rafa's valencia

[badpiggy]

don;t mean this as a rafa-bashing thread but what are people's memories of this side? didn't ever get to see la liga at the time, missed and never saw them beating us at anfield and saw them win uefa cup where i thought they were compact, tight, aggressive and horrible to play against. i know they were known as the crushing machine.

was there any evidence of open expansive play/excitement?
did rafa build/inherit an average side that he drove on to unexpected glory or was there lots of talent in need of direction ?
were real and barca just in a bit of a dip at the time?
do we look like he's sticking to the same philosophy or is he adaptable?

[AFII]

don;t mean this as a rafa-bashing thread but what are people's memories of this side? didn't ever get to see la liga at the time, missed and never saw them beating us at anfield and saw them win uefa cup where i thought they were compact, tight, aggressive and horrible to play against. i know they were known as the crushing machine.

was there any evidence of open expansive play/excitement? No but they had Aimar.
did rafa build/inherit an average side that he drove on to unexpected glory or was there lots of talent in need of direction ? They had been at two CL finals two seasons out of three before he took over.
were real and barca just in a bit of a dip at the time? Yes
do we look like he's sticking to the same philosophy or is he adaptable? He is changing but not that much.

[Guest]

mmm ... A manager will only be as good as the players he has at his disposition. If he inherited a Barca side, or manure for that matter, do you really think he would have played defensive football ???

Look at his Valencia team. He played to their strengths. He has a strong tactical mentality, and for that you also need to be pragmatic, and that means having some common sense. Manure and Barca can be entertaining sides but we still over scored them in the number of trophies won ... by far. If you like fancy stuffs, you'd probably be well off watching the Harlem Globe trotters.

[enema of the state]

was there any evidence of open expansive play/excitement? ?

open play - no
excitement - depends what excites you

rafas valencia stood out to me on 2 levels:
1 EXCELLENT TECHNIQUE - their touch, passing and movement was as good as any club side ive ever seen. Id prefer lfc to play that kind of football to a man united 4-2 cavalry charge or an evans era 4-3 v newcastle. (Very similar to lfc 1976-84)
2 OUTSTANDING APPLICATION OF THEIR SETUP/TACTICS

did rafa build/inherit an average side that he drove on to unexpected glory or was there lots of talent in need of direction ??

there was a substantial amount of talent at the club already

were real and barca just in a bit of a dip at the time? ?

real remain in the same dip to this day
barca were in a dip they came out of a couple of years ago culminating in winning the champions league last year

do we look like he's sticking to the same philosophy or is he adaptable?

we are self evidently following the blueprint of his valencia side
there are and will have to be certain differences as the premier league is very very different to la liga. this in part explains why we do relatively better in europe.

[redlancer]

Saw Valencia play us twice in the flesh and they were the most impresive team i've seen play us for a long while - better than when Arsenal tore us apart.. They tore us to pieces in the 1st 20 minutes were clinical and gave us nothing. As been said the passing and speed of play was a joy to watch.

Rafa did inherit a lot of world class players, but he also got rid of a lot of the fans favorites.

[badpiggy]

mmm ... A manager will only be as good as the players he has at his disposition. If he inherited a Barca side, or manure for that matter, do you really think he would have played defensive football ???

Look at his Valencia team. He played to their strengths. He has a strong tactical mentality, and for that you also need to be pragmatic, and that means having some common sense. Manure and Barca can be entertaining sides but we still over scored them in the number of trophies won ... by far. If you like fancy stuffs, you'd probably be well off watching the Harlem Globe trotters.

did you get your grandad to write that?

[Howard_lfc]

don;t mean this as a rafa-bashing thread but what are people's memories of this side? didn't ever get to see la liga at the time, missed and never saw them beating us at anfield and saw them win uefa cup where i thought they were compact, tight, aggressive and horrible to play against. i know they were known as the crushing machine.

was there any evidence of open expansive play/excitement?
did rafa build/inherit an average side that he drove on to unexpected glory or was there lots of talent in need of direction ?
were real and barca just in a bit of a dip at the time?
do we look like he's sticking to the same philosophy or is he adaptable?

The Valencia team that did us at Anfield was the best team I can remember.

[enema of the state]

The Valencia team that did us at Anfield was the best team I can remember.

disagree strongly

[Guest]

disagree strongly

Who's that fat nosed subs goalie ? Ogrizovic ?

[tomasjj]

Now that was a good team!

As was the one with Barnes, Rush, Kenny, Beardsley...

[Guest]

Their haircut was pretty funny though. Fat nose Thommo's hairstyle could have killed a few birds along the way.

[Shaggy]

The Valencia team that did us at Anfield was the best team I can remember.

And me. Men against boys, it was. Never have I witnessed an LFC team get such a thorough chasing.

[Shaggy]

disagree strongly

Surely he meant best opposition team? That's what I meant.

They were even better than the Barca side that took us apart at Anfield a year or so earlier.

[redlancer]

Surely he meant best opposition team? That's what I meant.

They were even better than the Barca side that took us apart at Anfield a year or so earlier.

That Barca side wan't a patch on Valencia. They only "took us apart" for about 10 minutes when we were chasing the game.

[honourablegeorge]

They scored a goal against us at Anfield that was just perfect precision ping pong passing. They were glorious to watch, in a horrible, depressing, they're-miles-better-than-us sort of way.