CdR Preview: Real Betis – FC Barcelona, Wednesday, 4pmEST, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.com

I’ve been gone. You’ve missed me; you sat by the window, watching the driveway and waiting. I’m back now and you can stop thinking those terrible thoughts you had going through your head: Betis will not beat us 6-0 tomorrow. And you’ll have your preview, right here, right now, starting with some celebratory fun:

Happy Birthday, Pep Guardiola. Yay for turning 40, you’re now as old as my liver. He’s done a few things for the club, or so they tell me. It’s a joy to have him as our manager and a joy to watch his teams play. As much as I liked Rijkaard before him (and I liked Rijkaard quite a bit), this team is insane, beautiful, and irrepressibly fun. Here’s to more years with Guardiola in charge.

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Photo by Miguel Ruiz Àlex Caparrós

This isn’t about what you think it’s about. It’s about stones. Cojones the size of casas. It’s even about balls of the bullion persuasion. Just not those ones. It’s about the ones that came clad in green and white stripes and ever let up for 90 minutes, even when it was obvious their temerity would be severely punished with a mighty Messi-led manita. Take a moment and digest the stupendously serious nature of Real Betis’ clangers twixt their legs. Perhaps that’s not your favorite thing to imagine, but every now and then it can be a good thing to get out of your comfort zone and this is perfect opportunity. Betis came in looking to play, to get us with a version of our game, and to make us pay attention. It’s my heartfelt belief that had Achille Emana been on the field, the final score would have been 5-2. Maybe even 5-3.

Goddamn I’m jazzed about what just happened. Sure, that’s why no one plays Barça like that, but wasn’t it amazing to watch? Wasn’t it just utterly enjoyable? Wasn’t it heart-pundingly fun? That’s F-U-N. It means, roughly, something that puts a smile on your face. Been a while, huh? The clásico was great, of course, but fun? Too tense, too emotionally invested for whatever this “fun” you speak of is.

So Thank You, Real Betis, for that match. Thank you for putting in a performance worthy of a draw with us. I’m sorry the final scoreline, I really am, but a certain “undeserving” Argentine wasn’t going to be denied his glory. And Ochocinco wasn’t going to be denied the true Barça experience.

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Image found here

Copa Preview: FC Barcelona – Real Betis, Wednesday 4pmEST

While we were gearing up for the second leg of the Athletic Bilbao cup encounter, a friend said he hoped Real Betis would defeat Getafe. I chided him for being a wuss–obviously Getafe is better than Betis, so you’re going for the weaker route, eh? Gotta beat the best to be the best, right? I’m sure I flexed my giant biceps and ripped a phonebook in half. He shook his head: “No way, I’m just tired of playing the same teams over and over.” I’ve thought about that for a bit now and it really does strike me as the correct way to approach this.

Is Getafe better than Betis? Probably. But Betis is “new” in the sense that they’re a Segunda side–that Guardiola has called, basically, a Primera side in a Segunda body–and we haven’t played this yet this year. In case you’re like me and you don’t take much time out of your schedule to watch Segunda matches, let’s familiarize ourselves with the boys in white and green:

Real Betis descended at the end of the 2008-09 season, just losing out to Getafe on head-to-head (and goal difference), and then were left in La Segunda thanks to their head-to-head record with Levante and Hercules. This year they’ve built up a healthy 4 point lead at the top of the table and look likely to gain promotion, though anything can happen. They’re 13-4-2 (43GF, 17GA), so they’re no slouches at their level. They’ve won all of their matches at home save a 2-2 draw with Barça B (in which the youth team came back from down 2-0).

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Liga Preview: Deportivo La Coruña – Barcelona, Saturday 4pmEST, GolTV

I did a bad thing in college. Just once, mind you, but it’s weighed heavily on my mind since. I was walking through one of our largest dorms–North, if you’re familiar–and I spied a box in one of the hallways. It was clearly and definitively labeled “Books for Africa” and promised to deliver books to children learning to read in a variety of languages throughout the continent, but being the reading type, I naturally glanced through them. And, being the horrible person that I obviously am, I took one that caught my eye. That book was The Carpenter’s Pencil by Manuel Rivas, a Galician writer. It’s about love, death, and the Spanish Civil War (it’s quite upbeat, of course) and it holds a special place in my heart not just because the dorm where I found it was the home of [no one important, my dearest love, who is no doubt reading] but because that was great time in my life and I thoroughly enjoyed where I read it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I know about Galicia, Barça’s destination this weekend. Manuel Rivas, a port city, and the old adage that you can’t judge a city by it’s book cover. That’s how it goes, right? I remember first getting into La Liga, first dipping my toes in it’s lovely waters, and there was this team in blue and white stripes sitting up there with the names everyone already knew. And their stadium was called The Razor–or at least that’s how I translated it–and that’s just badass. And then I found out that it was named after Riazor Beach in A Coruña and suddenly I didn’t want to visit that beach very much.

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Holy. Shit.

I’m not sure what to do. I’m all over the place. I think I’ll have like 800 carbombs. Should be a good podcast tomorrow morning.

Also: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! ABIDAAAAZOOOOO! It’s nAbidal, bitches!

Copa del Rey Preview: Athletic – Barça, Wednesday 2pmEST 4pmEST, ESPNDeportes/ESPN3.com

An enraged Puyol would be deadly in these confined quarters.

You want to talk cathedrals? I’ve been to a lot of them. Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica? Check. Notre Dame? Yup. St. Patrick’s? Been there, done that. I might as well have been born in a front pack, given how much time I spent in one during my pre-walking days and given that my parents insisted on entering every church they saw throughout our many travels, I basically grew up with stained glass as my playmates. What I’m saying is: I know a cathedral when I see one. And San Mamés is a cathedral. Not just because it’s called La Catedral–though that does play a part–but rather because it’s where we should all end up eventually, if just once, to see a match. It was built in 1913, after all, and is an integral part of the Bilboner landscape. I dearly wish to find myself wandering/stumbling around that enchanted land, pintxos in one hand and a zahato in the other.

No doubt Carles Puyol does this same homage each year, except he probably also wears the skin of a fully grown bull he has just flayed during a corrida. Imagine being some pleasantly tipsy Basque taking the scenic route home through your foggy town and running into that. Makes me shiver for them.

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