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25 January 2015
Throughout the season, I came across the same phrase multiple times. The phrase is “individual brilliance”. Knowing that I don’t have enough knowledge about football and mainly my own team, Barcelona, I decided to ask people about the correct definition of individual brilliance in football. Apparently, individual brilliance is an uncommon case in football in […]
Posted in Barcelona29 Comments
24 January 2015
Credit is a weird thing, because even when it would seem clear to someone where it’s due, worldview can affect a lot. In this vein, a comment in the Atleti post was fascinating and inspiring, so here it is to get things started: Kxevin, its quite unfortunate that you are hell bent on crediting every […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts42 Comments
23 January 2015
You can learn a lot from a simple match of football. For example, you have to be really, really smart to be dissatisfied with the way that Barça played yesterday as regards the esoteric minutiae of today’s hyper-enlightened fan. Positioning, formations, heat maps … ordinary dullards struggle with looking that deeply, preferring to marvel at […]
Posted in Analysis, Copa del Rey, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts24 Comments
20 January 2015
The reference. Yesterday’s Depor post didn’t deal with Sergio Busquets because he warrants a much deeper look than could be afforded by a paragraph. When many think of Busquets, it is this way: the reference. The player who embodies the way that Barça should play, and would like to play. Some of that is because […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Tactics, Thoughts66 Comments
19 January 2015
Depor is no longer Super Depor. In a trip to an opponent wallowing around the bottom of the table near the relegation places, the visit to La Coruna wasn’t really on anybody’s list of important fixtures, even as it was a huge one for many reasons. Barça’s home form has been formidable and away form […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Tactics, Thoughts14 Comments
16 January 2015
This is weird. Yesterday’s fascinating Copa match came in the wake of a recent conversation that in the here and now of 140-character blasts, self-curated football knowledge bases and the YouTube immediacy of the modern game, a patient, long view is not only unrewarded but unwanted. (As an aside, this piece by Seb Stafford-Bloor on […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Tactics, Thoughts36 Comments
14 January 2015
These days, the State of Messi is absurd. It is the worst part of the entorno as a player becomes, depending on who the person blabbing: — Someone headed to England, just you wait … — Like a bauble nobody deserves, so everyone worries about losing it — An avatar for the Revolution — A […]
Posted in La Liga, Messi, Thoughts, Transfers/Transfer Rumors65 Comments
13 January 2015
Appreciation is an odd thing, as are assessments. Neglected it seems in all of the Barça circus this season is Neymar and his emergence. We all know the details of his signing, even the legal ones: late-night negotiations in Brazil, mystery payments divulged in the club accounts, Jordi Cases, etc, etc. Neymar almost has as […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Neymar, Thoughts10 Comments
12 January 2015
The post-mortems have started coming in about the best Barça performance that anyone has seen in a very long time. I have watched it three times now, and I keep coming back to a very simple thing, summed up in one word: space. The key to the excellence of Atleti has always been the way […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Tactics, Thoughts18 Comments
11 January 2015
In retrospect, we all should have seen this coming. The vileness, infighting, backbiting, rumors, nastiness and savagery, a fanbase turned on itself in seeking something or other all conspired to create something extraordinary, something that to repeat, we honestly should have seen coming. In a post from earlier today, I wondered which team would show […]
Posted in La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts42 Comments
11 January 2015
To say that today’s match against Atleti is huge would be an understatement. Is it even bigger than the last time Barça faced them at the Camp Nou, with the Liga title at stake? Quite possibly, because there is more at risk than a championship here as you get the feeling that the club is […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Tactics, Team News, Thoughts40 Comments
10 January 2015
History Lesson In the year 2009, Pep’s Barcelona won six trophies in one year. In 2010, Barcelona ended the season with only one league defeat and almost reached the Champions League final. In 2011, Barcelona had a very dominant team that won both the league and the Champions League. On the other side of the […]
Posted in Barcelona, La Liga, Statistics, Thoughts12 Comments
