Ladies and gentlemen of BFB welcome to one of those oh so rare Isaiah-less previews. Our dear valiant leader has left us for his annual sabbatical. A trek to a certain altar of insanity called March Madness where he err…watches a lot of basketball. Sixty four teams enter the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, only one leaves happy. In totally arbitrary and false statistical terms that would make Isaiah cry, this means that he has a 1 in 64 chance to come out exuberant and a 63 in 64 chance of ending up in a fetal position wailing in despair, a fate with which, being a University of Michigan alum, I am all too familiar with; having been subjected to it by Isaiah’s Buckeyes for the last six years no less. So, let’s hope our guy comes out happy. Thinking of you, the people, Isaiah wrote one of his literary master pieces i.e. previews with the intention of submitting it today. However, due to a horrible mishap, it got left behind and lost forever [not really] which means you fools now have to suffer the even worse fate of a preview written by me. So, enough basketball, let’s talk about our version of March Madness. The UEFA Champions League is back!

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Words fail me, but there it is, folks. Be sure to catch up with Isaiah’s News of the Day post.

Keep it family friendly, folks.

While we all wait in giddy anticipation of Kevin’s review, I thought a translation of Pep’s press conference after the game would lead to some good talking points. Pep always does a good presser. What separates him from other coaches is that he is not bombastic, generally avoids controversy, and is usually refreshingly honest in his answers while still being entertaining. Here are the goods:

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For all you fans out there, here’s a note from reader Patrick:

While I’d like to think my biggest contribution to our little community is distracting Isaiah via gchat—for some reason he seems to trust my aesthetic opinion. It’s a terrible mistake, but one that you’ve all made too, so ha!

With that said, the powers that be approached me last week about ideas for a new background for the site. While I can understand if you’ve grown a bit attached to our awesome lightning-bolt-circles-winged-gift-from-god-Messi, change is good. Besides, I like excuses to not work that involve my beloved club. So I took up the challenge and came up with 3-4 truly terrible ideas. True, some of them looked cool. But, none of them ended up being very unique.

Then I got an idea. An awful idea. That is to say I got an awfully wonderful idea. But to implement it, I need your help.

See, one of the reasons why I love this club—and this site—is because of the wonderful culés I get to meet and interact with on a daily basis. What would our lives be like without getting Hectored in the comments, liveblogging, or reading just about anything soccermom thinks to write. So I want to integrate all of you, my fellow readers and writers, into the design. To do this in the way that I think will work best, I need pictures. Lots of pictures. Several hundred to be precise.

The pictures can be of you be rocking the colors, visiting Barcelona, watching the game at a bar, showing off your scarf collection, or even reading this blog. They can even be pictures of your home city, the camp nou, or the rave/party/riot you may or may not have participated in after that last trophy win. Get creative. Have some fun. I’ve posted some examples of myself below so you can see what I want. Feel free to send multiple different images. All images should be sent to BFbackground@gmail.com .

As a final note, I want to assure you of the respect I have for your privacy and the seriousness with which I will approach the use of these photos. They will not be put to any other use, nor will they be posted anywhere on the internet. As soon as they are no longer needed, they will be deleted from my hard-drive and the email account used to collect them will be deleted as well. The basic technique I will use is called photomosaic so even when they ARE used, the image will be small enough that you don’t have to worry about any possible privacy infringement, or the bags under your eyes from staying up all night reading about Barça.

Thanks!
Patrick

As many of you know, it’s crunch time for our next generation of La Masia jewels. The contracts of Thiago Alcantara, Jeffren Suarez, Gai Assulin, and Jonathan Dos Santos who happen to be our best prospects at the Barca Athletic level ALL expire this spring. That means they can either resign professional contracts with Barca or leave on a free transfer. As can be expected, the (mostly EPL) vultures are out and circling. With elections being postponed until June, it seems that Guardiola and Txiki will have to force their hands before the new administration takes over. Adding to the tension is the proximity of a free transfer giving our canteranos’ agents a significant upper hand in negotiations. As much as it hurts, we will likely not be able to keep all of our guys. So, let’s have a little discussion about which ones will/should stay and which ones will/should go. Mug shots and profiles of our enfants terrible follow: Continue Reading

On January 25, 1980, Xavier Hernández i Creus was born in Terrassa, Catalunya, a city of just over two hundred thousand. He joined the Barcelona youth ranks at the age of 11, in 1991, and made his debut with the first team on August 18, 1998. He has since appeared in over 500 competitive matches for Barcelona in all competitions–putting him second on the all-time appearances list at Barça behind Migueli– and has won 12 trophies with the squad. He is also the vice captain behind Carles Puyol.

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Sergio Busquets is no mama’s boy. You know that cause he’s been a badass during a Champions League final. I mean, I’m sure he loves his mom, but I don’t think he runs crying to him whenever something bad happens or there’s some criticism of him. He’s not like me, after all. But I’m sure he understand the power of the silbato, the whistle from the stands that Spaniards seem to have perfected.

One trip to the Bernabeu will convince you anyone born on the Iberian Peninsula is born with a whistle in their throat that they can go to town on whenever they want. And they always want to when someone makes mistakes in matches. What Busi understands, perhaps better than we’d like to admit, is that you can’t deride your own player for making a few mistakes. I know he was purchased for way too much money, but I concur with Busi on the idea that whistling at Chygrynskiy whenever he touched the ball after his absurd foul on Diego Capel (regardless of your thoughts on whether it was in or out of the box, it was absurd) and his generally lackluster play throughout the Sevilla match on Tuesday.

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It’s been a while, guys.  I apologize for my Thong Boy like work rate over the past few months. Anyways, the Deportivo La Coruna and Club World Cup games have been fascinating from a tactical perspective. Pep employed a few new wrinkles into our usual gameplans that deserved their own post so here it is. Let’s start out in Galicia at one of my favorite Spanish cities: A Coruña.

More after the jump…

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