Dani Alves (13 Viewers)
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Just How Much Have Barcelona Missed Dani Alves After His Move to Juventus?
Karl Matchett
May 12, 2017
A natural part of any team's life cycle is to replenish the squad, with even the greatest sides needing injections of new faces and more youthful legs.
At the start of the 2016/17 season, it was Barcelona's turn; treble winners just two seasons earlier, the club's board, manager Luis Enrique and his staff wanted to add new players, which meant others had to exit.
Among the 13 summer departures were Claudio Bravo, Thomas Vermaelen, Adriano and Dani Alves—all of them 30 or over—while the eldest outfield player signed was Paco Alcacer, 23.
It was time for a renewal, but almost 10 months on, Alves is proving the decision to allow him to leave was costly.
Heir Apparent
It's easy to be rose-tinted about the entire affair, so context is important. At the start of the 2015/16 campaign, Alves was injured. Sergi Roberto came into the side at right-back, having been promised game time in the role by Luis Enrique, and the Spaniard excelled.
For a short while, he was one of the best players in La Liga, filling the role in a different style to Alves, but with aggression in defence and a good connection in attack. Alves' return to fitness saw the two rotate, with Roberto ushered back into midfield at times, but the Brazilian's form wasn't anywhere near its highest level.
He had an up-and-down season for much of 2015/16, though he finished strongly, with his performances toward the end of the campaign good enough to have served as notice that he wasn't finished at the elite level.
Even so, he left last summer, citing at the time the need to "reinvent" himself with a new challenge, per Sport—but his story had changed by the time Barca and his new side, Juventus, were drawn to face each other in this season's UEFA Champions League quarter-final.
Alves is quoted as saying to ABC (h/t The Independent):
"During my last three seasons, I always heard that Alves was leaving, but the management never said anything to me.
"They were very false and ungrateful. They did not respect me. They only offered me a renewal because of the FIFA transfer ban. That's when I played their game and signed a renewal, which included a clause that allowed me to leave for free a year later. The people who run Barcelona have no idea how to treat their players."
Roberto, along with the recently signed Aleix Vidal, was entrusted to fill the right-back void, but it has far from worked out as planned.
Andrew Gaffney covers La Liga for Yahoo and tells us just how much of a difference there has been: "How much have Barcelona missed him? Like a hole in the side of a plane. It's there for everyone to see. Sergi Roberto's solid start in the role made people forget at first, but Alves offers a lot more than simply defending.
"In attack, he's essentially a winger, like Marcelo for Real Madrid, and it's another outlet to exploit teams who sit deep."
It's a train of thought mirrored by Simon Harrison, La Liga correspondent for FourFourTwo and Marca.
"The fact they have no orthodox right-back, even without injuries, highlights that," Harrison said. "Sergi Roberto has done well as an improvised option, but Dani Alves offers so much more in terms of delivery and vision from both advanced and deeper areas."
Roberto is 25, not exactly an up-and-coming player, and while he receives an unfair amount of criticism for not being Dani Alves, it's also fair to note he has had as many nightmarish moments as he has critical interventions.
Opposition Overload
So exactly why do Barca miss Alves so much? At 33, his physical peak is behind him, even if the engine is still purring along nicely—and as noted, his form dropped off over the past season or two.
In a way, there's a mirror here to the Real Madrid argument when Cristiano Ronaldo was not at his best at the start of this season: When the best player in the world in a particular role is operating at 70 or 80 per cent, he's still better than 90 per cent of other applicants out there.
Regardless of the drop-off, Alves covered so many aspects of Barcelona's play that asking one player to step in was never going to result in a like-for-like replacement.
Gaffney explains how Alves offered an alternative outlet that has been badly missed this term: "Alves' ability on the counter is something Barca lack this season, as far too often they have gone long to get the front three involved. Without Andres Iniesta, they lacked creativity across the midfield and defence; Alves would've helped."
The power, speed and width that Alves brought to the team isn't offered elsewhere, especially with Jordi Alba in and out this season on the left as a result of injury and rotation. They don't have the penetration at pace from multiple angles or the willingness to burst beyond players or stay wide and deliver quality; when opposition teams play compact, there are too few options to open the game up.
For Harrison, that's the biggest issue at hand post-Alves: "When teams congest the middle of the park and ask for teams like Barcelona to stretch them and try to break them down with quality, Alves would have been a key man this season.
"And his performances for Juventus in the Champions League semi-finals are the icing on that particular cake."
What Might Have Been
Barca were not in the semis—Alves and Co. ended their hopes one round earlier.
As B/R's Sam Tighe notes, it could have been all so different, with the former Barca man clearly still holding the club in enormous regard—or at least those he played and trained with.
"Letting Dani Alves leave—or, to be specific, allowing the situation in which he felt the need to depart unfold—was a heinous error on Barcelona's part," Tighe said. "The Brazilian's love for the club is clear. That he was in the Camp Nou dugout hugging people when the quarter-final second leg kicked off reveals plenty.
"This season, he's been demonic for Juventus, with his passion and lust for success still evident. He's scored crucial goals in both European and Serie A play, keeping The Old Lady on track for another huge trophy haul.
"Meanwhile, Barcelona have jigged and rejigged their formation in an attempt to continually kick the team back into form. They might still end the season as domestic double winners, but consistency issues in Alves' old position have been a hindrance to the team, and it's impossible to shake the feeling that the odd, lopsided 3-4-3 system Luis Enrique has favoured in 2017 would have suited Alves perfectly."
Whether the 3-4-3 continues or not (after all, Lucho is off at the end of the season, and there's no assurance of what system the new manager will play), Barca need to find someone to fill the right side with more regularity, more consistency.
It's not a case of suggesting Roberto isn't good enough, but rather that he doesn't do each job as fully as Alves did.
Unless those areas of the game are filled by another area of the team, the right-back must continue to provide them or Barcelona will continue to struggle.
Remedy
So where do Barca go in the summer? There have already been rumours over new signings—there were rumours even before Alves left, in fact—with some of them as unsuited to replacing Alves as Iniesta or Messi would be, while others might be overpriced, too fleeting with their early-career fortunes or simply not available.
Aside from giving Barca the extra dimension on the front foot, Alves' link-up play, particularly with Messi, has been a huge miss.
Barcelona fan Kevin Gimenez highlights this as the biggest need to fill, much as the poll above showed.
"People often used to say Messi couldn't do what he did without Xavi and Iniesta, but it was actually Dani Alves who supplied Messi with more assists than both of these," Gimenez said.
"He's quite simply the best right-back I have ever seen. Alves was often tarred with a myth of 'he can't defend,' yet I am still to see him get dominated in a game. It was crazy to let him go."
That's the overriding feeling.
Without an adequate replacement, without a plan for alternatives and with Vidal not showing up to be half the player required, it was foolhardy to let Alves leave, even as advanced in age as he was and with the need for fresh players.
Such a critical part of the team, such an established player and a high-quality, reliable source of buildup play toward the individuals who mattered most—Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar—Barcelona gambled big time by allowing Alves out of the Camp Nou door.
And much like they did against his new team in the Champions League, they lost.
Karl Matchett
May 12, 2017
A natural part of any team's life cycle is to replenish the squad, with even the greatest sides needing injections of new faces and more youthful legs.
At the start of the 2016/17 season, it was Barcelona's turn; treble winners just two seasons earlier, the club's board, manager Luis Enrique and his staff wanted to add new players, which meant others had to exit.
Among the 13 summer departures were Claudio Bravo, Thomas Vermaelen, Adriano and Dani Alves—all of them 30 or over—while the eldest outfield player signed was Paco Alcacer, 23.
It was time for a renewal, but almost 10 months on, Alves is proving the decision to allow him to leave was costly.
Heir Apparent
It's easy to be rose-tinted about the entire affair, so context is important. At the start of the 2015/16 campaign, Alves was injured. Sergi Roberto came into the side at right-back, having been promised game time in the role by Luis Enrique, and the Spaniard excelled.
For a short while, he was one of the best players in La Liga, filling the role in a different style to Alves, but with aggression in defence and a good connection in attack. Alves' return to fitness saw the two rotate, with Roberto ushered back into midfield at times, but the Brazilian's form wasn't anywhere near its highest level.
He had an up-and-down season for much of 2015/16, though he finished strongly, with his performances toward the end of the campaign good enough to have served as notice that he wasn't finished at the elite level.
Even so, he left last summer, citing at the time the need to "reinvent" himself with a new challenge, per Sport—but his story had changed by the time Barca and his new side, Juventus, were drawn to face each other in this season's UEFA Champions League quarter-final.
Alves is quoted as saying to ABC (h/t The Independent):
"During my last three seasons, I always heard that Alves was leaving, but the management never said anything to me.
"They were very false and ungrateful. They did not respect me. They only offered me a renewal because of the FIFA transfer ban. That's when I played their game and signed a renewal, which included a clause that allowed me to leave for free a year later. The people who run Barcelona have no idea how to treat their players."
Roberto, along with the recently signed Aleix Vidal, was entrusted to fill the right-back void, but it has far from worked out as planned.
Andrew Gaffney covers La Liga for Yahoo and tells us just how much of a difference there has been: "How much have Barcelona missed him? Like a hole in the side of a plane. It's there for everyone to see. Sergi Roberto's solid start in the role made people forget at first, but Alves offers a lot more than simply defending.
"In attack, he's essentially a winger, like Marcelo for Real Madrid, and it's another outlet to exploit teams who sit deep."
It's a train of thought mirrored by Simon Harrison, La Liga correspondent for FourFourTwo and Marca.
"The fact they have no orthodox right-back, even without injuries, highlights that," Harrison said. "Sergi Roberto has done well as an improvised option, but Dani Alves offers so much more in terms of delivery and vision from both advanced and deeper areas."
Roberto is 25, not exactly an up-and-coming player, and while he receives an unfair amount of criticism for not being Dani Alves, it's also fair to note he has had as many nightmarish moments as he has critical interventions.
Opposition Overload
So exactly why do Barca miss Alves so much? At 33, his physical peak is behind him, even if the engine is still purring along nicely—and as noted, his form dropped off over the past season or two.
In a way, there's a mirror here to the Real Madrid argument when Cristiano Ronaldo was not at his best at the start of this season: When the best player in the world in a particular role is operating at 70 or 80 per cent, he's still better than 90 per cent of other applicants out there.
Regardless of the drop-off, Alves covered so many aspects of Barcelona's play that asking one player to step in was never going to result in a like-for-like replacement.
Gaffney explains how Alves offered an alternative outlet that has been badly missed this term: "Alves' ability on the counter is something Barca lack this season, as far too often they have gone long to get the front three involved. Without Andres Iniesta, they lacked creativity across the midfield and defence; Alves would've helped."
The power, speed and width that Alves brought to the team isn't offered elsewhere, especially with Jordi Alba in and out this season on the left as a result of injury and rotation. They don't have the penetration at pace from multiple angles or the willingness to burst beyond players or stay wide and deliver quality; when opposition teams play compact, there are too few options to open the game up.
For Harrison, that's the biggest issue at hand post-Alves: "When teams congest the middle of the park and ask for teams like Barcelona to stretch them and try to break them down with quality, Alves would have been a key man this season.
"And his performances for Juventus in the Champions League semi-finals are the icing on that particular cake."
What Might Have Been
Barca were not in the semis—Alves and Co. ended their hopes one round earlier.
As B/R's Sam Tighe notes, it could have been all so different, with the former Barca man clearly still holding the club in enormous regard—or at least those he played and trained with.
"Letting Dani Alves leave—or, to be specific, allowing the situation in which he felt the need to depart unfold—was a heinous error on Barcelona's part," Tighe said. "The Brazilian's love for the club is clear. That he was in the Camp Nou dugout hugging people when the quarter-final second leg kicked off reveals plenty.
"This season, he's been demonic for Juventus, with his passion and lust for success still evident. He's scored crucial goals in both European and Serie A play, keeping The Old Lady on track for another huge trophy haul.
"Meanwhile, Barcelona have jigged and rejigged their formation in an attempt to continually kick the team back into form. They might still end the season as domestic double winners, but consistency issues in Alves' old position have been a hindrance to the team, and it's impossible to shake the feeling that the odd, lopsided 3-4-3 system Luis Enrique has favoured in 2017 would have suited Alves perfectly."
Whether the 3-4-3 continues or not (after all, Lucho is off at the end of the season, and there's no assurance of what system the new manager will play), Barca need to find someone to fill the right side with more regularity, more consistency.
It's not a case of suggesting Roberto isn't good enough, but rather that he doesn't do each job as fully as Alves did.
Unless those areas of the game are filled by another area of the team, the right-back must continue to provide them or Barcelona will continue to struggle.
Remedy
So where do Barca go in the summer? There have already been rumours over new signings—there were rumours even before Alves left, in fact—with some of them as unsuited to replacing Alves as Iniesta or Messi would be, while others might be overpriced, too fleeting with their early-career fortunes or simply not available.
Aside from giving Barca the extra dimension on the front foot, Alves' link-up play, particularly with Messi, has been a huge miss.
Barcelona fan Kevin Gimenez highlights this as the biggest need to fill, much as the poll above showed.
"People often used to say Messi couldn't do what he did without Xavi and Iniesta, but it was actually Dani Alves who supplied Messi with more assists than both of these," Gimenez said.
"He's quite simply the best right-back I have ever seen. Alves was often tarred with a myth of 'he can't defend,' yet I am still to see him get dominated in a game. It was crazy to let him go."
That's the overriding feeling.
Without an adequate replacement, without a plan for alternatives and with Vidal not showing up to be half the player required, it was foolhardy to let Alves leave, even as advanced in age as he was and with the need for fresh players.
Such a critical part of the team, such an established player and a high-quality, reliable source of buildup play toward the individuals who mattered most—Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar—Barcelona gambled big time by allowing Alves out of the Camp Nou door.
And much like they did against his new team in the Champions League, they lost.
Top 5 post of the year and no one even noticed 
http://www.juventuz.com/threads/41654-Alex-Sandro?p=5493222#post5493222
:
Jesus, he's goooooood! 
He's orchestrating and dictating our whole attack now!
Normally we're used to playing it safe for the right occasion to come up, but seems like he's encouraging the players around him to take more risks with small passes in tight spots, opening a whole new dimension to our play.
He's orchestrating and dictating our whole attack now!
Normally we're used to playing it safe for the right occasion to come up, but seems like he's encouraging the players around him to take more risks with small passes in tight spots, opening a whole new dimension to our play.
OP
