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02 March 2015
Throughout a major part of this season I kept reading the phrase “no midfield”. In football, this phrase is a huge assumption that usually leads to your team’s destruction against any opponent capable of controlling midfield. More importantly, if a team didn’t have midfield it would definitely suffer terrible defeats. After all, a team can […]
Posted in Thoughts20 Comments
01 March 2015
Harold Miner. Now only the most die-hard fan of American basketball will remember that name. He blasted into the National Basketball Association carrying the nickname “Baby Jordan,” after the already-iconic Michael Jordan. His NBA career lasted 4 years. A comment in the last thread noted that Ivan Rakitic, for the commenter, has for the past […]
Posted in Messi, Neymar, Supposition, Thoughts10 Comments
28 February 2015
“Why aren’t people happy with your team?” It’s an interesting query that I had to deal with the other day on Champions League day, which is pretty the only time that a Prem-centric universe pays attention to those little guys from Spain. It was a struggle to come to grips with the answer, but finally […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Thoughts26 Comments
27 February 2015
None of it matters. Messi was absent from the UEFA Team of the Week, but Ronaldo was in there. So what. Some don’t think that Messi is better than Ronaldo. So what. The Premiership is called by many “best league in the world.” So what. At the end of a remarkable week of football, in […]
Posted in Analysis, Champions League, La Liga, Messi, Thoughts29 Comments
24 February 2015
The ending was perfect. In many ways seeing Messi laying there on the Etihad pitch raging at his penalty miss, prone in the aftermath of a putback attempt, was a perfect ending to this wonderful match. Because art shouldn’t be perfect. Art, like life, should contain flaws, and Barça is life. Messy, violent, sublime life […]
Posted in Analysis, Champions League, Messi, Thoughts59 Comments
24 February 2015
This post began life as a City Champions League preview, but got derailed by something fascinating that was overheard during an early-morning workout. So to start, here’s something to work out, kinda like a math equation: RM beat Barça Atleti beat RM Barça beat Atleti Levante beat Malaga Barça beat Levante Malaga beat Barça In […]
Posted in Analysis, Champions League, Thoughts68 Comments
21 February 2015
There is a children’s game that is loads of fun, if you haven’t played it. You get a donkey poster or stuffed figurine. Then you blindfold a kid, give him the donkey’s tail, which is usually a piece of cloth or something, with a pin through it. Then you spin the kid around a few […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Review70 Comments
19 February 2015
Pedro Rodriguez Ledesma is an odd one. Few players have been so liked by his coaches, yet so reviled by so many supporters while being misunderstood by those same supporters. Some of that is because Pedro defies traditional metrics, those objective evaluators of a player’s performance. He’s the kind of player who would require the […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Supposition, Thoughts84 Comments
17 February 2015
Sometimes in a comments thread you see something that deserves to be a post. So it is with a comment from kosby: Several amazing questions – I won’t be pretending to have answers to all of them. For me, there are two kinds of passes 1. straight to the feet/head of the receiver 2. through […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts39 Comments
15 February 2015
This was such a beautiful match today. The things that made it beautiful are the same things that make long-time spouses or lovers beautiful to us: everyday beauty, day in and day out, when they aren’t at their best — flaws, unshaven, hair messy — true beauty that comes across in the simplest of ways. […]
Posted in Analysis, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts56 Comments
13 February 2015
As people who love watching Messi, we always had one question on our mind: Why do we? For that, I decided to do a little research. Sadly, this research lead me to two other questions: Why do we love watching football to begin with? And how are these two things even related? Let me explain. […]
Posted in Barcelona, Thoughts29 Comments
12 February 2015
Barça is metal. Past iterations of the team, like all the rest, have sung their various songs, from the classical of Cruijff’s Dream Team to the syncopated jazz of Pep Guardiola’s squads. But this team is metal — violent, impatient, in-your-face, romping, stomping and not at all interested in what an opponent does except in […]
Posted in Analysis, Copa del Rey, La Liga, Messi, Neymar, Thoughts17 Comments
