Feeling the love: The weather was cold, wet and crappy in Barcelona, but that didn’t stop some 6,000 fans from turning up at first-team practice at the MiniEstadi, cheering like crazy and going nuts over practice session goals, as if they were the real mccoy. Is this a bit of guilt for the merciless (and unwarranted) riding of Txignotatallnasty during the Copa match against Sevilla?

Maybe.
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I coulda done bettah ....

Well, now what? We let an undermanned Sevilla club with no stars come into our home and rub shit in our faces. They walk out with not one, but two away goals, goals that allow them to park the bus at home. Yes, Ibrahimovic scored a goal for us but really, who would bet against them on their home pitch, against a club that seems to have, however temporarily, lost its swagger.

I have one and a half pages of notes for this match, that was not only awful, but boring. If losses can be wake-up calls, this one was the equivalent of someone stringing every alarm clock in Spain together, amplifying them with an 8×12 Marshall stack, roping the lot to some church bells and turning it all loose.

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It’s our Three Kings Day match and I hope that we get a Bojan-style Epiphany, if you know what I mean (you don’t).

I logged on to my internet browsing machine this morning and found my way quickly to Sport, where the top headline of the moment jumped out at me: “In Argentina, Barça finds the new Messi” (El Barça encuentra el nuevo Messi en Argentina) along with the subheading of “He’s from Rosario like Leo and he’s 12″. There is no shortage of danger in this type of absurdity, not only from the particular player’s viewpoint, but from a club’s, too.

This kid, Guido Vadala*, is apparently really good and is working out with Barça right now to see if he’ll join the cantera. That he’s from the same town in Argentina and has some skills obviously means he should be compared to the best player on the planet, right? Messi may be the new Maradona (he isn’t), but at least Maradona has retired and is no longer playing professionally. Leo, on the other hand, is about to embark on his first World Cup adventure as the biggest name on Argentina’s national team. Oh and he’s twenty-two freaking years old. Leo doesn’t even have a wife or kids yet, but he has an heir apparent? Didn’t he just move out of his parents’ house?

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Oh hey now it's my ball, gimmegimme

Copa Preview: Barça – Sevilla, Tuesday 4pm, ESPN Deportes

It’s probably clear by now to even the most rabid of Sevilla fans that the rojiblancos only have one legitimate shot at a trophy this year. They’re in a battle with Mallorca for a Champions League spot in La Liga and they face CSKA Moscow in the first knockout round of the current CL. A trip to February in Russia sounds like quite the vacation, indeed, but at least they host the second leg. So what’s left to them is to battle for the Copa del Rey title, which they last won in 2006-07 by beating Gimnástica Segoviana, Rayo Vallecano, Real Betis*, Depor, and Getafe in that order.* So they weren’t exactly going through a tremendous gauntlet of teams, though they would have faced Barça in the final had Getafe not produced the miraculous 4-0 destruction of the blaugrana in the return leg, after Barça won the first leg 5-2 and one Leo Messi officially arrived on the worldwide stage with this stunner.

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You’d think we’d have learned by now not to celebrate shit when Villarreal is in town. Last season, we feted the Liga trophy, and they left a turd in the punch bowl with a late goal. This year, we celebrated the 6 cups and again, they had the audacity to come in and out-Barca Barca.

These guys just ain’t broad minded.

And for the record, we should have lost this one. So rather than two points dropped, think of it as one point stolen, because we were outplayed for most of this one, in part because only a few of our lads came to really play, and one of them was my MOTM, Grampa Henry, the guy people love to hate.
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Liga Preview: Barça – Villarreal, Saturday 2pmEST, ESPN Deportes

When David Farragut uttered the famous words in the title, I doubt he was thinking of a small town on the eastern coast of Spain. In fact, since the game of football didn’t properly exist at the time, it’s probable that he was thinking about just the actual naval mines in Mobile Bay that were threatening to destroy the boats he commanded and not anything about the 2009-10 La Liga schedule. Still, maybe somewhere in the recesses of his mind, in the subconscious,—warning, misused big word coming up—in the cerebellum*, there was something that murmured about aureolin underwater doohickeys that shoot explosive projectiles and are somehow related to eleven men dressed in a similar color exclusively use their feet to move an inflated pig’s bladder around a rectangular field as a large crowd of people scream obscenities at them.

Regardless of Commander Farragut’s intentions or future-thoughts while in the midst of an epic battle that would cement his legacy forever—another thing I’m sure he didn’t consider—Villarreal is going to visit the Camp Nou tomorrow in Barça’s return to competitive action after the Christmas break. Or maybe it’s a Kwanzaa break. I don’t know. And that visit is important for several reasons. Obviously the return to league action after several weeks away will be a jolt to Barça’s system, but at least Villarreal are in almost the same boat. Like I said, aaaall year. Continue Reading

Champagne bottles are uncorked, hats fly into the air, balls drop, and so forth, as the partiers scream happily, hugging strangers, kissing loved ones, and generally making merry, as is their wont. It is not a celebration of the new year, though, it is me celebrating my lady’s departure to foreign shores for a week with her sister. Not that I don’t love her dearly, but sometimes Man Week has to happen and this is that week.

It also just happens to be the return to competitive action for our boys in blaugrana, so I must get back on my horse and start to churn out some serious posts. This is going to be a huge month for Barça, so, while I watch gargantuan amounts of college football and consume most of my calories in beer, I will be drumming away on this keyboard to make sure that all of you get your regular fix of BFB style infosome. That’s like infotainment, but it’s way more awesome, obviously. Continue Reading

It’s been a while, guys.  I apologize for my Thong Boy like work rate over the past few months. Anyways, the Deportivo La Coruna and Club World Cup games have been fascinating from a tactical perspective. Pep employed a few new wrinkles into our usual gameplans that deserved their own post so here it is. Let’s start out in Galicia at one of my favorite Spanish cities: A Coruña.

More after the jump…

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