FC Barcelona played Chivas last night in a friendly in Miami. Barca scored first in the first half. The second half was a butt woopin of the highest order by Chivas. Put four goals in the second half with a highlight reel scissor kick for the second goal.

The interesting part was Barca had more possession but still got hammered because Chivas could simply finish. This says something to me about style. While Barca tried to play the tick tack passing game, Chivas was a counterattacking, speed wins, power team. Maybe we should be teaching the counterattack long ball speed style to our kids.

Some will say Barca was playing there B team but they did have Ineista, Xavi, Busquets, Villa, Pedro, and Pique. I would like to see Chivas play them in a match that means something and see what happens.

Will be interesting to see how Barca does against Club America this weekend in Arlington. They could go without a win on this US tour.

WRG wrote:FC Barcelona played Chivas last night in a friendly in Miami. Barca scored first in the first half. The second half was a butt woopin of the highest order by Chivas. Put four goals in the second half with a highlight reel scissor kick for the second goal.

The interesting part was Barca had more possession but still got hammered because Chivas could simply finish. This says something to me about style. While Barca tried to play the tick tack passing game, Chivas was a counterattacking, speed wins, power team. Maybe we should be teaching the counterattack long ball speed style to our kids.

Some will say Barca was playing there B team but they did have Ineista, Xavi, Busquets, Villa, Pedro, and Pique. I would like to see Chivas play them in a match that means something and see what happens.

Will be interesting to see how Barca does against Club America this weekend in Arlington. They could go without a win on this US tour.

The Barcelona style works if you have the players who can play it. The long ball style works if you have the players who can play it. Uruguay can show you that if you have a good defense and just give the ball to their STRIKERS FORLAN and SUAREZ they can compete in all games and play to a high level and win (Copa America).

I can go on, a good coach is one who takes his players and their skills and comes up with a system to make it work. At the same time since we are talking kids, keep the skills and foot work going, but game plan to their strengths.

That is what I will be doing.

There are lots of methods to play good soccer and have good formations.

Possession means nothing if you do not create scoring chances.

I will say this and get creamed for saying it, Spain is a good team, and were lucky to win the World Cup, their scores were mostly 1 - 0, they lost their first game to a defensive team. Portugal played them tough and they got the goal thru David Villa, Germany lost to them 1 - 0 and Puyol got the goal and they beat Holland 1 - 0 (Arjen Robben missed a lot of goals in that game) in overtime/extra time.

Japan won the world cup because of technical skill and stamina they had total lack of height...oh and heart.

Dirk Nowitzski won the NBA championship playing a totally different style of basketball than the rest of the NBA.

True soccer is footskills, samba with the ball, and finishing and playing for fun and with heart. I will let you know when I see a select team playing in that manner, so far, just a lot of mediocre soccer that one can find on the streets of England, Europe, and Latin America.

I agree with what your saying and think we all need to realize that sometimes in order to win a game, you have to change up your style. Longball soccer is not always bad as possession soccer is not always good if you do not have the players to do it. I also agree that we should strive to teach technic, footskills and samba, (if you will, because that is the most entertaining style of soccer) in my opinion.