Are we going to make it, captain?

Quite frankly, I don’t know. This review isn’t going to be very long, because simply put, there isn’t a lot to say. Xavi came out after the match and said that we were the better team.

No, you weren’t. You know how I know? Because you didn’t win the match. Last time I checked they don’t give points for possession, or number of passes strung together to no avail.
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Hey, it’s liveblog time! If you’d like to run it, let me know, otherwise I’ll be around to approve all of you and keep things going as smoothly as possible (without mini polls cause I have a friend over and we’ll be, you know, watching together).

Ye gods, there’s a lot going on in the world, such as:

Strike? A strike? Labor action by a bunch of pampered, overpaid athletes?

You betcha.

There is more assuredly precedent, at least in America, so people shouldn’t be horrified by such things if you know your sports history. But the prospect of no La Liga because of tax issues, frankly put, has my bloomers all in a bunch.

But my bloomers wouldn’t be the only ones in a bunch. Thong Boy, for example, would probably have his string turn into a cowlick, so high would his dudgeon be. Why? Because if the Spanish government has its way, the tax rate for furriners would rise to to 43 percent, from 24 percent.

Starting in 2010.
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CL Preview: Rubin Kazan – Barça, Wednesday 12:30pmEST, Fox Soccer/FSE

Kazan Kremlin (Wikimedia)

Reading the history of Kazan it quickly becomes obvious that the city is prone to being reduced to rubble. Fires and wars were the typical culprits, but Ivan the terrible massacred most of the population and then sent the rest of the Tatars to live a couple of dozen miles away. Basically, this is a resilient city. In the US, we talk about Mrs O’Leary’s cow burning down Chicago an it’s pretty amazing that it survived like it did; the 1909 San Francisco earthquake was devastating, of course, and the Dresden firebombing was awful, but those things only happened once. Kazan’s destruction happened at least five times. No wonder they’re able to consider simply going to Barcelona and winning a match par for the course.

Because of all that, I say we torch the place–they won’t mind that much since they’re used to this sort of treatment from outside invaders, right? Seriously, come on, it’s not that big a deal if we pull the ring trick from Leon The Professional on them, right? Except without our death too, cause that would be friggin’ pointless. Continue Reading

We’re on the warpath yet again, ladies and gentleman, with another news roundup for your perusal.

Hopefully it's not quite like this

-The biggest news, in my esteemed opinion, is that Dani Alves has been given medical clearance and should be fit to play against Rubin Kazan. Whether or not he’s fully recovered is not something I’m capable of saying, of course, but if he’s able to play without risk of further injury, I suggest putting him on the field at right back. Just a thought, of course, a tactical wrinkle I’ve developed completely on my own. I’m sure that he recovered faster than was originally considered possibly by playing all four parts in this video at once while sleeping. Continue Reading

Sure it was a draw. But MOTM doesn’t have to be.

Um .... sorry 'bout that. No really .... so sorry.

Yes, I want it huge. I want everyone to be able to return to this post, look at this picture and remember how it feels when we don’t play as a team, when we let a match that we should have won going away, slip away. Yes, it was a draw, but for me it feels like a loss. It certainly was celebrated like a win down in Osasuna, which is the story of the Barca life. A team will kill themselves just to draw with us, and we aren’t matching fire with fire.
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Hey all: I may or may not be around for the match because of the personal life, so if you’re up for running this liveblog, let me know at team[at]barcelonafootballblog[dot]com and I’ll get you set up, even if you’ve never done it before. If you have, well, then we’re in business.

Liga Preview: Osasuna – Barça, 3pmEST Saturday, GolTV (check local times here)

Oh, why, hullo

I stood in a square, the streetlights illuminating the crowd, and looked upwards at the top of the tall fountain. A man had scaled the top and was yelling something to his friends below. My brother nudged me and pointed upwards. “Jerk is going to jump,” he said and I laughed. Not likely. He was 30 feet in the air above a smattering of drunk idiots and a whole mess of cobblestones that, given the opportunity, would split his skull like a pumpkin on Halloween. Or something.

Obviously he jumped. Continue Reading