26/10/2013 : Ronaldo/Bale/Isco vs Messi/Neymar/Iniesta....
What is your preditctions FR community ? Which team are you supporting ?

For comparison, let's look at the hey-day of Wenger's Arsenal. They played easily the best, most free-flowing football in the league, and probably in Europe, at the time. There is a reason why the Invincibles became the Invincibles, and much as I have to hate it as a Spurs fan, that style of play influenced and transformed the entire league.

But, see, that influence had two main ways of manifesting itself. One, yes, Arsenal showed the rest of English football how it was done, and that's easy to point to. But also, secondly, it taught the rest of the league how to play AGAINST them, too.

Ever heard the phrase "Arsenal don't like it up 'em"? Most English football fans from over the last decade probably have. It refers to how the league learned to deal with Arsenal, led by Chelsea and Manchester United. They got physical with the Gunners; put the Gunners off their game. By closing down fast and hitting hard with tackles, Arsenal's free-flowing passing game became disrupted. And everyone saw it. And everyone copied it. Everyone looked and said: "Ahhh, so THAT's how you beat Arsenal...."

Suddenly, despite having so much talent in their squad, Arsenal were not challenging for the title any more, because the rest of the league were simply not allowing Arsenal to play their game as much as they wanted to. People looked at Arsenal

This is why Arsenal have had to toughen up, and they've done that over the last couple of seasons. It may not be the type of football that they were playing back in the Invincible days, but it has started getting them points again.

But the whole point is that Arsenal played a fantastic style which inspired others, both to play like them and also to STOP the playing it. The game moved on. The game evolved.

Just like with Barcelona.

From 2009-2011, Pep Guardiola and Barcelona's tiki-taka style conquered (nearly) everything, with only that amazing performance by Inter in 2010 spoiling the party (we should not forget that Inter were down to ten men -- what a surprise, eh?). Barcelona were the best team in the world, and everyone could see it. Everyone knew it.

But.

People also looked and watched Mourinho's men beat them in 2010. They looked and watched as in 2012, Madrid managed to fight back too, and start halting Barcelona. Then Chelsea. Now Bayern (and make no mistake, Bayern learned from CHELSEA how to defend and close down Barcelona).

Teams learn. Football evolves. Coaches looked on and said: "Ahhh, so THAT's how you beat Barcelona..."

And now Barcelona have to change, or else they'll keep being beaten by it. And that's EXACTLY how football should work. Barcelona inspired the world to play better football, both offensively AND defensively. You have to realize that Real Madrid broke the Spanish goalscoring record in 2012 -- you cannot accuse them of playing 'negative football'. But, when they came up against Barca? They played the way they needed to play to beat them. Same with Chelsea, and any other team who managed to beat them.

And so now Barcelona have to up their game, to deal with the consequences.

Instead of, you know, just complaining about it, and saying "ewwww, 'anti-football'", just because it's not what they want people to play against them.

So most of you predicted a win for RM, well this year a lot of things has changed. We have a good coach this year, and Valdes is incredibly better than the old Valdes.
I think if we face Bayern squad without a coach and with most of their defense injured there will be no match, this year we will compete with same weapons with other teams, but we need to buy imperatively a central back in january...