Bring it. Whatever. I'm ready.

Um. Wow.

The record will show that we beat Tenerife like they stole something, in a 0-5 runout featuring a hat trick for Messi, a passel of assists for Krkic and the kind of gaudy scoreline that we got so accustomed to running up last season, back when we were good.

Reality is that were it not for the man you see here, Victor “Human Wall” Valdes, that scoreline might have been reversed.

Which is why he’s my Man of the Match, by a country mile. Because we were pretty awful early in this one, and he came up with the key stops, time and again.
Continue Reading

Ah, a glorious winter day and we’ve got some football on tap. Great! Liveblog time, yay! Remember to keep it civil and try to keep it fun.

I’m sure that this will get me into hot water with a few Gunners fans, but it’s worth discussing. It’s a fairly important part of not just Barcelona’s plans for the future and Arsenal’s plans for the present, but also the entire concept of how teams approach the concept of a transfer season. Politics, as always, play a huge part in this little game, especially from Barça’s perspective.

Apparently Arsene Wenger sent a message in writing to both Barcelona and Real Madrid demanding they cease discussing any potential Cesc Fabregas transfer in the coming summer, saying that he isn’t making statements that Messi or Kaka should sign for Arsenal in the coming weeks. There are, of course, interesting side notes to be made about such a statement, which, on the surface, is a perfectly valid statement coming from a manager attempting to protect what he and his club view as their primary asset.

Continue Reading

Liga Preview: Tenerife – Barça, Sunday 3pmEST ESPN/ESPN Deportes

The Island of Tenerife as seen from The Yaya's shoulder

It is, to me, akin to going to a different country. Sure, they speak Spanish and all, but dude, it’s like 1,400 miles (70 kazillion kilometers) from the rich coast of Barcelona to the, um, rich coast of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. That distance is, by the way, is about the same distance as between New York City and Dallas or Pierre, North Dakota. Los Angeles and Houston. If you’re a European, it’s like going from Paris to Istanbul or Moscow. If you’re Australian, it’s like going to the corner store.

So it’s far. Quite far. But it’s not actually that wild compared to what American professional athletes have to do on a consistent basis, especially in the NBA or MLB. But it’s far and it takes a lot out of a player to have to travel those distances, especially because they’ll be turning right around and heading home afterward to prepare for a trip to Sevilla on Wednesday.

Continue Reading

With the latest stunning news that Togo’s team bus was attacked by gunmen in Angola, we are all brought back down to earth, to a part of ourselves where sport cannot transcend the daily life that many of the people in the world are faced with. On the face of it, it is a brutal attack designed to inspire fear and hatred, to use the potentially uniting force of an international footballing tournament to instead destabilize a nation.

I am not and never will be an expert on Angolan politics, culture, or relationships, but I am, I think, correct in saying that nothing whatsoever justifies an attack on a peaceful, foreign outfit arriving to play football. They maybe rebels, they may be one-off actors of ill-will and they may have legitimate complaints towards regional, national, or international governing bodies and governments, but never is it acceptable to gun down innocent people whose only crimes were being famous and in the wrong place.

Continue Reading

Sergio Busquets is no mama’s boy. You know that cause he’s been a badass during a Champions League final. I mean, I’m sure he loves his mom, but I don’t think he runs crying to him whenever something bad happens or there’s some criticism of him. He’s not like me, after all. But I’m sure he understand the power of the silbato, the whistle from the stands that Spaniards seem to have perfected.

One trip to the Bernabeu will convince you anyone born on the Iberian Peninsula is born with a whistle in their throat that they can go to town on whenever they want. And they always want to when someone makes mistakes in matches. What Busi understands, perhaps better than we’d like to admit, is that you can’t deride your own player for making a few mistakes. I know he was purchased for way too much money, but I concur with Busi on the idea that whistling at Chygrynskiy whenever he touched the ball after his absurd foul on Diego Capel (regardless of your thoughts on whether it was in or out of the box, it was absurd) and his generally lackluster play throughout the Sevilla match on Tuesday.

Continue Reading

I’m not a huge bluegrass guy, so you’ll have to make do with that above, which features Steve Martin, who, by the way, can freakin’ play. I hate how he stole all the talent in the world. What a jerk. Get it? Anyway, that’s what I know about banjos other than the dueling version.

And, of course, the Crickets kind that we have coming out of our cantera. But what of him? What of his performances of late? Is there hope in the land of Serb-Catalan mini-men? Will our little bluegrass music maker grow big and strong or devolve into the cule Emperor of Lilliput? Low-heels only, folks! These questions are something most of readers on this site and all of the writers here have continually asked themselves for a while now.

Continue Reading

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.
Continue Reading

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.

Continue Reading

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).