 Today, Real Madrid could score as many goals as they wanted to. Barcelona had no answer and they haven't had answers defensively over the course of the season, so it's not a surprise that this happens on this stage. It's time to sound the alarms for Barcelona. It's time to sound the alarms for Xavi. On January 11th, Barcelona won by more than one goal for the first time in nearly four months. But any momentum that could have possibly been created from that has now disappeared after a 4-1 disaster in the Supercopa final against Madrid. I am probably the most optimistic Barcelona fan in the English-speaking world, some may say the most delusional, but right now it's really hard to be optimistic. I wish it was because of just tactical errors or just bad refereeing decisions or just individual mistakes, but we lost because of all of those things and more. Sure, we can give credit to Real Madrid for coming out of the blocks immediately prepared to press high and play through Barcelona's high line. Madrid played like a team that was organized well and was coached well and had a clear identity to their game, but they weren't miraculous. Jude played fine, Vinny played fine, and Cruz played fine, but there weren't a ton of moments of brilliance in this match from them. Barcelona was just so poor that Madrid didn't need to be brilliant to win. They could just follow their game plan and it worked perfectly. Vinny's hat-trick was probably the simplest hat-trick that I've ever seen at the very least in an El Clásico. A tap in, a pen, and a tiny bit of composure to go around the goalkeeper, but even in Occupania made that very easy for him to do. From the very start of that match, Chavi's 11 men were not prepared to play. Conceding two goals in the first 10 minutes of a match is unacceptable, but it's even more unacceptable when it's happened over and over again this season. Of the 28 matches they've played this season, they were the first to concede in 11 of them. That means 40% of the time this team has had to chase the game. That may not be terrible for a team that can score well and can come back well, but for the team that has some of the worst finishers in all of Europe, that's pretty much a death wish. Over and over again, Barcelona is not ready to play, and they come out too slowly to start matches. Sometimes you can get away with that, like when you play Almeria, the worst team in the First Division in Spain. But that's not okay when you play against a team that has a very clear footballing identity, like Girona, like Las Palmas, and like Real Madrid. In this squad, there is plenty of quality. They have the captain of treble-winning Manchester City, the most important player to the Iax Champions League run in 2019, and one of the best strikers of his generation, as well as a dominant backline. And yet they look like a bunch of amateurs when they're put up against a team that knows exactly what they are going to do. And it's not like this was a Champions League knockout match where you can understand that their mentality issues that they've had for the past five years might show up and might be a problem for the team. It was actually the least important trophy that Barcelona are going to compete for all season, as well as one that they were victorious in the exact same fixture last season. This team has the quality to perform, however, not in the way that Trabi's coaching staff is asking of them. If you were in my live stream for this last match, you probably heard me complain about the problem for these basically all of the problems from this match, Barcelona's high line. To make a high line work, you need heavy pressure on the ball everywhere from your forward line all the way to your center backs, but that's not feasible with this profile of players. For that first goal, Christensen was way too slow to pressure Bellingham, and he was easily able to play the ball through to Vinny, whose man Kunde was not ready to defend running into space like that. Kunde tried to step up to play the offside, but you can't do that when your entire backline is not prepared to do that or on the same page to do that, and they weren't. This happened over and over again, and not just in this match. Our players are perpetually uncomfortable. Gundo and Frankie struggled so much to move the ball around in the midfield, and it didn't help that Sergio Roberto and Pedri were pinned so far up the pitch, so it was basically Frankie and Gundo vs Real Madrid's four midfielders, and there's not much you can do in that situation at all. And so whenever they inevitably lost the ball, the team was very exposed on the counter with basically just Christensen and Kunde up against Vinny Rodrigo and Bellingham. Among all of the problems in this match, this was a terrible performance by Chavi, and I'm glad he apologized to the fans after this match, because this was his fault. He is asking these players to play in a way that is suboptimal with the profiles that he has. We can't play that way without a proper pivot, so at least try and play Romelu so he can operate the space that Rodrigo and Bellingham were constantly in. And I can't believe he played Sergio Roberto against this side, because he just does not have the quality to compete with that over the likes of Ferdinand Lopez, who can bring the energy that we need without Gavi and the pressure that we need without Busquets. I think the reason this team has been terrible out of possession this season is because Chavi is trying to find a way to make these guys play well together, but that's the problem. He hasn't found it yet, and we're more than halfway through this season. Chavi probably knows he can't have these guys press like crazy, so he's trying to compensate for that in different ways, but he hasn't been able to figure it out, and he's making silly mistakes in the process. You don't need to have players that perfectly fit a position if you have a style of play that these players know so strongly, so solidly. That's why Oro Romelu looked so good last season for Girona and why Barcelona wanted to sign him, but also why he looks so bad with Barcelona now, because Barcelona does not have a solid style of play, and that is why they are suffering so much this season. I've defended Chavi way too much this season, but after putting some thought into it, he is on very thin ice. Valverde was sacked for less than this, so was Kumin, and so was Setien. I can't continue making excuses for Chavi. If we end this season without any silverware, his time is up, his chance is gone, and the dream is over with him. We need to move forward, we need to move on, we need an identity. That's what makes teams successful. That's why Las Palmas is so far up in the table, even though they just got promoted, and Bayer Leverk Kusin is winning the Puntas Liga right now, because they have a clear idea of how to play. From game to game, there might be slight changes to their game plan, but they can have a good idea of what to do no matter what. It's the manager's job to give these players a baseline idea of how to play, so they can have the confidence to do more and to play at their best of their abilities. But Chavi isn't doing that, and the best example of that is how many early goals Barcelona has conceded this season. It takes Barcelona way too long to get comfortable and get into the rhythm of the match, which allows teams that are able to get into the rhythm quickly, because they have a clear identity, to take advantage of that and score early goals on Barcelona and make Barcelona chase for the rest of the match, just like they did in the Super Classical. With how this team is playing, it's pretty hard to be a Barcelona fan, and I guess it has been for the past five years, but it's especially hard to be a Barcelona fan that speaks English. Sure, this team is struggling, but the announcers and the pundits are constantly talking so negatively about Barcelona. And sure, I understand there's not a ton of good things to say, but it's so profoundly negative that it's very difficult to listen to. Everyone that announces the Barcelona matches is even negative, and not only that, they're almost always very biased toward Real Madrid. And sure, this was a bad game for Barcelona, but I don't think it's fair to have clearly an ex-Real Madrid player announcing a match to all of North America. It's not like we have other options to listen to if we're English speakers, that is our only option. So I may be profoundly positive in my reviews of Barcelona and the way I talk about potential moves and things like that, but I feel like I have to, because there are so few positive things. That may mean that I might get flamed in a lot of my comments for the takes that I have, but if that means that a few people have a better idea and a better sense of what is going on and a little bit of hope, then I'm okay with that. That's the kind of content I want to offer, because there's a lot of Doomsday-type reactions towards the way Barcelona is playing, especially on Barça Twitter. I haven't been able to open Twitter in two days, because I just don't want to see the crap on there. Whatever, I'm just upset right now and I needed to rant, but that doesn't discard my points that I made about Chavi, because he is still on very thin ice, and if we don't walk away with Silverware this season, he should be fired. But having a clearer style, I believe could help this team immensely. Also, I'm going to be doing another live stream for Barça's Copa del Rey match on Thursday against Unionistas, and it's basically a safe space for Barcelona fans to rant and talk and be delusional about Barcelona with me without being flamed for being a Barcelona fan, because these days we basically need it. But if you enjoyed this video, jump on over to this video, which is all about what's going on with Balde and how he can fix his situation, because he isn't really great right now, or check out this video about whatever YouTube thinks you might be interested in. But thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.