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I expect a full round of cheers for Ronnie, what with this not being a competitive match after all, and a generally pleasant atmosphere throughout the the game. I’d rather see Ibra play with Villa and maybe even see them misfire a bit than play a serious match with serious consequences. We have Racing on Sunday, so there’s no reason to put our boys at risk for more than 45 minutes apiece (I can never remember how many subs we get, but I’m assuming infinite). That said, I certainly want to see us win this one because, as Guardiola says, it’s a good test of where we are as a team.

The starting lineup shouldn’t be replete with regular starters simply because there’s no reason for that. The squad just played on Saturday against Sevilla and could use the cool down period before the league starts, so why not let the young ones get a run out at the Camp Nou, which they weren’t able to do against Sevilla? And then you put Villa and Ibra on together at halftime or a few minutes after, along with Messi and Xavi, and see what they can do.

Everyone is talking about Ibra out, Mascherano in at the moment, so my quick thoughts on that: Ibra is staying and Masch is way overpriced for us. He may (or may not) be worth €28m, but to us, he’s not worth half that. €15m is pushing towards highway robbery for us simply because he’s going to sit on the bench behind Busi. It’s the same concept as why Cesc didn’t make any sense at more than €20m (that difference of €5m comes from Keita being there). So if we can’t get Masch for less than €15m total, there’s no point in doing the deal. And yet the rumors are picking up steam that we’re going to put Yaya money on him. More than Yaya money, perhaps. And that, of course, leads me to believe one of several things: I’m a complete moron and that Pep valuates Masch higher and I should accept this; Rosell is trying to play God with signings and put a serious mark on his era (which means we should all bellow with rage);  or the reports are completely full of baloney. I tend to think it’s the last reason rather than the first two, but it really could be any of them.

One thing that is pure baloney is the Ibra transfer rumor. Adi-Oula Sebastian puts some maths together for the rest of us that I think is pretty compelling despite knowing that any economist worth his salt would yell “sunk cost!” immmediately after reading it. It’s the concept of giving up on a player after one successful year that irks me, especially if we have to pay 40% of his salary anyway. Might as well pay 100% of it and get 21 goals from him.* So, then, getting rid of Ibra would be a fantastic waste of talent and, I think, would finalize Guardiola’s exit at the end of the season. And yes, I just said that. Chygrynskiy was one thing, but Ibra too? That’s just too much meddling.

So anyway, you’ll want a prediction, won’t you? 1-2, Milan because we’re going to experiment. Because we’re going to go wild with finding out what will end up being the perfect combo. And I’ll be doing a liveblog the whole time

Also: join the Fantasy League I created on Yahoo!. Join it now. The password is barcelona. The prize for winning is yet to be determined, but it will be awesome, there’s no doubt about that. When you join, please send me an email (info at barcelonafootballblog dot com) with your team name and I’ll write it all down so that we don’t lose who our winner is (who was our winner last year!? You never claimed your prize!). Edit: the group ID is 3093 and is named Barcelona Football Blog.

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*A quick side note: the world’s favorite striker of the moment, Edin Džeko, scored 29 total goals last year; if that is the mark for an extra-successful year, then 21 goals is still pretty freakin’ good, especially considering that Ibra only scored 1 less goal in Europe and shared goals with Lionel Messi who had 47. Nevermind that Pedro also had 23 and his season was considered fantastic…and he only scored 12 league goals. 4 of his goals came in Super Cups and the Club World Cup, meaning Ibra’s Supercopa goal most certainly counts for him this year.

In our Fantasy Football league, run through Yahoo!, we had one hell of a tight race all the way through the end. It was just like La Liga itself, though, with only 2 teams fighting it out for the top spot. In the end, Hat Trick was able to pull ahead of Mes Que Un Club and win it all (probably the first of 3 consecutive championships) with a score of 2,094,5. Compare that to my team’s 11th placed finish with 1,671.5 and you get an idea of how great an asskicking this really was. The prize, then, is either an epic poem or some MS Paint art that I will draw for the occasion. So, if you’re Hat Trick, email me — team[at]barcelonafootballblog[dot]com — and let me know what you’re interested in. Either would be killer to put on your living room wall, naturally.

As for our Table Position Prediction game, we had ourselves an absurdly tight race. It came down, in the end, to two small points in the table: Madrid ended up 17-1-1 in the second half while Barça ended up 16-2-1 and that flippy-floppy of the top two caused Helge to come out the winner after correctly predicting the top 4 teams. No one got Xerez even close to right (10th), but no one did very badly either. Everyone was within the “Not Too Shabby” range (40-49) and 4 players were sitting together in 3rd on 46 points. I came in just behind that with 44 points in 7th. I’ve published the final standings for all of you to see here.

Congratulations, Helge and Hat Trick! Email me and you’ll get your prize!

And next year we’ll be doing all of these over again, but for the whole year. I’ll set it up before the beginning of the season so that we can get a bunch of people involved. Woohoo!

To the info: There’s hardly anything to report. There is nothing going on here. Nothing whatsoever — sob — nothing. I’m not in horrible, horrible 19th place or anything. I’m not that far behind player Hat Trick who has 1,071.5 points compared to my 827.00, but I’ve only got 18 more weeks to make up the difference!*

I’m obviously not that good at this, but I’ve got some pertinent advice for those of you who wish to win: don’t forget to update your squad whenever you hear new information–in fact, how about this bit of advice: don’t be like the bottom 4 and forget completely to put in a full squad every single week. Whoever sccr11, Larms Awesome Team, The Cheeky Boys!!, and FC Fantastico are, you have great names for teams earning 0 points. Except sccr11, which is just a name. But still 0 points.

Only during the ACN did I remove The Yaya–thus the name of my team–from my lineup, but he’s now back in it. I also have a crappy backline and midfield (except The Yaya and Xavi, naturally). But I do have Lionel Messi and David Villa up front racking up the points. Except last week when Messi got -2.00 and Villa got only 5.50. But this coming week Messi will get a hat trick against Getafe and Villa will get two against Valladolid. Trust in my predictions, they’re never wrong.**

Kudos to Hat Trick for taking over first from FC Bojmir and kudos to Mes Que Un Club for topping 1,000pts. Those are the only three with more than 1,000.

Small awards:
Best Name: SignYoPittyOnTheRunnyKine
Alternate Best Name: TheYayaIsOneBadassBeastOfAMan
Person Who Is Going Down So Bad: Revolución. You are 1.00pts above me. You must die. I alone am best.
Best Name of A Team I Didn’t Make but so should have: MomAndDadThisIsChaseyChaseyThisIsMyMomandDad. (See previous line for reason).

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*Bashir, I am so crushing you. You are horrible! You will never make up the 0.50pt deficit you are in! Mwahahaha!
*They’re always wrong.

Whoever runs the Que Golazo team is crushing all in their path with a 1.50 point lead over Hawk (that’s not a big lead, if you’re unaware). I currently sit in 9th (THE YAYA).

A word of advice for those of you who are in this, but aren’t earning points: you must have your entire roster filled in order to get credit for any of your players (that would be 9 of you). The deadline is Saturday Sept 12 at 6:30am EDT. Theyayaisonebadassbeastofaman has a great name, of course but unfortunately got trashed because Asenjo had such a bad week and ended up last with -3.50. A comeback is in order, I’m sure, once Messi and Iniesta begin to play consistent minutes.

Here’s a breakdown of what I chose as my lineup (DNP = Did Not Play):

GK: German Lux (0.00pts DNP)
DEF: Dani Alves (13.00pts), Albiol (-3.00pts), Botia (0.00pts)
MID: Xavi (6.50pts), Yaya (0.00pts DNP), Borja (1.50pts), Keita (21.00pts)
FWD: Aguero (4.00pts), F. Llorente (3.00pts), Luis Fabiano (0.00pts)

I’m considering a switch to a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-2 in order to incorporate more players into the midfield while being able to afford some good strikers up top, but it will depend a bit on who is injured/expected to start as to which system I ultimately go with (and I might stick with the 4-3-3 if it works out right. I chose Lux and Albiol because they cost 1.00 each and for absolutely no other reason.

Thoughts: In a couple of weeks, after he’s served his suspension, Freddie Kanoute might be a “bargain” at 14.50 (might be lower by the time he’s eligible to play again). Sergio Aguero could be a pretty good deal at 19.88 if you’ve got a few bucks to spend on a striker, but if you have fewer, maybe Bojan at 12.68 is worth the money. Juan Valeron could be a pretty good buy at 5.66, especially if he can put away goals at any sort of a steady rate.

Not to steal Hector’s thunder in his great post about ManCity’s goal, but I promised you a post about the Yahoo fantasy league I have created (English translation version here) and this is it. I will describe what one does in this league and how one conquers all foes. To get started, you’ll need a Yahoo ID, which is free, of course. So is this league, for that matter. It’s braggin’ rights on the line, broseph (and maybe a prize from me if I can pull my shit together by late May to get something awesome–it won’t be worth much, don’t worry).

Unlike Fantasy NFL and Fantasy EPL, there is no head-to-head meeting. It is league play based on your total points earned. So you do not have to worry whether or not the Osasuna defense will hold up to Sporting Gijon’s offensive prowess if you don’t want to.

This league is a salary cap league, meaning you get 100 units to purchase players with. We shall, for sake of ease, call them euros here. 100million euros. So now you that you think you’re big stack at a table of Burnleys and Levantes, here’s what that means: You have 100m euros to spend on players to fill out your roster, which is 11 players deep. You buy a player for, say, 20m and that leaves you with 80m for the remaining 10 positions. Simple math, of course, which is kept track of for you by these here interwebs.

It should be noted that you get no points at all if you do not have 11 players on your roster. Get your players in on time so that you don’t start anyone injured and you don’t fail to start anyone at all.

Each player that you purchase is yours for as long you would like to keep him on your roster. His cost will fluxuate depending on his performances — if he has a good week he will go up and if he has a bad week his value will go down. You are not penalized for picking a player that does well in that you do not have to pay the premium to keep him on your team (if your player that cost you 20m does well and goes to 21m, you still pay 20m). You do, however, get the benefit of regaining the points he lost (say your player that you bought for 20m does badly and goes down to 19m–you have it recalculate for you and then you have 81m left for your other 10).

You can change your lineup to suit your tastes, from a 3-4-3 to a 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2. Attacking lineups are fun, of course, but attackers earn more points than defenders, but also cost more, so try to come up with a good balance. A trident of Messi-Aguero-Forlan sounds pretty awesome, but you’ll end up with the dregs of humanity in the rest of your team since that’s all you’ll be able to afford. Of course, maybe that’s a great idea because maybe they’ll make up the difference by scoring 12 goals between the 2 of them.

To the scoring: Goals count the most, of course. There are some sort of random statistics like “passes completed” and “saving tackles” that you can take into consideration, but they’re not as valuable as choosing players who score. It is also important to choose defenders who do not screw up a lot and get cards, because cards and goals against are negatives, though I believe they are negatives for every position. If Depor gets scored on 5 times by, say, pulling a random team out of my ass now, Barcelona and you have their keeper and defensive line, you’re screwed even if you have Forlan who netted twice against Tenerife. So keep in mind who everyone is playing that week before making a decision on whether or not to buy them or keep them.

When searching for players, you can sort them by position, by score (currently it lists last year’s total score unless they didn’t have one, ala Ibrahimovic), or by change in value. You can hunt for bargains that way or who is doing the best that you want to add before they get even more expensive.

So there you have it, folks, fantasy sports. I will be posting the standings every week, usually on Monday or Tuesday unless there is a midweek fixture (be sure to keep track of that because your lineup will count for both games in times when there are midweek games!), in which case late Wednesday or on Thursday. The only games that count are La Liga games, not CL or CdR games, by the way. So if Messi scores 15 goals against Juventus in the CL group stage, it doesn’t matter to Yahoo, it just matters to us cules. And I suppose Juve supporters who can’t believe their eyes.

Any questions? Let’s hear them in the comments section.