May you and yours have a wonderful holiday season, whatever your faith or cultural heritage. Just know that as 2011 winds down, the BFB team would like to thank all of you for contributing to this website as readers, commenters, and fact checkers. We’re thrilled with you and we hope you remain thrilled with us.

For me, I’d also like to thank all the other writers who make this site what it is. Kevin, Kari, Linda, Soccermom, Euler, Luke, and Colin have all been amazing contributors. Without them, this site would just be a strange, nerdy man yelling at his computer screen and being ignored by everyone, including his mother. Instead, we have many readers and a thriving community. Thank you all for making BFB something worth writing and worth reading.

Also, our moon base is really sweet, even though Kevin mostly just sits around and throws moon rocks at me and demanding the corporate card for “research on Mallorca.” The minimal gravity we’ve got going on over here causes the rocks to really fly.

The sun sets on the hollow. The hobbits leave off their chores, kicking silver orbs into black sacks, donning their fleece. From the wide tunnel emerges a dark, diminutive Wizard. He stops in mid-field and casts his eyes, flashing like two chips of blackest charcoal, ’round the field. The hobbits draw closer to him.

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On a field in a distant County, just south of the winding Pyrenees, there inhabited some twenty-odd hobbits. It was not a dirty, wet field, spotted with little puddles and upturned pitch; nor yet a dry, sandy hole speckled with bare patches: it was a hobbit pitch, and that means an expanse of short, watered, green grass. The field was surrounded by well-cobbled, upright walls; it had a perfectly oval opening at the top like a giant skylight, and all ‘round lined up straight, freshly-painted seats with brass letters. The broad doors below opened into a tunnel: a very wide one, hung with photographs of hobbit-heroes past, and the floors were smooth. Just outside the tunnel doors, two dugouts provided chairs emblazoned with the hobbit badge, and lots and lots of pegs for mufflers and overcoats — the hobbits were fond of visitors, as they maintained a perfect record at home against them.

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Deep in the bowels of Morbor, the wicked sorcerer Mouron peers at a small black-and-white television set hooked up with frayed and smoldering cables to an ancient video-recording device, rewinding the squeaking bobbins and reviewing a tape. “It is a strange fate that we suffer so much fear over so small a thing,” he mutters, wringing his hands. “Such a little Leo thing.”

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Claudio Villa/Getty Images Europe

Scene: the press room at Camp Nou. Andoni Zubizarreta enters and takes a seat. Pep Guardiola enters wearing the world’s snazziest sweater vest. Jim Tressel cries quietly in a corner of a mansion in Ohio. The press room is packed with reporters.

Zubi: Okay, let’s talk turkey here. Who’s first? Yes, over there, with the credentials.

El Pais: Thank you, Mr. Zubizarreta, I was just wondering what you meant about Turkey. Is Pep leaving to coach Turkey now that Hiddink has quit? [The dailies print Extra! Extra! editions]

Zubi: [holds up his hand for calm, none ensues] That’s just absurd. First–

Rosell: [from a corner of the room] Absurd! Pep can sign a new contract whenever he wants [waves piece of paper] whenever he wants there is no pressure at all.

Zubi: First, the word “turkey” in Spanish doesn’t sound anything like the country and–

El Pais: So it’s true, Pep is leaving! [Mass pandemonium erupts in the room. Paper is shredded, hair is torn out, a man actually stabs himself in the thigh "to see if there is anything but more pain in life"]

Zubi: What? No. Just…no.

Guardiola: Any other questions? Yes, guy over on the left, no, not you, the one without a shred of journalistic credibility.

Sport: As you know, it’s international break, so, we’re all wondering–everyone is wondering–Neymar?

Guardiola: That’s not really a question.

Sport: A quick follow-up: Neymar?

Zubi: We’ll just move along now. Next.

Mundo Deportivo: We’ve heard Neymar’s name mentioned. Can you talk about that?

Guardiola: Well, he mentioned Neymar–

Sport: So it’s true!

Mundo Deportivo: Neymar!

Sport: There, we’ve printed a million copies of Neymar to Barça. Is he your favorite player ever?

Guardiola: What?

Marca: How will you find a way to destroy his sense of self worth?

AS: What kind of a loss will you take on the deal?

Zubi: Now, hold on guys, just hold on, no one said anything about Neymar!

Sport: It’s confirmed! It’s official!

Marca: And they call Madrid the big spenders!

AS: We demand an investigation into possible–no, probable violations of, of, of antitrust laws–yes!–and FIFA mandates and UNICEF is really a front for getting kids hooked on foreign aid, isn’t it? Where will the madness end?

Mundo Deportivo: Neymar will come for free, won’t he? Because Florentino is a poopypants!

Sport: He Who Shall Not Be Named, by which we mean Mourinho, naturally–

Mundo Deportivo: Naturally.

Sport: –is a talentless hack who would never make it in a refined city like Barcelona.

Guardiola: Weren’t you the guys who wanted him instead of me in 2008?

Sport: What! [eyes widen, hands clasp in horror] That’s preposterous. That’s, that’s–

Mundo Deportivo: Totally true!

Sport: Et tu Mundo?

Marca: The Catalans are at each other’s throats! We must attack.

AS: We’ll point out Mourinho’s team has scored more goals!

Marca: We’ll point out that they’re winning the league by unheard of margins!

La Voz de Galicia: We’ll tell everyone how good Omar Bravo is!

All: Who are you?

La Voz de Galicia: Uh, I just happen to be here on vacation and thought…okay, I’ll be quiet now.

Marca: What do you have to say for yourself, Pep?

Guardiola: Uh, about what?

AS: He denies it!

Sport: It’s a tremendous mind game!

Marca: We’ve printed a billion copies with the headline “Guardiola denies official Neymar news!” He’s out of touch!

AS: He’s a criminal. Burn him.

Mundo Deportivo: He’s a brilliant orator whose soliloquies have been known to cure diseases!

Guardiola: [to the camera] What are they talking about?

Sport: Look! Did you see that? He cured me!

Zubi: What disease did you have?

Sport: I had no press credentials and now [waves press credentials] here they are!

Mundo Deportivo: We’ve printed a trillion copies of “Guardiola cures cancer!” They’ve sold out!

AS: We’ve printed a million trillion billion jillion sextillion copies of “Guardiola is a witch. BURN HIM!” Sales were okay.

Guardiola: Well, that about wraps it up, I guess.

AS: One more question!

Zubi: Okay, sure.

AS: Neymar?

Guardiola: No?

Sport: NEYMAR!

AS: Ha! Caught you in a lie, smartypants Pep!

Marca: Scandal of the century!

[Guardiola and Zubi stand up and leave the room to the wild screaming of the reporters.]

Guardiola: I think that went pretty well.

Zubi: Best press conference we’ve had this year, that’s for sure.

Guardiola: I agree. They didn’t throw feces at me this time.

Zubi: It’s the small pleasures that make this job worthwhile. [his phone rings] Hello?

Neymar: Did they ask about me today?

Zubi: Nope.

Neymar: Drat.

Guardiola: Neymar!