Levante

FT

2 : 1

vs

HT 2 : 0

Barcelona

Pls, no, lol.

Or, maybe they could step up their game instead🤷🏽‍♂️

Or maybe Messi retires like I already said . He hasn't won us ucl in 3 years

You are the definition of trash in my book. A trash that made an account just to provoke and post fish-y comments to create more trash.

Glad to hear it! Only, you're not actually commenting to the irritating and idiotic guy in question, which kinda makes everything meaningless

As if barca are invincible with messi !!! lol, they will overturn the deficit in 2nd leg

Cut the crap. Just speculating after-the-fact like you really know. Coutinho was exactly like this in Liverpool. Whimsical and wavering in performance. A few serious games and great performances, we'd all be praising him. That happens. He's still a great talent. He's underperforming at the moment, but Barça is supportive over a long period of time - which is what makes a great team. Look at how Semedo, Ter Stegen and Dembele have been improving. There were times when people like you would bash their performances, but now they're world class. It's hard to satisfy football lovers when you're playing for a team like Barça where the worst performing players in general could go somewhere else and become the most important player in the team... like Andre Gomes, Paco Alcacer etc.

Totally unfair comment. Coutinho is a top player. Agreed, he's ageing, and this wasn't his finest 90 minutes, but he has the ability to change games. Dembele was poor too

yet your bidding fro him

Players like Gomes and Alcacer weren’t used properly in Barca and to be honest they were bought in while the team already had great players on their main positions. They were more like a waste of talent. As for Dembele, Barca is being patient because of the huge anount of money he was bought with. Had he been 10 times cheaper he would have been gone long time ago because of his previous poor performances and lack of professionalism. However, it’s good that he has improved lately.

It's good for him anyway, since he left he won 3 trophies
he would have 0 now if he stayed

Agreed 100%. I don't think Chumi and Miranda are first team material... that said, Valverde chooses to change the whole squad once for rotation - that's horrible short-mindedness.
I wish him great success next season wherever he may go.

Yeah, chumi n murrilo ,doesn't sound good , atleast lenglet should have started with one of them.

Tretze yes.. he did rotations of entire season in one game..

Seems both Liverpool and Barca falling victims to the danger of rotating your whole squad for the cup play

How's full rotation short-minded? It means you trust your team fully. Plus having won Copa del Rey for four years in a row gives a coach every right to experiment freely. Valverde made only one serious mistake in his rotation approach during his Barça tenure, and that was the Roma away game. The rest has to be done. I think this game was a good way to see the worst your team can play. And they had a 2-1 loss. The Betis game was legendary this season when Betis completely outplayed Barça, and that allowed Barça to see what would happen if they met supreme competition. I see this season as a promising transition period for the future.

Cizbiz, I respecfully partly disagree. Sure, this is not such a big loss, but it gains nothing for anyone except Murillo maybe, as he's had a good game, disclosing areas that he can improve upon, Vidal, showing infectious dedication, and Cillesen, as he'd be 1st choice almost anywhere else.
EV ended up playing Lenglet anyway and could have had Chumi replace him.
Coutinho's confidence would have been completely shot if it not have been for that penalty.
Dembele's a winger, not a false 9 or playmaker - maybe a game is not enough to put that conversation to rest, but I hope it is. We're desperately missing a back-up quality striker.
Miranda's Alba's backup (the later has not signed a contract extension due to the club's fault apparently), so I somehow agree that he should have played.

With subjectivity, Levante ended Barca's unbeaten run last year, so there was ego involved, if not for EV, at least for the fans. That too was due to tiredness (hint: rotation?) and underestimating Levante.

P.S. Just realized that Footyroom says Pique played instead of Murillo. May want to fix that...

Tretze you're right about Coutinho and Dembele. The same applies to Denis Suarez. A few unlucky rotation games, injuries or faux pas and their confidences would collapse. That did happen with the likes of Seydou Keita, Arda Turan, Pedro and Bojan Krkic in the past. But it also gave us brilliant improvement for the likes of Mascherano, Sergi Roberto and Ter Stegen. Now I expect that for Coutinho, Dembele, Malcom and Semedo. We do end up with too many midfield contenders and few forwards tho, but remember that Barça is the only team to appear in a continental European competition every single season since 1955 (Don't we love that detail? :) ). That can only happen with consistent rotation and prioritisation. This year Valverde seems to downplay Copa del Rey obviously. So he uses the chance.