Oh hey there. Didn’t see you sneak up on me like that. You’re so crazy. Here I am minding my own business and suddenly you pop up, pants me, and make me abandon my family, loved ones, and bathing habits. Way to go, guy. Oh, you’re La Liga, right. Way to go, lady.

Every year La Liga starts and then goes on FIFA break, so this year I planned in both that and my own laziness in the matter and decided not to publish a preview until after the transfer window closed. Thank goodness I did. Also, before we get this started, can we all chuckle quietly to ourselves about this? I mean, sure, I’m lucky to follow a big club that can discard international players on a whim (and for peanuts!) but seriously, I actually laughed when I read that. It’s not Arun Verma’s fault that he’s excited about Birmingham City’s chances–and indeed they look like they made some pretty solid moves–but I’m sorry, that made me chuckle.

Okay, so, then, my approach this year was to go alphabetically rather than by how I thought they would end up. You’ll learn to deal with it by the end. This is only part 1, so I’m going from Almeria down to Getafe. Let’s get it started, shall we? There may be one or two incorrect transfers

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Boy, does it feel good to get back to doing what we do best, and that’s kicking ass and taking names. We rolled into Racing with a lot of questions swirling around the side, questions capable of distracting a lesser team. But no less than 3 minutes into the match, the Xavi-Iniesta-Messi combination had our Man of the Match off to the races again, to see if he can top last season’s gaudy goal total.

And suddenly, it was all like it used to be.
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It’s here, and we’re ready. So get all that negativity out of your systems. Because we’re on, and our club needs the positive karma.

The new La Liga schedule was just released after a fake or “early” version was inadvertently uploaded to the internet last night. Rest assured, we here at BFB were not taken in by such tricks or falsities. So here you go, the new schedule, complete with some commentary. These dates are the weekends of these games, meaning that they will either be Saturday or Sunday or that particular weekend (or Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday if listed as during the week), which has not yet been decided.

First Half:
8/28 – @ Racing Santander
9/12 – Hercules
9/19 – @ Atletico Madrid
9/22 – Sporting Gijon
9/26 – @ Athletic Club (Bilbao)
10/3 – Mallorca
10/17 – Valencia
10/24 – @ Zaragoza
10/31 – Sevilla
11/7 – @ Getafe
11/14 – Villareal
11/21 – @ Almeria
11/28 – Real Madrid
12/5 – @ Osasuna
12/12 – Real Sociedad
12/19 – @ Espanyol
Winter Break
01/02 – Levante
01/09 – @ Deportivo La Coruna
01/16 – Malaga

Second Half:
1/23 – Racing Santander
1/30 – @ Hercules
2/6 – Atletico Madrid
2/13 – @ Sporting Gijon
02/20 – Athletic Club (Bilbao)
2/27 – @ Mallorca
3/2 – @ Valencia
3/6 – Zaragoza
3/13 – @ Sevilla
3/20 – Getafe
4/3 – @ Villareal
4/10 – Almeria
4/17 – @ Real Madrid
4/24 – Osasuna
5/1 – @ Real Sociedad
5/8 – Espanyol
5/11 – @ Levante
5/15 – Deportivo La Coruna
5/22 – @ Malaga

As you may have noticed, the schedules second half is a mirror image of the first, with the sides only switching locations. Preliminarily at least, it looks like Barça got a favorable draw without having too many brutal or far away games packed into small frames of time. Even the trip to the Riazor comes after the winter break. This looks like a wonderful schedule for our boys, hopefully we can navigate with only one loss again.

In Other News:

-Apparently we are loaning Henrique out to Santander again, huzzah!

- Big rumors that Marquez is going to become New York Red Bulls third DP in a move that should net us a few million here or there.

- One of our youth players, Thiago, scored during the Spanish U-19 game against Croatia at their World Cup to equalize. Spain would eventually win 2-1.

-Not sure of anything else at this moment in terms of transfer rumors.

Real Sociedad, Hércules, and Levante. Those are your 3 new La Liga members for the 2010-11 season. Now that La Segunda has drawn to a close (with Real Betis missing out on promotion thanks to head-to-head with Levante), we can welcome these new boys to town.

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Sometimes, you just don’t need words.

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Pere Punti/El Mundo Deportivo

No, it ain’t THE picture from this year, but it’s symbolic. So symbolic. Club. Trophy. Essential Captain. Celebration. What you have to ask yourself, is what more need be said, really? This image speaks with an undeniable eloquence that mere words can’t begin to express. Not that it will shock anyone that nonetheless, I’m going to give it a go.

This match was immense for so many reasons, not least of which was that everything was on the line.

–Us vs Them and Their Money in a battle for La Liga
–Naysayers ready, if we’d stumbled, to say “See, told you this season sucked.”
–Beautiful football, and what it means.
–And oh yeah, a stinkin’ Championship, our last shot at silver (and what a prize!) for this glorious season.
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Championship funtime awesomeness. LET’S DO IT!

Luke, with the livebloggage:
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This is what a *team* looks like!

Liga Preview: Barça – Valladolid, Sunday 1pmEST, ESPN2HD

This match is somehow under the radar, despite its significance. There are no Ens Hi Deixerem La Pell shirts being displayed, there are no slogans, no commercials, no gratuitous news coverage of the team’s every move. Yet this match dwarfs the Champions League semifinals because it is the match that will decide who earns the La Liga title this year. I know it’s just Valladolid, but we cannot take them lightly and we must beat them.

This is for everything. It’s easy to fall into the hyperbolic sewer of claiming each and every game is the most important one of the season. I’ve done it, of course, but at least this time I have the luxury of saying that I won’t do it again this season…which is akin to saying my favorite Zoolander movie was the first one. Which it was. Still, this match has become the defining match of the season for those who define seasons solely by trophy hauls. It’s either we win this and rise above the rest of the league or we lose and Madrid surfaces from beneath the murky depths to somehow claim our prize.

I want to say this now: whatever happens against Valladolid, whether we win, draw, or lose, whether we come out with a league title or not, whether there’s a goleada historica or an epic choke job, this team and this season are as far from failures as you can get. They are winners and overachievers, they are artists in a world of hacks, and they are successful through beauty despite the hard fouls, despite the bullseye on their backs, and despite the inclination of others to dismiss their grievances because they need to “man up.” Man up this, suckas.

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More rumors, more nonsense:

–Cesc Fabregas has said “If I leave Arsenal, it will only be for Barca.” So of course, people have gone into levitation and palpitations about an ooooold, tired-ass subject.

“Will he or won’t he?”

And we at BFB carefully chose a picture that we hope will convey the seriousness with which we view this matter.
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