Reasons to Believe? Erm…Okay.

By: fcbfandrivel | January 30th, 2012

I just recently read a piece titled “Reasons to Believe” on FC Barcelona’s official site. Yes, that would be about the same team that has won 13 out of the last 16 tournaments it has competed in, that has vast numbers of past and current coaches, players, journalists, fans and experts waxing lyrical about the beauty of their play. And yes again, the same team that is considered by many to be possibly one of the greatest teams of all time. No, it didn’t inspire me to come up with my own list of reasons why we should continue believing in the team. Besides, we’ve already done that remember?

You need reasons to believe in my team? Really?

And then, I also happened to read this excerpt from Tim Stannard’s “Good Day, Bad Day” piece.

The sixth time this season that Barça have been rusty on the road won’t be that bad in comparison for what’s coming up. It’s the tutting, sighing and finger pointing from the local press for the next few weeks that going to grind Barça’s gears. “The worst Barça of the Guardiola era,” fumed Lluís Mascaró in Sport rather harshly, despite the paper’s cheery front cover claiming that the side “won’t give up.” “They can’t give us an ultra-motivated display against Madrid and then give a poor one against Villarreal,” complained Joan Vehils. These mumbles and grumbles are likely to get louder and louder over the next three weeks with Pep’s shrinking squad facing Valencia three times in the cup and league and with a fun trip to Osasuna to come, as well. #allbutgivenup

Yeah well.

We have eighteen games to go in La Liga with a seven point gap, knock out rounds in Copa del Rey and more importantly, the Champions League, and a team that barely adds up to eleven fit players. The players are fatigued, understandably from constantly being required to play to tremendous standards in every possible tournament at club level, from incessantly winning everything they compete in, and from facing the same kind of “must win” situations over and over again every game, every three days, for the past four years now. Do we believe that this team has what it takes to compete till the very end for all three trophies this season, to fight like they’ve never lifted a piece of silver before? You bet! Because that’s what Guardiola’s team does, season after perfect season, through meticulous preparation and flawless execution and an all-evident passion that just cannot be ruled out.

And that is what makes this team even more remarkable.Not merely what they’ve achieved, but what they’ve overcome to achieve what they’ve achieved. The unquenchable desire to keep on winning and the understanding that “team effort” is not just fashionable talk, but is at the very core of their inimitable success. In the understanding that “the greatest team ever” and “the worst Barca under Pep Guardiola” is merely a game away sometimes. Must win games and tired legs? Been there, done that. Seven point difference? Well, it’s worse than a five point difference, let’s leave it at that. Confidence issues? Erm…what now?

"See...It's like this. We'll just need to win a LOT of games now"

Does this guarantee that FC Barcelona will win every trophy they compete for? Well obviously not. Like Guardiola said, this is a game and there is more than one team playing – you win some, and you lose some. Especially considering the team we’re competing with for La Liga is as good as the current Real Madrid that is having an impeccable season. A seven point gap is not insurmountable, but it’s also a struggle and a large part of it also depends on Real Madrid’s rest of the season. Maybe we’ll lose the league this season (there I said it! And no, lightning hasn’t struck me dead as of now). But then, maybe we’ll win it. Either way, it doesn’t stop us from believing our team will do everything it possibly can to win unless it becomes a practical impossibility.

A real reason to believe FC Barcelona can win the La Liga? Because they’re going to try, and that’s reason enough. If it doesn’t happen. then it doesn’t, but we can all be proud of the tremendous effort that’s sure to be put in. It doesn’t take any special merit to believe in this team. Except perhaps pure common sense. Visca Barca.

Picture posted by fcblive on twitter, thanks to everyone for the link!

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Category: Barcelona, Team News

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Thiago

nao essa porcaria de BARCELONA
Thiago

fiquem sabendo que o melhor time da história foi o FLAMENGO (1981).........
Nick Sincere

OT: Check out this Puyol/Pique lookalike from Who Ate All the Pies. A little humor to lift your spirits.
http://www.whoateallthepies.tv...
fcbfandrivel

haha LOVE it. :D
Mohammed

It's all bad luck .. nothing more and nothing less .. Except for our matches against Espanyol (even though we were denied a legetimate penalty) and Lavente (even though the only real chance they had was the corner that granted them the win), we didn't deserve to lose a single point.
Against Socidad, the equalizer was a joke when Villa decided to pass the ball back 70 meters or so to Valdez and this along with their first goal were two of their only three real chances on goal.
Against Valencia, we drew 2-2 when we had 20 or so shots on goal against 1! (Abidal scored an own goal). While the RM-Valencia stats favored Valencia in both shots on goal and possession
Against Sevilla, it was simply a 'destined result' .. something super natural decided the result .. someone super natural (the GK) .. and this same super natural person became sub natural against RM
Against Bilbao, our players needed to swim with the ball in their feet while Bilbao could've easily been leading by 3 against RM in a perfect weather if it weren't for "strange" misses by Lorente
And finally, against Villareal .. again I would say it was a destined result .. since when do Messi and Cesc miss the chances they did during the game? The misses were simply against all rules of nature .. completely unbelievable

RM on the other hand were lucky to escape Valencia, Bilbao, Malliorca, and I dare say Athletico Madrid

Of course, the injuries and 'bench problem' we have can be considered bad luck as well.

It's also interesting that out of Ronaldo's 24 goals, 9 are from penalty kicks ..

But according to the theory of probability this bad luck cannot continue .. I wouldn't be surprised if Barca won all remaining 18 games .. they're simply capable of doing so .. they deserve to win them all .. On the other hand, I would be surprised if RM won all 17 games (not counting our game, which I'm very confident about even though the away CPL leg could've easily gone their way)

It's really interesting that I never seen Barca win by luck (i.e. having significantly less shots on goal yet winning)

I believe this is coming to an end .. it has to .. however, Pep must improve in finding solutions DURING games .. Maybe I'm wrong here but I believe Pep is a master in preparing for a match but isn't the best person to find a solution during a game .. He did make wonders in a few games but in many his substitutions were very late ..

I will too believe in our chances to win the liga until it's mathematically impossible .. and I'm sure our beloved team will continue to fight until the end .. Visca El Barca!
MikeM

I am a fan of Barcelona, not so much because they win, but mostly because of the way they play. If Barca played the way they play and never won anything(probably not a possible scenario) I would still watch and cheer. Whether Barca is "the best team ever", "the current best team", or just a really good team is not of that great significance to me. The style and passing skills they exhibit are beyond belief. The "team" effort that goes into that is amazing. I enjoyed the Villareal game even though it was a tie. Messi's pass to Cesc was sublime. As CR said after the first Copa leg, if you think it always ends in goals you don't understand soccer. If Barca looses La Liga to Madrid they loose to a great team. That does not change the excitement of watching Barca play. Tomorrow's game with Valencia will be fun to watch, win or loose. To paraphrase Ray Hudson, you are seeing something unbelievable, something you may never see again. Enjoy. Win or loose, enjoy.
fcbfandrivel

Great points, Mike. If Barca win nothing more this season, would that make us like them any less? Definitely not. I think that's one of the points I was trying to make too, that while we believe in this team, winning or losing the Liga isn't the main issue at hand, but fighting for the Liga for the rest of the season. The means, and not strictly the end.

But the importance of winning cannot be overestimated either IMHO. Like I read somewhere in Graham Hunter's book on Barca, there was a point in there about how strongly Pep believed that an approach can get validated only by winning, it proves the effectiveness of it overall. Winning = not necessarily winning 6 trophies every year, but being exceedingly competitive in all of them. And the belief that *this* Barca under Pep Guardiola has what it takes to continue to achieve that, as is proven by their track record.
Mehdi

Let's believe in this team, whether they win or not, they will eventually not win at some point and that's life, the only thing they will do is fight until the end!

They do miss an extra amount of motivation, focus, and also luck, they could have won on saturday. VISCA EL BARCA HASTA EL FINAL
Rick

After the latest setback (it's funny when an away draw is considered a setback), I decided to run some numbers on Barcelona's league form to try to discern whether Barcelona hasn't been as good as in previous seasons or whether Madrid has just been much better.

In 2008-2009, Barcelona averaged 2.29 points per game, while winning the treble. Madrid averaged 2.05. If you exclude the games after the 6-2 Clasico win that essentially sealed the title, Barcelona averaged 2.5. In 2009-2010, Barcelona averaged 2.61 points per game over the season. Madrid was 2.53 (ending the season just three points behind). In 2010-2011, Barcelona averaged 2.53 points per game to Madrid's 2.42 (four point gap). Like 2008-2009, Barcelona had the title all but wrapped up and stopped playing the first team in the league down the stretch. Through the second match with Madrid, Barcelona were averaging a staggering 2.67 points per game.

This year, Barcelona has averaged 2.25 points per game. Madrid is averaging 2.6. So my conclusion was that the current gap to Madrid in the league is a combination of league form not quite up to the excellence of the previous three years, but also of a much better Madrid.

It's easy to read too much into the numbers, but I thought it was an interesting look at league form of the two teams. We'll see how the two teams do as we approach the end of this season. My hopes for the league are a bit deflated, so there's no where to go but up! Plus, it's all to play for in the cup and the Champions League.
fcbfandrivel

That's very interesting, Rick! Even more so because you've taken the trouble to factor in the ratios before and after Liga is decided. Definitely RM's consistency has played a huge part this season, not to mention our much publicized away form. It will be interesting to see if RM can keep up their current form for rest of the season...if we can win the home Clasico and not drop more points, it'll depend on whether RM can get through rest of the season without dropping a game or two.