CL Preview: Barça – Dynamo Kiev, Tuesday 2:45pmEST, Fox Sports en Español

Imagine how good I'd be if I wore these!

In the 10th century, Русь, or Kievan Rus’, controlled what we know as the Ukraine, Belorussia, and eastern Russia. There were notable figures like Vladimir the Great and his son Yaroslav the Wise and Kievan Rus’ ended up controlling a vast swatch of Eastern Europe that extended into eastern Russia. They wrote the Russkaya Pravda and made the Dnieper a major trading route. Modern Kiev probably owes much to those centuries of rule.

It’s easy, of course, to get lost in the ramblings of history, to find ourselves connecting Kievan Rus’ to the present in a direct line, and, what’s more, to think about the Ostrogoths that came before that as somehow connected to the fairly ridiculous historical comparison we made last time with Visigothic maraudings in reverse. We could continue that and say that we are fighting the next battle in our made up war, moving from Italy to the Ukraine (with Barcelona as a proxy for the actual Ukraine), and ending up in Russia on Matchday 3, but that, of course, seems even more far-fetched than it did the first time I went about it.

Whether Lobanovskyi ever tried to channel Vladimir or Yaroslav, we’ll never know–perhaps there are better historical equivalents, but, again, I never did study Europe and I’m far too lazy to do a truly in-depth look at the history of these countries–but certainly there are connections between the Ukraine of footballing antiquity and our modern Barcelona-based juggernaut. Valeriy Vasylyovych Lobanovskyi, for those of you who are unaware, is one of the fathers of modern football. There are, of course, disputes about who developed what or influenced who, but it’s generally accepted that Lobanovskyi was one of the first to push players into that realm of physicality that allowed them to run for 90 minutes, to play, in essence, Total Football because they could stand the pace and no one else could. Continue Reading

La Liga Preview: Málaga-Barça, Saturday 2pmEST, GolTV

Well, it’s back to more La Liga action as we roll into the weekend for a trip to typically sunny Málaga on the southern coast. It’s a big travel week for our boys, who were up in Arctic Circle Santander on Tuesday (I think every American sports fan reading this just laughed at Santander to Málaga being a big travel week).

Remember last time we were in Málaga and it wasn’t quite so sunny? Yeah…I watched the game at Downtown Bar and Grill in Brooklyn, home to wonderful beer and, well, just me that day. Empty as could be, but it had GolTV and I wasn’t headed to Nevada Smiths.  It was quite amazing to watch that game and get progressively more sloshfaced alongside our boys getting progressively more and more, well sloshed on the field. It was early November and the weather was unusually nice outside in NY, but in Málaga, not so much. Hopefully this time will be a bit drier. Continue Reading

There’s no way he can…not a chance…oh. my. god.

Racing Santander – Barcelona: Tuesday 4pmEST

Here’s how you suck at life: show a repeat of Vitoria vs Internacional from the Brasileirao on Saturday or show an also not-live “Jorge Ramos y su Banda” for 3 hours. If you chose the first option, you’re GolTV. If you chose the second option, you’re ESPN Deportes. Seriously? You choose to show those instead of live Barcelona action? Jerkoffs.

No, seriously, you’re a bunch of jerkoffs.

Of course I’m pissed off by that fact, even though it shouldn’t be particularly surprising. I’m still going to DVR both of those shows in order to see if they weren’t just messing with me because ESPN Deportes is showing “Futbol Español” from 2-4pm and might just change their programming if they can get the rights. No doubt Jorge Ramos and his frickin’ Banda will draw more viewers…It’s possible that it’s actually RFEF’s fault because they’re constantly messing with times and dates and don’t have a collective bargaining agreement, but whatever, I’m going to fault the TV stations right now cause I want to. Continue Reading

La Liga Preview: Barça – Atletico Madrid; 4pm GolTV

This is what playing Atleti is like.

When two sides with extraordinary talent meet, anything can happen. When Atletico Madrid and Barcelona meet, goals happen. There hasn’t been a scoreless encounter between the two in lord knows how many seasons, and I don’t expect this to be any different. There have been 0-6 and 6-0 lambastings as well as 4-3 goalfests like the last time the teams met in the Vicente Calderon. The Copa del Rey last year was a 1-3 and 2-1, both for Barça. Continue Reading

Champions League Preview: Inter – Barça, 2:45pmEST Wednesday, Fox Sports en Español (FSE).

I flew into Milan on a bright and beautiful morning in November 2006, having left Berlin early enough to catch the sun’s raise hitting the streets for what looked like the first time that day. As we swooped into Malpensa Airport, I was met by the panorama of a city that is know world-wide for being cosmopolitan, for being the nexus of fashion, design, and, lately, aging footballers. It looks stunningly gorgeous, as Italian as it gets, and certainly a welcoming destination. I never did see the Stadio Guiseppe Meazza, though, because I quickly boarded another plane to head to Florence for a week of unadulterated sight-seeing and Tuscan sun basking. On my way back, thanks to an unrelenting bank of fog that closed the Florence airport, I was taken by bus by Alitalia through twisting mountain roads and tunnels and finally back to the airport late at night for a then-delayed flight to Berlin.

None of this was Milan’s fault, of course, but I was left, after my 14-hour travel day that should have been 5 hours long, semi cursing the city for having the temerity to be in my plans on a fairly obliterated day. That I still didn’t get to see the monumental stadium that is the San Siro was merely an added bonus in a long list of pejoratives that I used to describe all things northern Italian for a day or two, when I was able to refocus my distaste for transit authorities and metropolitan areas on the MTA, who, as luck would have it, delayed me a few hours in getting home because of random track work in New Jersey between Newark and Penn Station.

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Breath. In, pause, now out. Just let the air enter and leave smoothly, no hurries, no worries. Find your cave, don’t think about Marla.

Why the zen master approach? Because the league is back, baby, and it’s time to get into the season’s groove, but it’s too early for cardiac arrest. It is, however, time to do those breathing exercises and get ready to let loose on the world, one game at a time, at our miraculously high-decible level. This, of course, is what we’ve been waiting for. This is, naturally, what makes us so obsessive: Barça! Barça! Baaaarça! Hell yeah.

I do not subscribe to the idea that the past is dead, that we are obligated to win, that we deserve to win. We aren’t and we don’t. But we are obligated to play well, to play our brand of the truly beautiful game. In the process we will score goals and win games and that, of course, is the point, but it is also a fun bonus for us cules, who, day-in-day-out dream of tight passing triangles and one-two combinations more often than is healthy. I walk down hallways and play imaginary passes to imaginary teammates around coworkers who have no idea how badly they were just schooled. It’s thrilling. And not the least bit lame. You do it, too.

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