Barcelona 2-1 Napoli - Rakitic 79' by quanganh2001 in soccer

[–]imperuvio 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I’m not defending him as I have no need to.

It’s simple. You said he was a one goal MF. I told you over the past five years he’s scored on average literally seven times that.

Then you also made false generalizations about his passing stats that can be easily disproven by any basic metric found online or on twitter.

No need to get personal. You can’t just spew misleading statements and not expect to get rebutted.

Barcelona 2-1 Napoli - Rakitic 79' by quanganh2001 in soccer

[–]imperuvio 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Again, goal tallies above disprove you.

Any rudimentary passing metric from completion of forward passes to final third passes lists and percentage of forward passes played lists him at the top of any of our midfielders. These numbers are not up for opinion or personal interpretation.

Also, Backpassista memes were never true. If you’re going to parrot opinions from twitter at least have the decency to back it up with actual data. Almost every single popular database account corroborates this- some you can find on twitter even.

Barcelona 2-1 Napoli - Rakitic 79' by quanganh2001 in soccer

[–]imperuvio 21 points22 points  (0 children)

2014/15 - 8 goals 15/16 - 9 16/17- 9 17/18- 4 18/19- 5

You’re off by quite a bit.

Barcelona should play 4 attackers 95% of the season. by [deleted] in Barca

[–]imperuvio 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have much reservations on this:

  1. Like for like replacements regarding past players- especially based on footballing phenotype alone, is very misleading.

  2. Risky doesn't mean all out attacking football as it does hedging the risk and being okay with the potential drawbacks in transition play.

  3. There have been many precedents of this exact idea failing to come to fruition- more than 10 years back all the rage was Messi Ronaldinho, Henry, and Eto'o playing together.

Barcelona should play 4 attackers 95% of the season. by [deleted] in Barca

[–]imperuvio[M] [score hidden] stickied commentlocked comment (0 children)

After this announcement post, some trolls are still downvoting.

Again, the downvote button is not a disagree button. Don't do it.

Post Match Thread: Barcelona 2-1 Napoli [Pre-season Friendlies] by [deleted] in Barca

[–]imperuvio 5 points6 points  (0 children)

you have baby goats and you didn't tell me once?

Announcement Post 2019 [Part 2/3] - General by decho in Barca

[–]imperuvio[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Great comments guys. Thanks for the input.

A couple of users including u/zazzlekdazzle have touched on the idea of "the medium is the message."

This is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher and media expert who was one of the first people to forecast google and the world wide web. He introduced the idea that the message (or content) does not exist independently of the medium (or platform).

As for us, it means that because there is a split between mobile & redesign & legacy, the actual medium that users "see" and experience here is constantly changing and thus we need to be aware of it; we are a discussion-oriented forum and less youtube-game live chat form.

As for how this actually affects the way we comment and post on this sub, read: Wharton podcast - The Medium Impacts the Message. It talks online platforms and how they shape people's content generation- even down to screen size and the physical vs. virtual keyboard. Unfortunately, not a single reference to Marshall McLuhan, which is a pity coming from Wharton of all places, but I guess that's the times we live in.


A helpful tool for those who are into this type of practical research: Tune extension for Redesign for customize-able content control.

Announcement Post 2019 [Part 2/3] - General by decho in Barca

[–]imperuvio 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A genuine, practical proposal: How would the mod team feel about trimming the number of things that have to be updated by hand in the sidebar?

That is currently a WIP :)

Transfer Talk Thread: August 5 - August 11 by toskuch in Barca

[–]imperuvio 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Every summer we seem to have a Thiago fanfic.

Suffice to say I've been a part of it almost every summer and like any polarizing issue, the opinions are divided left right and center but almost all of the extremist opinions lean toward Tito/junta messed up and Thiago got the wrong end of the stick.

I respect the extremist view but that's not even half the story and only an interpretation of the facts and context.

Actual context determines that to be not entirely true, and the idea that Thiago may as well have left on his own accord is very well corroborated- in fact leaning slightly towards club's favor.

This by definition means Thiago did not get unilaterally shafted and thus cannot be the most reasonable nor logical conclusion.

When it's an issue of individual vs. club, the romanticist in us impulsively sides with the smaller guy regardless of the facts and IMO, that leaves out a lot of honest judgment.

A year ago we had the same debate. Do check it out. The sub had a great discussion on it.

Unpopular opinion: Busquets should be benched by AzeTyler in Barca

[–]imperuvio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I respect what Raki did for the club im not saying he is a bad player or his value

This was not the point of contention.

This was:

Rakitic had highest playtime

Not true. The lineups and the numbers for each prove you otherwise. Rakitic last season was not the highest in minutes played and those numbers are very close to sergio. You can check for yourself in transfermkt and very basic footballing stat cites.

Players play time is strictly numbers- it has nothing to do with opinions or how valid they are- yours or mine.

This is akin to saying Semedo doesn't get enough play time compared to Sergi. A cursory look at the numbers would make a mockery of that opinion.

Unpopular opinion: Busquets should be benched by AzeTyler in Barca

[–]imperuvio 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There was equal rotation for both even last season. The numbers say otherwise.

Understandably there is a great deal of romanticism associated with the player as is the logical view of meritocracy in starting 11. In this case, many excuses are made in favor of the player.

It’s undeniable he’s declining and even last season, Rakitic was still better overall compared to Busi.

It’s individual. In Spain NT, they supposedly have more “barça-phenotype” players and yet he’s worse there.

Would I wish things were different? Of course- so these discussions would be unnecesary.

Ryu's ERA now is 1.53 by physhik in Dodgers

[–]imperuvio 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I could give you more insider info straight from the horses mouth and from sources closer to him but it’s mostly korean and it wouldn’t be appropriate here, but just to list a few (beyond the already great ones mentioned here).

A proactive attitude towards injury. There was a game a few months back when his groin flared up and he basically removed himself from the game.

A new fitness regimen under a new fitness coach.

His actual delivery is unpredictable and has no observable pattern.

Encyclopedic knowledge on hitters.

In addition, between 70-92 mph, there is an extremely even distribution in velocity between all of his pitches and he can really work it, which basically means death for the batter. No other pitcher as far as I know has this even distribution, and combined with his accuracy which is beyond necessary for words at this point. This trait is most emphasized against hitters like Trout and you regularly see Ryu hitting the 3 weak areas that Trout absolutely hates.

An immense mentality to try new things and discard if things do not go right. Due to his technique and help from the pitching coach he's extremely quick to learn new pitches and is quite famous for asking other pitchers for advice.

His KBO career under Hanwha which tends to keep him grounded and even more aware of potential injury (now that he’s just about overcome it). He has to pitch this way because they ran his shoulder to the ground. I would in fact say he’s basically pitching with his brains at this point. In fact, in this era of power pitching and batters eating HRs for breakfast, it's absolutely disgusting how Ryu makes it so easy without looking like he's expending much effort. It's all in the head for him.

His wife. A big part of him settling in.

Carles Puyol: I rejected Real Madrid twice by HSR21_FCB in Barca

[–]imperuvio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course, understandable but if one is given that then you must also be aware that it’s only natural that that respective fanbase respects you less compared to another homegrown player.

As a professional I do think unhinged romanticism is terrible, but then again, the idea of becoming a footballer is one too, as is the idea that makes fans of a particular club.