Valerenga – Barça, 7pm local, 1pm EST. (brief preview here)
It pains me to have to tell all of you to take part in a comments post instead of a liveblog, but my plans for running one have been derailed at the last minute by the generous offer of an authentic Nicaraguan meal (gallopinto is probably my favorite food) on the other side of town. I know that I should be prioritizing Barça over food (and air) but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
There’s a chance I’ll be home by 1pm to watch it, in which case I’ll fire up the liveblog, but don’t count on it. Apologies for leaving you stranded when we could be discussing the babies on the field. I’ll definitely download it later and watch it because, really, I can’t live without Barça.
…And that’s why that guy plays his trade in Norway (no offense Norwegians…)
mmm avatar is not working how do you guys do?
Dunno Lev. I see an Avatar. It’s a black and white pic. of a guy (you?) and it’s sorta tilting to the side.
jeeesss, don’t get hurt, everyone! its a real preseason ONLY!
oh never mind LOL im in effect!!!
jeeesss, don’t get hurt, everyone! its a real preseason ONLY! is it showing how fierce our internal competition is?
EPIC RB TOASTAGE.
Seriously!
Why so serious, Lev? 😉
Whoa, some named Lars Strand just came on.
B*tchin’ name, dude.
@eklavya
i only smile on pictures when somebody tickles me. besides, this is my “I’m gonna shoot Mourinho in the ass when I see him in my neigborhood” face
Lars Strand? I bet their striker’s name is Dirk Diggler lol
Decent 2nd half. I thought we started well, but I didn’t like how we played for most of it.
I thought Edu Oriol and Nolito were the best of the forwards. Benja took his goal well, but he’s a little too nonchalant for me. Ibra…sorry, but I didn’t like what I saw from him. At least pressure the defense.
Keita did reasonably well, Sergi Roberto had some good passes, but he has to be more aware of what and who is around him.
Dalmau showed his inexpereience and looked clueless against that Shellton dude. Muniesa showed his inexperience too and made some questionable decisions. Armando simply isn’t good enough. I really liked what I saw from Adriano. He looked good in both defense and attack.
As for Mino, he didn’t do too much wrong.
All in all, not a bad friendly. I guess it was what you would expect from the 1st match. I really like how Jonathan and Adriano played today the most.
final score? missed the game
So. 2-4 FT
Typical pre-season game. Everyone got a run out, some nice plays here, some not-so-nice plays there, and best of all: no injuries.
Onwards and…upwards? to the next game! Bring on the Asia tour and waking up at 6am on my birthday! (Yaaay~~fni#jri@$%mnfs)
Some of our defending made me laugh.I missed this 😀
how did ibra look against the minnows?
Not too good to be honest, but not many players did.
Some good, some bad. And man, was he getting hit. But he’s come to expect that, I reckon. Was routinely a little too fancy, but had a few moments. Liked Adriano’s play quite a bit. That’s looking like a really good signing.
yeah never been a fan of pre season games i usually skip them. plus the combination of watching it on a stream, arabic commentary and allmost all kids half of whom i honestly had never heard of made it difficult to know who is actually on the ball, which i found kinda frustrating. i mean i was watching it to get to know the kids but then a lot of the time i don’t know who is who! Dos Santos looked decent and I would have liked Bojan to score. oh well im off to work, have a good day guys!
The official site had the players numbers and what not.
I’ll post the link to download the game in a couple of hours for those of you who want it.
YOUTUBE HIGHLIGHTS UP ALREADY. good quality video (and goals)
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szUxZhKgY2s
Thanks J-
watching Tottenham v. Villareal now. little Gio’s got himself a goal, and this Gareth Bale looks like an excellent footballer; vibrant, technically proficient and very good at finding space. certainly not your typical British player, in those respects (he’s Welsh, rather than English).
Senna, of course, has been calmly brilliant. a very interesting game.
a Giuseppe Rossi hattrick!
and that sound you hear is American football fans grinding their teeth at the fact he chose to sit on the Italian bench behind their geriatrics instead of playing for the USA.
loving any spanish team own any english team
Yap, Villarreal vs Tottenham was a very nice game to watch. I’m actually delighted we don’t face Villarreal at the first playdays 😀
They seem to be in a very good shape, and they are absolutely out-classing the Spurs A Team.
First Half:
Part 1 *http://www.multiupload.com/BBCK4MQNBI
Part 2 *http://www.multiupload.com/NVFT80R2R9
Second Half:
Part 1 *http://www.multiupload.com/2UJH6TO4M5
Part 2 *http://www.multiupload.com/WI3CO7SEH1
Multiupload has a bunch of different host you can try.
Credit to sportsmen on fbtz.com
awesome! exactly what i came here looking for. thanx!!
No problem. BTW, it’s stadium sound only. No commentators.
If y’all want actual commentators, here it is in Spanish:
First Half:
Part 1 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5G4QOUFE
Part 2 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QHNFFKQ2
Part 3 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IDPA5CXM
Part 4 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NR9Y7C7N
Second Half:
Part 1 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=URRAQNQ0
Part 2 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B1X39AQV
Part 3 *http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MAW9VXAZ
Credit to siscopes1 @ rojadirecta.com
Might be hard to download without a premium account, though.
Last thing… for the first sets of links I posted, to play an mkv file all you need is VLC Player.
And for those who don’t know, for the first half, you download part and part 2, use a rar extractor program and extract part 1(thats it)… then you get the 1st half file. Repeat the same process for the 2nd half.
“Winrar” for Windows, “UnrarX” or “The Unarchiver” for Mac.
i’m doing all that crap right now. new computer. i’ve gotta download the rar extractor + the vlc all over again. takes me back. i thought i’d never do this again in the year a.d. (after dvr).
Not all the megaupload files extract properly, fyi. Will try the first set.
Really, it worked for me, Kxevin, but I use Jdownloader to download the links and it comes with an automatic extractor. Try that. It’s really convenient. You can group download all the links by just copying them.
Oh, and the commentary is in Catalan, not Castellano.
One last thing… lol.. the stadium sound download is perfect quality, while the Catalan one is average.
geez, direct download without waiting! awesomeness!!!!!!! thanks a lot, upload hero.
damng, worked all day. When’s the next friendly?
i wasnt too impressed today by anyone. its preseason and ibra is already getting hacked to death! wtf…if this was serie a, id expect it, but i dont remember any of his years being filled with such pathetic jackass defense there like last season and what looks like this season
vicsan’s 1-2 and goal were niceeeee. so were our other 3 goals. great, but aside from the scoring, i thought the forwards and even mids (sergi roberto) tried to dribble wayyyyy too much. i agree with what someone said about Armando (the dude didnt cut it at all), but there are more chances in the next 2 games (maybe) that they deserve. riverola, dalmau, nolito, soriano, and gomez all struggled in my opinion. true, nolito may have been on the ball often, but to what effect? overall, teamwork was surprisingly good and im looking forward to china. hooray beer!
i didnt watch the game but a win is always good for the start of season!valerenga is a good team 2nd in the championship in full form!i have a feeling that barca b will doing great things in segunda!maybe someday we will see our beloved lucho coaching the big boys..yeah is my favorite exbarca player!!good job boys!
LOL, a great picture of Piqué, from Pep’s tweet:
*http://tweetphoto.com/35615483
Pachecho thinks Thiago should win best player in the Euro U19 despite the goals he has scored. Even AS agrees and says that “Thiago has left the public with their mouths open with his ability to move the team from side to side. The coaches have realized this and it is difficult to find someone who has done better than him.”
AS also says that the great performances by Montoya and Planas have not gone unnoticed by Del Bosque. Especially because Spain doesn’t have a wealth of talent in the fullback positions.
the only weak spot 😉
there’s that young extremo playing full back in valencia, I think he can be good also and Emery makes him play a lot. Jordi Alba, he’s from cornellà de llobregat 😉
Yes, I heard he was looking to them. Certainly Azpilicueta or Jose Angel would be called up first no?
@kxevin
Ah, my beloved blackhawks. Are you from Chicago too?
I repeat, championships cost money. No matter the sport.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0730-confidential-hawks-20100730,0,1613106.column
“We are not going to be pressured into looking for substitutes. We are looking for players that will improve us. But before signing we will always have a look at who we have in the youth ranks.” Zubizarreta
Just the fact that he said it, made my day. Hopefully it will be the way to go!
Totally random and well off topic I am EXTREMELY disappointed in UEFA’s decision to exclude Mallorca from the Europa League.
anybody else watching u-19’s spain v france? i missed the 1st goal.
*http://www.iraqgoals.tv/ch9.html
I am. All the Barca boys look good so far, especially Romeu. Thiago, Planas, and Montoya have looked lively as well.
montoya is lightning fast and has had a pretty good game.
The wingers are not doing a very good job , too much running into two defenders losing the ball.
Thiago has been pretty good , i think he provided the assist which was an excellent ball behind the defence.Xavi stuff.
That kid from madrid has wasted two solid chances , one from his control letting him down and a poor finish.other than that he is looking promising.
I start to pretty much like the dm, he is the best player for me so far.
Nah, I think the assist was from Dani Pacheco – so also a Barca-related player.
Messi is excluded from Argentina’s line-up for the friendly match against Ireland on August, 11.
So he will be ready for the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup, and who knows… if some of the new World Champions also return earlier than expected and don’t get a call from Del Bosque (I actually thought Del Bosque already left them out, but the sport.es article says something else), Sevilla will not be amused 🙂
Messi is included in Argentina’s squad for Ireland friendly. It was all news sites. Have i missed something?
Well, you could see that equalizer coming. After blowing two glorious chances, they get caught up the pitch and done for pace. 1-1.
||http://atdhe.net/21722/watch-spain-u19-vs-france-u19 – Decent veetle link if anyone wants..
According to Pep’s twitter barcastuff,
Bojan and Jeffren have been called up for a game with Spain U21 against Finland on 11 August.
Yaaaaay!
Ruben Rochina is on! Yay!
Damn. 2-1 France
They couldn’t do it in the World Cup, but the future looks bright for Les Bleus!
Spain couldn’t handle their pace. Couple that with getting loose with possession, and that crucial period in which they could very easily have had 2 or 3 goals, and that was that. Blanc must be very happy right now. Those kids played their hearts out, as though proud to wear the colors. The lads on the senior team should take note of that.
Curious to read articles for the same people who wrote about “Pick them french” after the world cup. Will they praise this team or curse it?
Good game for both sides. Spain in the first half and France in the second.
In truth, its a good end. France needed this after the first team shame. And Spain needed it for the new generation to keep their feet on the ground. This defeat will be a huge motivation for them in the future. They still have a lot to prove.
My guess is effusive praise, Ramzi. Les Bleus and the FFF need a feel-good story right now, and the U-19s are it. You can point to a bright future, and forget, for a bit, about the senior squad.
“My guess is effusive praise, Ramzi.” Thats the ironic Hippocrate side I meant (about those people).
–In other news, we have a Belorussian in the window, marked with a price tag of 5m. Premiership sides are nosing around like crazy, kicking the tires and looking under the hood.
–In the ex-Barca file, Eto’o is warning Benitez that he is a forward, not a winger, dammit! So don’t be screwing up.
–Marquez is all but gone to the Red Bulls. I’m not sure if the situation was that we couldn’t get anyone to pony up for him, or is that was the move that would make him happy, so we did it. If it’s the latter, fair trade for his years of excellent service to the club.
I’m just not sure we should be letting him go without having made more progress in signings. He can play either of the two positions we need to strengthen (DM/CB) – this must mean Pep is prepared to really give the youngsters a run. That’s a big call when if someone makes a mistake in either of these positions you’re looking at losing a goal.
I think we will be fine even if we don’t reinforce our DM and CB and try out young lads. It was the world cup year last season plus the african cup of nation, but not this coming season. Busquets, to me, is protecting himself very well by playacting. playacting is a shame, but staying healthy is good, i don’t support his way of staying healthy, but he will still do so.
Also, Keita is the perfect DM backup if you ask me. I still remember how well he did when he once tried that position. Clever quick one touch ball and omnipresence, just like Busquets.
Adriano did look really promising to me as well. Not only that he featured on the leftback and sprung forward to shoot that impressed me, but also his physicality and pace. I think he will be another good DM support when we need him to. Also, I have 200% trust on Pep that he can transform players like Adriano into a perfect DM that we need.
CB is a bit of a problem. We will have to do it with our young’uns. Bartra, Fontas, Muniesa and Montoya. Who will be promoted is really the answer I want most. My guess is that Pep will try Fontas the most. He is man-sized and has good pace. A-grade looking to me.
Test.