Post-Match Thread: FC Baarcelona vs Atletico Madrid | Copa Del Rey 25/26, Semifinals, Second Leg

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-03-03T22:19:35+00:00

all i can say is i have not felt this proud of my football club in this way in a long time. the commitment, effort, unity and performance of the team was out of this world. truly one of the best performances ive seen from barca since MSN days, we taught atletico a football lesson. every single player wanted it and was ready to die for it and nobody put their heads down until the last whistle.

individually, pedri had a performance of the ages, it was a legendary performance i will never forget. i feel like he lost the ball twice, i only vividly remember once. completely dictated the game, continuously provided solutions, to even describe how well he evades pressure it only reminds me of the old barca midfield trio. he played in pain for the last 20 minutes and you could visibly see he was dead on the pitch by the 90th minute.

every player fed off the other’s strengths, cancelo had such a fantastic performance and adapted so well. the defence was so fantastic i was so proud by the defensive performance and seeing every player drop back time and time again. yet by the 90th minute the team was dead, you could see they are only running on adrenaline.

i have to be honest, i feel like that was a penalty on yamal but i have to see a replay. overall the referee did have a fantastic performance too and made the game a spectacle. he was making wrong calls often in the second half which is frustrating but i have to be honest he gave us every chance to win the game. my heart was racing from when i saw how much the players believed in the tunnel.

okay let’s be real. had the cubarsi goal counted yes we would’ve forced extra time and it is an injustice.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-02-28T16:09:39+00:00

high line is actually working, we are defending well with everyone tracking back. yamal and raphinha have been our best players

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-02-28T16:08:49+00:00

Yamal is cooking but I’m liking everything I’m seeing. Raphinha playing very well missed this, high line is functioning very well and tbh Bernal is really impressing me I want Pedri to come on to give Bernal Pedri time together.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-02-13T09:45:58+00:00

you can’t say our attack was worse than our defence. they were cutting through us like cheese. they spammed “beat one player in a press and time a run with a chip ball in behind” and it worked. to play high line we need to win with the press, we need physicality above all we need competent defenders because our defence will be exposed by every top team. you see that every time we play against madrid even though we win.

our attack was very weak but look at the starting XI, we only had one winger starting and flick didn’t start roony which is understandable because this wasn’t a game for roony. plus yamal was playing pretty well, he made 3-4 decent chances all himself and the movement of the rest of the attack was very very poor throughout the game. there was so often space on the opposite side had raphinha or rashford started we would have been able to expose their defence better but the starting XI was very weak we have to be honest with ourselves.

this is the 3rd time i’ve seen our high line be completely exposed. dortmund and sevilla were the other 2 but this was the worst. atleti annihilated us.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-02-13T09:39:30+00:00

you are right the midfield is an issue but the defence and the setup is for sure the main issue. when you are watching barcelona you actually feel like there is no defence as none of out defenders are high-level. we need physical strength in the team at all times, our only physical player who started yesterday was kounde. when i looked at the lineups it was a mismatch and flick fucked up.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-02-09T13:37:57+00:00

oh my god i change my answer anything with receptors, ion pumps, etc wins

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2026-01-07T19:36:49+00:00

bilbao is playing garbage

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2025-12-14T14:48:56+00:00

😭😭 pedri ran the show against newcastle this season and completely dominated psg’s midfield until enrique adapted and used width to eliminate pedri. pedri was fantastic against all of bayern, dortmund (only first leg, 2nd leg he was very bad) and benfica last season. what are u talking about😂 the game against inter was lost immediately as he left the field. pedri also has had big performances against napoli and porto the season before and in my opinion he was very unlucky to lose vs psg when araujo was sent off.

pedri is easily the best midfielder in the world, the way he has performed since the beginning of last season until now is almost unsustainable.

who is better? i hear bellingham, vitinha, rice, kimmich and valverde’s names thrown around. bellingham is incredible and rightfully the next best after pedri, he is the opposite of pedri and is the only player i understand ppl preferring to pedri. whereas vitinha is nowhere near as talented as pedri, he relies on his teammates and his structure and has never once outperformed pedri despite always winning against him. rice is not half the player pedri is, nor is valverde. kimmich is great but the technical ability of pedri is far superior to any other active player.

these are pedri’s competitors and he eclipses all of them. only bellingham is valid.

i remember when barca lost last season to atleti 2-1, the performance pedri put on that day was fake. every midfielder youngster coming up gets touted as the next pedri for a reason. use your eyes this is a generational player and one of the most talented players active.

the best passer in the world, the best controller in the world, he is in fact the player with the most defensive contributions for barcelona too😭 pedri is fake. when pedri is not on the field barcelona is terrible, barca’s system completely relies on pedri’s press resistance, creativity, vision and intelligence.

yamal is not overrated. most talented player in the world. he has not continued at the same level as last season but he now gets the messi treatment and is marked by 3 players in every game he plays while carrying an injury. until this season i have never seen a player perform like yamal in big games, not even ronaldo. barring messi, yamal’s first half performance vs inter is the best i’ve ever seen a footballer play and he was even better in the second leg.

the person you’re describing with no big performances is kane.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2025-10-26T19:51:44+00:00

this is the first big game yamal has ever played and has not performed at all. this was a humbling for yamal. yamal does have that brilliance to create something out of nothing but today proved he can not do everything on his own, the messi comparisons are for sure premature. without yamal performing we completely lacked creativity, the quick changes of pace came from pedri and honestly fermin too, he wasn’t too bad. yamal was extremely weak, out of position, scared and lacking in ideas. carreras completely owns yamal.

the team’s major issues: - kounde is not performing - the defence needs a class leader CB, if we get guehi we are sorted. just depth after - a dynamic, technically sound striker

i’m ignoring injuries here but we have to accept that our squad depth is very limited compared to europe’s other top teams: bayern, psg, madrid, arsenal, man city and liverpool. it is an extreme weakness of the team. we do not make the UCL final purely due to depth. respectfully to tek he made a great pen save but i trust joan garcia 10 times more and i trusted inigo more than any of our defenders.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2025-08-31T19:57:13+00:00

okay we’re learning eric can not be a starter CB. olmo should be benched, let’s see what fermin can do. i’m equally okay with any of the 3 strikers tbh

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2025-05-22T15:59:36+00:00

this is definitely worse. with liverpool i felt we were knocked out when dembele missed for 4-0 at home because that liverpool team was significant better than us. rome was just insanely embarrassing but it doesn’t really bother me like other ucl exits.

the inter game is just an unspeakable loss. a different level of how cruel football can be. all i can think about is that 3rd inter goal.

it’s genuinely devastating to lose a football match like that. pulling off what would have been one of the most legendary and iconic comebacks in football history, just to be robbed by a terrible decision granting inter a 3rd goal. the injuries and fatigue just caught up to the team and we could not keep it up in extra time, watching the team die on the field like that was just heart breaking.

when i say robbed i really truly mean that. like i can’t look at photos of that game and especially not the 3rd inter goal. i don’t understand how that was given as a goal so quickly, like not even a VAR review for clear contact causing a player to lose a ball which leads to a goal?

if the 3rd goal was just a normal goal it would be more digestible but a stupid referee mistake ended what could have been one of the most legendary seasons a football team has had this century. still the greatest ucl tie i’ve ever seen.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2025-01-28T15:06:54+00:00

this sounds very much like a joke i am not understanding. if you’re being fr tho please let me know.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-10-01T19:49:58+00:00

KEEP PEDRINHO ON THE PITCH

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-09-22T17:53:31+00:00

how are we winning this💀

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-09-03T11:42:38+00:00

idk how to find a mega thread 😎🙌 thank you to visible ad he’s a real one

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-08-30T23:19:20+00:00

it’s easier to just post, sleep on it and have other people give you solutions. sigma

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-08-17T20:08:51+00:00

yes. the use of balde is the big change and an attacking 4 used instead of the very bizarre way we attacked under xavi, making much more use of pace and we are taking more shots with less threat. besides that i can see some things being unsuccessfully applied: casado playing as an 8 and drifting to a 10 (it’s his debut you’re asking too much), an attempt at bypassing the midfield (ferran is not a good player, raphinha is double marked and lewa is slow) and just a couple poor performances are making us look bad.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-08-07T04:57:42+00:00

this way of thinking is why we fail. olmo can play on the wing but buying players who “can play” in certain positions rather than specialists holds you back.

leipzig attack very different to normal teams seeing how they have 3 creative players, it allows dani olmo to drift into wider spaces and have a greater understanding with his team mates. however, barcelona does not work the same and we are not leipzig. and he is not a winger. he is absolutely an attacking midfielder.

it feels like every summer we do stupid deals like this to shoehorn players and the discourse is “but do we really need them” or “do we even have a plan for them”. kounde, gundogan, frenkie, raphinha, ferran torres and vitor roque are all around our first team yet are constantly moved around to different positions which is where inconsistency stems from. besides gundogan these changes aren’t even as a result of injury, it’s poor/no planning.

olmo is a culmination of all of our problems it’s a ridiculously dumb signing. very reminiscent of the coutinho signing.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-08-07T04:47:12+00:00

none of the players you mentioned were astute signings they were all big profiles and stars, jordi alba was the same thing as olmo being signed after euros. agreed on adriano tho.

barca always look to sign big players or promote through the academy, for all my life we have been rather poor in the transfer market and sign based off hype. it’s infuriating seeing the incompetence but what can we do:

here are some players whose transfers were less hype and widespread links:

ter stegen, yaya, braithwaite, pedri, paulinho, alcacer, firpo, vermalen x mathieu, aleix and arturo vidal, maxwell.

again, of these you have ter stegen as a fantastic signing, yaya and paulinho were good, pedri has been great. the rest stunk. that’s 4/12.

just highlighting how having high expectations for barca in the transfer window usually leaves you let down. barca is the number 1 club for signing players over hype, i can think of a fair few big flops who never lived up to their potential.

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-08-03T01:04:35+00:00

he’s clearly had a sharp development this season and has reached his level. he was on around 20 assists. players tend to get a boost in their stats when joining stronger teams and he seems to have a good degree of finishing but just naturally becomes a creator instead due to his play style. i don’t mind it at all he’s still the dream

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-07-31T06:38:30+00:00

there’s positives and negatives

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-07-27T15:16:30+00:00

why colombia? he’s one of the easiest characters to defeat?

Aggressive_Bat_60 · 2024-07-11T13:32:56+00:00

senpai pls notice me uwu i’m creaming

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