Comments on: Champions League group draw today at 12noon EST

By: Mat

Mat — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:19:40 +0000

sorry I track back…I read somewhere that most of the shirt sales go to Nike rather than Barca…which makes all our predcitions very vague unless we know how much Barca actually gets nett on every shirt sale!

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:15:10 +0000

It was just for my own amusement that I included Ezquerro.
I personally would rather have Giovani in the squad than no one. Hleb replaces Ronnie adequately. He’s not as good as Ronnie at his best but we haven’t had Ronnie at his best for a while.
If Messi gets injured, which is always a possibility unfortunately, we are lacking something.
Ronaldinho, Eto’o, Giuly, Messi and Larsson was a better line up than Henry, Eto’o, Messi, Bojan and Hleb. That’s my point. I like our frontline now but I miss Larsson and Giuly.
Larsson was just an incredibly intelligent striker that didn’t waste chances. Is a pity that Bojan wasn’t able to train with him, he’d learn so much.
Giuly did one thing that we haven’t done since he left… run in behind defenders. It was predictable but he was so good at it. By the time he received the ball he was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Messi has the ability to beat 5 defenders but every now and then he could make the run and receive the ball with no one near him.
If we had someone just willing to make the off-the-ball run we would keep the opposition on their toes. Palacio and Arshavin would probably be willing to make that run.
Xavi, Iniesta and Messi do their damage with the ball.

By: Isaiah

Isaiah — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:00:12 +0000

Ciaran, we’ve also added Pedro to that account and he’s easily worth what Ezquerro was. So minus Gio and Ronnie, plus Hleb. And neither Gio or Ronnie played much during year, really.

By: Genis

Genis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:45:32 +0000

Mat, add to that all the expenses related to the Barça physical stores (staff, energy, whatever) and also the fact that there are a lot of Barça store franchises that sell the shirt at the same price but must have their own margin too…

Do we have any expert in marketing reading this, so he can clarify the point (since we have little more to talk about for a couple of days, or so it seems).

And Zenit won ManU quite deservedly 0-2. (Best players: Danni, Progebnyak and one russian central defender [???] + Tévez)

By: Ciaran

Ciaran — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:38:31 +0000

There is another thing, money from tours. Henry seemed to be the big draw for us in the US. Thats probably worth a few quid too.

Palacio said that he will certainly leave if an offer comes in.
And Arshavin definitely wants to join us too.
We have cleared Ezquerro, Giovani and Ronnie with only Hleb coming in.
By anyones calculations that makes us weaker than before. I don;t think we will sign anyone but I’d hate if we were regretting not signing someone now and trying in January

By: Mat

Mat — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:12:43 +0000

no Genis…they get these shirts made in China and they should not cost more than 10-15$ each when mass produced..the 815k would be more like a million or so…but still a lot..

By: Isaiah

Isaiah — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:12:10 +0000

That’s a good point about profit, Genis. I knew there was something I was forgetting…or at least I knew I was going to forget some detail…

So you can effectively triple that number I quoted to give you the number of shirt sales required to make TH14 “worth it”…of course there are so many other factors too…

By: Genis

Genis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:33:45 +0000

By the way, I forgot that ManU and Zenit are playing the “SuperCup” right now. I see that Arshavin is not playing but Danni does. And just now -min 43 first half- Pogrebnyac scores for Zenit… I’ve only been watching for about 10 min, but Zenit has had two more good opportunities.

I hear now that Arshavin is going to start the 2nd half.

By: Genis

Genis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:18:34 +0000

Another thing, Isaiah: each official shirt may cost €65, but it’s obvious that Barça doesn’t get that much per shirt sold. Sure the net profit per shirt is MUCH less, perhaps in the order of 15-20% of the price (I’m just guessing here).

From there.

By: Genis

Genis — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:55:41 +0000

Isaiah, my data is that TH gets €10 millon a year from Barça…