Is This The Best Barça Ever?
Monday, 17 November 08, 05:13 PM · Comments(28)
It is early days still to begin to judge Pep Guardiola's Barça; however, the statistics speak for themselves: after 11 league games Barça have made their best start ever to a league campaign - nine wins and a draw = 28 points which is one more than Bobby Robson's team won in the first eleven games of 1996/97 (eight wins and three draws).
The current team have now won nine league games on the trot. The team of 2005/06 hold the record for consecutive league victories having won 14 straight games between October 2005 and January 2006. Many of you may remember some of the fantastic football played at that time including the 0-3 win at the Bernabeu with Ronaldinho at his unbelievable best. That team went on to lift La Liga and the Champions League trophy so until Pep's boys do the same perhaps there can be no comparison. But just for the hell of it I will compare the figures. In the 14 wins of 2005/06 Barça scored 38 goals (an average of 2.714 goals a game) and only conceded seven. In the current run of nine games Barça have scored 35 (an average of 3.889 goals a game!) while conceding six.
There is still quite a road to climb to equal the fourteen wins, the next five league games are Getafe (home), Sevilla (away), Valencia (home), Real Madrid (home), and Villarreal (away); if we come through that lot victorious we will only have to beat Mallorca at home at the start of January to break the record.
As we all know records count for nothing at the end of the day, and the only really important thing is to win some silverware at the end of the season, Bobby Robson's team, for example, ended up in second place to Madrid at the end of the 1996/97 season. Also to really go down in history you expect a team to consistently win things over a period of three or four seasons as Johan Cruyff's famous Dream Team did between 1989 and 1994. Cruyff's team played some incredible football in that time but they also had their off-days and in the end won three of their league titles (1992, 1993, 1994) thanks to the slip-ups of their rivals on the last day of the season.
We cannot see into the future but the signs and sensations so far this season are all positive, we are bound to have some bad games: no team can win always. However, for now we should enjoy the ride, it is not often that you can see football played at such a high standard as we have seen in the last few weeks. We must hope we can continue at this level for when we face the likes of Real Madrid, Villarreal, Sevilla and Valencia, I look forward to these games with relish at the prospect of tearing these teams apart. For now they are just my dreams, but I really can't wait to see those dreams coming true.
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I'm always leery of such comparisons when there are still about 5 months of matches to go. We still have 27 league matches to play, not to mention la Copa and Champions League. Are Barça good? Yes, unbelievably so! But let's keep focused and take this one match at a time.
E' ancora troppo presto per dire se questo Barça sarà da leggenda...ma và detto CHE SIAMO SULLA BUONA STRADA E CHI VIVRA' VEDRA'!!! 
It's so hard to be a fan overseas here in Canada. The live feeds online during the games are terrible and it is nearly impossible to find tv channels playing barca games. Does anyone know of a torrent site to download games after they have been played live? Would really love to watch the beauty of our football, even if it cannot be live.
Despite a few slip ups now and then, the team has been looking very dominant under Pep. The way Barcelona has been playing this season not only exudes pure class, but also the desire that was missing from last year. Everyone is working hard, very determined to accomplish great things this year thanks to Pep's managerial techniques. He has made strong efforts to instill discipline and hunger for beautiful football in the players, while at the same time making sure that the team doesnt float too high up in over-confidence and stays on the ground. He himself has been modest on quite a few occasions playing down any pre-mature talks of success.
Credit to him though because at these times it is very difficult for a blaugrana to be modest and not gloat of his team's brilliance, especially when this team has the potential to be remembered as one of the most revered opponents in history
Hell we already feel the season is in the bag but there is still a long time before the sun sets and the true test of Pep's Barcelona is in surviving the harsh heat of the midday sun come december when they face the rest of the top three in a row.
Who the hell came up with this schedule? Sevilla, Valencia, Madrid then Villareal. Talk about pressure but I tell you, if Barcelona is still at the top of the table after this difficult and decisive month then they have a really good chance of reclaiming the trophy............but if they also emerge from this stage completely unscathed, equalizing the 14 game winning streak in such remarkable circumstances then there will be no doubt that this is the best barca ever.
"I look forward to these games with relish at the prospect of tearing these teams apart"
Yes. I always do too. Especially Madrid. And with their troubles I can't wait more than ever to avenge last season's twin defeats.
10 cules points for me 
28 Comments · Add yours
well after our oustanding performances i still think we have to play against some big guns (real madrid,valencia, villareal) before we can draw a conclusion.
Nice article Pep!! I am quietly optimistic about the run of games we have coming up. The reason is that so far, every team that has actually tried to play us has been absolutely demolished. The only teams that have been able to put up a fight are the ones (like Recre) that just pack the box and defend like their lives depended on it.....and even then we won. That is not to say these upcoming games will be easy, far from it, but none of the teams we will face in this tough run of games is going to sit back and defend like Recre did.....they are much more likely to try and play us like Athletico Madrid and we all know what happened to them. It would be nice to come away with 5 victories, but i would take a draw or two as long as we end the year top. Oh and as long as we absolutely hammer EE at home.....5-0 would be nice.....