The forgotten piece of the Barca puzzle....

I agree that the candidates should start discussing about candidates for the defense.
Personally, I think that Barca does great with a mix of young players like Puyol and foreign veterans like Frank DeBoer.
New defenders: I´d say if we buy any foreign defenders they should be really world-class.
But what about a huge spanish signing? That would be nice!

Mmmm..... I think bad tactics were the biggest problem. Guardiola, how good he is, simply isn't enough as defensive midfield. There was a gap there, and the defense is very easy to beat if there's a gap in front of it. All our defenders played on similar positions at EURO2000, and all played very well. So I guess it's mainly the gap in front of them.
I think we should look in our youth-department for good defenders first. That's where we will have to search if we don't sign big stars....

The defence last season was our biggest problem. I think this was both due to lack of class defensive players and the system that Van Gaal used. I, too, prefer defenders to come from home country but Barca needs a tough, hard, central defender, for example, Montero, Desailley, Cannavaro, Thuram or even Jorge Costa. Also, Dutch FCB Fan is right when he says there was a big gap in defensive midfield. Guardiola is a great player but is not someone who is hard and can look after defence. We need someone like a Petit, Vieira or Davids. We desperately need to look at defensive duties as we can score goals whenever we wish with players like Kluivert, Rivaldo, Luis Enrique, Figo etc.

Just to say I agree with DBF about the gap. If Iván and Pep play together next year it will be even bigger.

The only defender that has been linked to BARCA is-----Roberto Carlos!!!!! I would say that he is an attacker, rather than a defender. I don't mean that I'm against him, it would be interesting to see him play, but if we really want to improve our defense, we would have to find a solid player. I agree that we could find some home players in our youth team, but do they have enough experience??? We can give them some chances, but we better find one who can lead the defense.

Cocu can do an excellent job there at Pep's side. He works extremely hard. He's the kind of player whose performance you only notice when he's gone. Unlike Davids, Viera or Petit who are spectacular to watch.