....wacha tuone if he will take the leap of faith and move somwhere else......remember AVB????

bkismat, very well said, TAZ claims he developed them in the youth and I clearly show he did not, I also show him these players started playing for the 1st team before Pep's time.....what does he do? he evades these facts!!!

The core of the current barca team has always been Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, who were playing under Frank.

How did I miss this? Thought the thread was about Messi withering and since I didn't see anything to contribute to that (the lad is 24 and already folklore waiting to win a world cup to be crowned a footballing god), decided to ignore. Kumbe it has metamorphosized to Pep!

Pep has achieved in 5 years what some coaches take decades to accomplish, whether we agree he inherited a team or not. That deserves plaudits, whether he succeeds in another club in the near future or not. Remember success for a coach is factor of many variables - club's player acquisition outlay, support from management, support from players (AvB in Porto and AvB in Chelsea, philosophy of the club (Barca have had the tika taka philosophy from the days of Johan Cruyff, to different extents depending on the coach, but it has never changed) + the manager's management skills and the talent at his disposal. Surely one cannot compare tenures in different clubs for different coaches.

The thing would be to see what a different coach would do with the same set of players (which goes back to the issue of tha man management skills of the manager). People say Jose is a great man manager. Brendan Rogers has done great with Swansea. Fergie took time with Utd, but removed the culture of brawling beer guzzlers with skills and replaced that with average players with discipline sprinkled with talent bought by money!

Great coaches do well everywhere,people should ask themeselves why Aberdeen broke the stranglehold Celtic and Rangers had on the SPL title when SAF was there and why the strangelhold resumed shortly after. I look at guys like Guus Hiddink with his work with PSV, Russia, Chelsea etc.Cappello, Mourinho, Fergie, Pep, Wenger,'Arry,even Benitez. I think those (and many others)are good ,tried and tested managers with some track record. Pep may not have a track record of more than one club but I don't think his success is a "fluke", as some peeps are suggesting. My 2 cents

kwani hii thread, si ilikuwa about messi, ama?

@ Biskmat....Rijkaard made big money signings to achieve what he did but Pep didn't do that infact he sold some of the top players who were purchased by his predecessor. Rijkaard was a great coach but to suggest that Pep owes his success to him is ridiculous.

Like i said before Rijkaard had only one good season at Barca (won both the CL and La Liga) while Pep achieved 13 titles in 4 years.