Well, this is turning into an interesting back half of the week. Today FC Barcelona announced on its official site that the club has reached a deal with Liverpool to buy Argentine MF Javier Mascherano assuming proper medical clearance and all that jazz. Terms are being reported differently everywhere, ranging from 25M euros to 21M + 3M in incentives to 16 + 3 and so on and so forth. All seem to agree that Mascherano will sign a 4-year deal with the club following medicals, photo-ops, and pledging allegiance to Lord Pep. Continue Reading

Woo! It’s preview time for the Sevilla match and Barcelona is hoping to bring home the 8th championship of the Pep Guardiola era and start the season off right after an offseason of ups (hey, 8 World Cup champions) and downs (Zlatan is staying, for the last time, if you ask again, the banhammer is coming out). But out boys have got some work to do after taking a 3-1 beating at Sevilla last weekend in a game that featured very little good play, although that’s to be expected when none of your players have practiced together in 3 months and most of them have spent that time on a beach. But enough with the excuses here, Barcelona lost and the only way to make it better is to win at least 2-0 tomorrow. Continue Reading

About seven hundred years ago, ‘Wheel of Fortune’ did not refer to a Pat’n’Vanna megasquirt of game-show CheezWhiz (am I the only one here old enough to remember when you had to buy the ceramic dog?), but an oversized accessory for the hippest gal in the galaxy. Her name was Fortuna, and she dangled men from her wrist like a giant charm bracelet, turning them round to glint in the sun or to tumble into shade. When you’re down, there’s nowhere to go but up, and if you’re up, well, don’t look down. Who’s in, who’s out, who’s hot, who’s not … it’s the September Issue. Let’s see who’s taken a ride on Fortuna’s wild Wheel this summer.

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Sergio Busquets, our mercurial midfielder, is a much-maligned figure in the minds of many Barcelona fans. They say he can’t play DM at the Camp Nou because he’s not good enough and he makes too many mistakes. That he’s deficient in the key aspects of the game and is the most expendable man we have. Well, nuts to that. This seems a strange take for a player who started 26 games for the La Liga champions and all 7 games for World Cup champions Spain, of whom manager Vincente del Bosque noted, “if I was a footballer, I would like to be Busquets.” (Lest we forget that the likes of Pep Guardiola and Johan Cruyff has lavished even more praise.) Oh, and lest I mention the 7 pieces of silverware to his name and being named as La Liga’s breakthrough player of 2009. Thus far, Biscuits & Gravy has made quite a name for himself on the world’s best national team and one of, if not the best, club teams around. But why does out fan base doubt the 22-year old star? This article endeavors to deconstruct our newest star, and determine just what to make of his past, and the future. Continue Reading

With all the buzz ‘bout who’s coming, it’s easy to dismiss who’s going. Who’s coming generates excitement: He’s only 14 years old! He scored 8,973 goals for the youth squad! Imagine what will happen when he plays alongside him! And HIM! And HIM!

The goings, meanwhile, read like rejections from an on-line dating service: He’s too old. He has no style. He doesn’t get out enough. He didn’t live up to his profile.

But the goings give me, oh, what would Pep call it? Ah, I know. A fee-leen.

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So here we are, post-Cup and pre-Liga. For those of us whose teams broke our hearts, said organs are still tender but on the mend. For those of us whose teams broke records, we still smile, but not with all our teeth. And for all of us, the inner ear no longer vibrates quite so violently with echoes of a vuvuzela drone.

The first season I watched the last Barça match with the Hunky Soccer Husband, I sighed at the final whistle. ‘It’s all over,’ I said. ‘What to do until September?’ He blinked at me with surprise and disappointment, the way Sister Mary Holywater always did when a particularly gifted student gave a particularly stupid answer. ‘What ‘over’?’ he demanded. ‘It’s Transfer Time!’ And then he wrung his hands, like an old-timey villain in a silent film.

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