Has Eto Agreed To Leave Barca?

Reports are emerging from Spain that Samuel Eto has finally agreed to a 9 million Euro a year deal with Inter. There has been no confirmation from both the clubs but the players agent was recently quoted - that a deal is imminent. The whole saga of Eto - Ibra swap has taken some crazy twists recently. One media report suggested that Barca is ready to scrap the swap agreement and pay 75 million Euros for the Swede striker. That showed the desperation of Barca management to sign Ibrahmovic. With Eto agreeing to terms, this can be considered as the biggest signing of Barca history (it is still not clear whetehr Hleb is includede in the deal). Laporta earlier this season criticized Real Madrid for their extravaganza and inflation of the transfer market. He also recently defended the Ibra-Eto swap deal as nothing similiar to Madrid's transfer this season. But I am sorry to disagree with Laporta on this. Real Madrid with their purchase of Kaka and Ronaldo inflated the transfer market out of proportion. If the Ibra-Eto deal goes through we will be doing the same. Madrid atleast can justify that they have paid these enormous amount tow former WPOY. We can't even do that.

Samuel Eto has been an essential part of Barca's success for all these years - first with Rijkaard and now with Guardiola. It is not a huge surprise that he scored in both of Barca's triumph in Barca's greatest triumphs till date - the Champions league final in 2006 and 2009. With Eto one thing was guranteed - Goals. Ibrahmovic is a slightly different kind of player but more technically gifted. But he initially has to fit into the 4-3-3 formation we play so well. And with the price tag associated with him he has to score atleast 25 goals in league this season. Now that would be a huge expectation to live with. Many of the people point out that we have to change the team as we have won everything last season and they are firmly behind such a huge move. They all fear that not acting now will repeat the failure of 2006-07 season. But honestly how many of you have recommeneded to have Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto sold out after the 2006 Champions League final triumph? The truth was that Rijkaard lost it completely interms of discipline after that seasona and we basically paid for that. Still this deal could be good but the price of this is cannot be justified.

Another statistics that has been put forward to justify this deal was the aerial ability of Ibrahmovic. He was billed as Barca's potential answer to the Bus-Parking done by Chelsea this season and ManU a year before. Ibrahmovic is much better than Eto in air but I don't believe that he will be that good agaisnt the Chelsea and Manchester United defense. Last season I have watched the ManU vs Inter match and he looked impotent in that match. Maybe we can hope that maybe a one-off game. But he could be real threat when it comes to free kick. After the departure of Ronaldinho we were quite innefficient in this field and we could add another weapon to it by Ibrahmovic signing. Again then it is yet to be seen whether he will track back to help defense like Eto has done in all his times at Barca. It is quite surprising that Barca fans who yelled out at Madrid's huge signings weeks before is seeing this huge signing in a different angle. They justify this saying that it is essential for FC Barcelona at this point of time. But then it is quite surprising to see them crying foul at Madrid's signing as it was essenitial for Madrid to bring in major players after such a succeful season for their traditiona rivals.

Gearing For Pre-Season

After some long much deserved rest, FC Barcelona has started their pre-season tour. FC Barcelona will be first seen competing in the Wembley Cup against Totenham on friday 24th July. Guardiola has picked a 28 man squad for the trip to London. The squad contains 17 from senior squad and 11 from the youth and reserve teams. The squad list include Valdés, Pinto, Jorquera, Martín Cáceres, Víctor Sánchez, Henrique, Maxwell, Márquez, Abidal, Keita, Touré, Gudjohnsen, Hleb, Bojan, Henry, Messi, Pedro, Oriol, Dalmau, Montoya, Fontàs, Muniesa, Espasandín, Rueda, Santos, Jeffren, Rochina and Gai. Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Piqué, Busquets, Alves, Milito and Eto'o has been excluded from the squad and will only join mostly for the pre-season in US. It will be good to see how we cope the absence of two of our genius creative midfielders - Iniesta and xavi. Most probably Messi will be wearing the captain's armband.

Meanwhile Manchester City has been confirmed as the rival for FC Barcelona in the Joan Gamper Trophy match. The match will be held on the 19th of August at Camp Nou. Mean while there is no clarity about the Eto-Ibra deal. It seems like Eto's asking price of 12 million dollar a year is the road block for the swap.

Maxwell Presentation Video

Maxwell Presentation in Mini Estadi

Is Guardiola That Good a Manager?

This is something which has gone through my head a thousand times. Is Guardiola that good a coach as he is been featured by media? Surely a guy who has won an unprecedented treble with this FC Barcelona side has to be good, but is he a legend. For me Guardiola at this moment is more of a disciplinary genius than a tactical one. Many may disagree pointing to the was he switched Messi inside in the Champions League final. But to be honest that game was all about blunders Ferguson made than the tactics employed by Guardiola. To Guardiola's credit he managed very well with the resources at his hand. Now many may ask whether Guardiola had no part in the success of last season, surely he had - maybe the largest part. He brought something which the Barca setup was lacking for the last two seasons - discipline. In Rijkaard's last two season there were no doubts about the fact that he was never in control. Guardiola came out with an iron hand approach and did kept a complete control on the proceedings. No one was able to take their place for granted and that proved one more point thing - FC barcelona had two bad season because Barca was playing bad, not because of others playing well.

But to all his credit Guardiola is not a tactical genius. He has been out-thought by Hiddink and looked lost till that dramatic turn-out in the injury time. Actually that was one battle we had trouble dealing last season. The same was with the way we played at Atletico Madrid. His reluctance to use substitutes to change the course of match was very irritating. Many a times we saw he holding back substitutes to be used as a time wasting tactic. The prime example was the Sylvinho substitution against Chelsea, don't call it a master piece, I thought he forgot we had a substitute left. More over he looks like a guy who comes with a lot of pre-conception. His reluctance to accept that Toure was the best defensive midfielder we had was a prime example of that. The way he handled Eto saga earlier last season showed his inexperience and reluctance to accept ground reality. And it looks like he has not learn from that also. Under him and Laporta, we successfully managed to unsettle Eto again without any proper back-up assurance. Strangely now every egg lies in Eto's basket. He can decide to stay in Barca for one more season and leave for free at the end of it, if he stays we will be forced to use him as a striker this season. Guardiola and Laporta went ahead with upsetting him without really taking ground reality of signing a replacement in account. Now mostly we have to cough up a much higer value to land Ibrahmovic, that again depends on Eto agreeing to Inter's terms.

But it might be too early to judge him. He is in his second season as a coach and will probably improve with more experience. He has all the making of becoming a good disciplined coach but I doubt whether he will be able to mold himself into a tactical genius. In FC Barcelona he is the ideal man as we always play a very attacking style and we need a guy to hold the team's discipline intact. But I would love to see him using his brain a bit more in transfer market. The Hleb saga was a disaster in making from the beginning. And we still have not addressed the left side issue. If he is planning to use Iniesta upfront more, that also could backfire as that will deprive us of the service of the best attacking midfielder in the middle. Without Iniesta it is easy for teams to double mark Xavi and take him out of the equation, we had seen it many times last season. I believe this could be the make or break season for Guardiola as a coach. There was not much pressure last season but that success means there will be more and he will be scruitinized in every step he take.

Has Laporta Gone Crazy?

Joan Laporta has confirmed yesterday that the club has agreed on principle with Inter about a deal which will see Zlatan Ibrahmovic moving to Barcelona for exchange of Eto and some cash. There are rumours flying in plenty for sometime and the latest rumours suggests that Barca will give 40 million plus the service of both Eto and Hleb on loan. No deal will be reached if Eto does not agree to the terms which will be put infront by Inter. Already there is rumours that Eto is asking for 10 million a year from Inter and at this moment that looks like the only hope for me preventing Barca commit this colossal mistake. Last week we saw FC Barcelona disagreeing on Valencia's asking price for Villa, which was supposed to be in 50 millions. But now it looks like we might get Ibrahmovic, a player who goes missing in big matches for a value of 80 million (40 million in cash + Eto and Hleb). The big question is - Is Ibrahmovic worth that money? Absolutely not. Ibrahmovic is one of the top quality striker around Europe and has been successful in recent past. But he has not yet performed what Eto did for Barca, scoring goal that too in plenty. Nor did he has done something Kaka or Ronaldo performed - taking their team to European Glory.

So at this moment looks like Barca is going to perform another collosal blunder in terms of monetary valuation by signing Ibrahmovic for this amount. This blunder looks much more horrifying when considering the fact that we could buy Villa by adding a 10 million more to our earlier bid. David Villa is a proven customer and is sure to succeed in FC Barcelona as he is the best to fit our style of play. Secindly he is not a striker who goes missing against big teams. Ibrahmovic sadly always have quiet game against bigger teams, last season Champions League encounter against Manchester United was a plum example. He looked like a striker who was making his debut, fully out of confidence. But again we have to ask why Laporta is going for the striker at this huge price? This one potentially has all the making of being another Hleb signing. Last season Laporta and Guardiola circled on Hleb to replace Ronaldinho. We know where that went. Now the same team is going to get rid of two players and 40 million to sign Ibrahmovic. Crazy indeed and now all the hopes lies on Eto.

Guardiola's tactic for the next season looks similiar to the one he had last season. He will try playing Henry and Ibrahmovic at centre-forward position with Iniesta moving forward on the left (that is why he is giving Hleb's service for free). That will leave the midfiled with a combination of Xavi, Toure and Keita in most matches. We saw last season what happens when Iniesta moves out of that midfield. But Guardiola looks like he will never learn.

Maxwell Presentation Pictures

Here are pictures from Maxwell Scherrer Cabelino's presentation at Mini Estadi at Barcelona on 17th July 2009.

Maxwell Becomes Barca's First Official Signing

FC Barcelona's official website has reported that FC Barcelona and Inter Milan have reached the beginning of an agreement for the transfer of the Brazilian Scherrer Cabelino Maxwell Andrade “Maxwell” for a fee of 4.5 million Euros with an additional 0,5 million in variable payments. Now with that signing it is certain that we have neded our interest in Luis Fileppe of Deportivo. Deportivo was asking for too much for the left back and I have to appreciate the audacity with which our management found a replacement. Maxwell is expected to give Abidal a good fight for his position. And for all those Barca fans he has more attacking instinct than Abidal. It is not clear when we will complete the signing and how long he is staying in the club. The initail rumours says that he will be offered a contract which will keep him till 2012. With this signing we will have a capable cover for the space left by Sylvinho's absence.

Maxwell started his career with Cruzeiro. Then he joined Ajax in 2001 and stayed till his transfer to Inter in 2006. With Inter he has won three League titles and Italian Super Cup. He was also selected as the "Dutch Football of The Year" in 2004. He is good in going forward and can play in advance position. In his debut season Maxwell's superb solo goal against Parma was voted as the best Inter Goal of the season.