange14]

I watched the Rayo Vallecano/Barca match yesterday and don't feels so bad about our performance on Wednesday. Valdes saved another penalty, this time a well taken one unlike Siggies. He also had a couple of point blank saves and may now be one of the top keepers in all of Europe. Interestingly he is playing out his contract and announced last season he will not re-sign with Barca.

Pedro had a hat trick (he is far more dangerous on attack than Alexis). Interestingly for the first time in what seems like forever a Barca opponent had more possession time (55-45).

[Philippe]

Ajax fans on tour : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u14aCjtYNt0

[Cruijff]

Thanks philippe! Yes these videos produced by good old Ronald are always nice!

I especially like the ones he has made in Manchester and also this one in Dortmund where I can see myself early in the video drinking beer near the fountain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2jgJItH ... n7_wXZhzVu