His doubts are abt his team, abt motivating them. He doesnt want to go public abt it, but he sees the normal cycle of players not feeling "upto" it anymore with Pep-talk after 4 yrs of winning everything. And that is not Pep's fault alone - it is part of human nature. Having said that he believes in this team and he expects the team to put on performances that motivate him to stay and continue. He just doesnt say it openly, coz that is Pep's style - he believes in ppl realising it on their own. Lets see if our players can lift themselves up this next 3 months - esp our defense needs to work a lot on closing down. Forget abt not scoring, we should stop conceding.
Not that we shouldnt discuss the match here, but football fans are welcome to join the tiki-taka forum as well:
http://www.thelatewinner.com/forums/
As long as trolling is not the only intention. :)
We may see another football lover like him as a coach, but no coach I have seen, who can just speak the right words at the right time, almost everytime, and having the courage to maintain his humility all the while. Maybe Busi or Xavi can turn into a Pep...we have to wait and see.
The sharp intelligence of Pep is in full show here:
He knows exactly what he is saying!
“Someday I will lose against them, and it could be with Barca or it could be with another team.”
OR is the operative word there :)
"Neither I nor him have done anything that each of us had not done before at one time or another.”
Again, maybe Mou can learn some subtlety from Pep - its not the first time Mou has disrespected the press. This has been done before :) Including himself in the sentence is the wit of the man, the sugar coating in his arrow. Just Brilliant.
Chasing a league is always easy - there is no pressure, u have nothing to lose. Staying on top is the toughest, with everybody calling u favorites, and when u r expected to win. Thats why its so difficult for Barca players and Pep to achieve what they are doing when the whole world calls them favorites. And they should also know the press and public love a story, and there is no better story when the favorite stumbles. So caution cules - step by step, inch by inch, match by match! dont look too far ahead - we didnt in 2008-09, so stay the same, dont be spoilt by all our accomplishments and praise. Every match is a new match, and it starts 0-0.
Mate - CL and cup competitions have lot of luck involved. So stop worrying about winning the title....Barca has probably the highest number of semi-finals under its belt in European competitions along with RM. So that tells u that a lot of things need to go right, to go on and win a title. Forget abt the end-result, just hope that Pep's men try and play as well as they can, keeping in mind the opposition's quality. The end-result is just incidental.
You cant get a better ambassador of the beautiful game - absolutely honest, clear, romantic and a philosopher! Grande Xavi - the maestro, he should join the coaching dept once he retires, and hopefully as an understudy to the "Big Daddy Cool"!
This piece is worthy of Xavi - thats the highest compliment I can give you mate. No coaching manual will be complete without Xavi. He can almost fool you into believing football is easy. His level appeals, appears attainable, yet, is just as elusive for most footballers (including highly technical ones) as his 20-yard slide rule pass is for the scrambling defender to catch. Maestro.
It doesnt take away the fact that UEFA have set a dangerous precedent - whats this sudden retrospective punishment??! "Gross unsporting conduct?" What if a player now complains a fan in the stadium whistled and distracted him from a goal-scoring opportunity - evict the fan? And what is sporting conduct in diving, conning refs for freekicks, throw-ins, corners, penalties, yellow cards, etc?? Will they retrospectively punish?? I always found Barca to be sort of a soft target esp given the Spanish media dont have the guile to raise a ruckus before the decision is handed out like the english media do! And barca didnt help either by neither Guardiola or Rossell speaking out harshly or defending their player - I guess that shows Pep for what a gentleman he is, but we all know if u lie down and stay silent, people always treat u as weak. No point just letting ur football do the talking!! Thats unfortunately how this world and their wums are! I will be curious to watch what other retrospective punishments they give??! How about abusing players, is that sporting conduct??!
Feel bad for Hleb - what did he do that Pep doesnt give him a second chance?
I see very little humility and will to improve/learn from this guy. He always keeps saying he is not used to being on the bench. I dont see Reina, Valdes, Iniesta, Silva or any of the regular club starters say the same (as if they dont like to play). The problem is this boy has started believing his hype (he was whining even at the Euros!!) and already thinks he has done all his learning, thanks to the English media machinery.
IMO he wont be a gud squad player for Barca. Period.
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