So, here’s the thing. I fully recognize that being the best club in the world (oh, yes we are, and you know it) means that we are a target. People love to love us but of late, love to hate us. It’s the height of transfer season, and it’s worth noting that the traditional newspaper and its attendant journalism has gone the way of the mastodon.

What we have now is the equivalent of a guy dashing about, robes aflame, saying “I’ll tell you anything you want, just douse me with water!” Because it’s now about clicks rather than real journalistic integrity. Made up quotes, ginned-up infatuations with mediocre BritBands (Oasis? Really?), all in the name of a few more clicks, and a few more page views. It doesn’t even matter if you linger. You clicked! Neener, neener! We made our stats for the month.
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Last night I attended the USA-Brazil international friendly at the New Meadowlands. Despite the absurdity that is New York Penn Station at rush hour and with tens of thousands of soccer fans adding to the mayhem, I got there on time and got to my seat just as the game kicked off.

There’s a certain glamor to watching a game in person that never gets old, even with the long waits to get there and then back home afterwards (how do people do it when the game ends at midnight?) and last night was no exception. There were fewer USA! chants than normal because of the massive Brazilian contingent that appears out of nowhere whenever the Seleção shows up. Seriously, I don’t see any Brazilians around here until some Brazilian superstar shows up, like Ronaldinho with Barça a couple of years ago, but during that day they’re everywhere in their yellow and hot hotness (possibly NSFW).

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We’ve seen the joyous news in the English footy press, that we have about a zillion dollars in debt, and will probably have to turn to the Camp Nou travestis for some sort of revenue sharing plan, anything to make the bills, because Barca is busted! Yay!

Um, not so fast.

They won’t be needing to hold tag days for us any time soon, which must frost some people’s bacon.

To recap, for those who have been sleeping through all of this. When Joan Laporta and his administration left office, they said we had an 11m profit. When Sandro Rosell and his administration took office, they said “Not so fast, that’s actually a 400m+ deficit.”
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Sergio Busquets, our mercurial midfielder, is a much-maligned figure in the minds of many Barcelona fans. They say he can’t play DM at the Camp Nou because he’s not good enough and he makes too many mistakes. That he’s deficient in the key aspects of the game and is the most expendable man we have. Well, nuts to that. This seems a strange take for a player who started 26 games for the La Liga champions and all 7 games for World Cup champions Spain, of whom manager Vincente del Bosque noted, “if I was a footballer, I would like to be Busquets.” (Lest we forget that the likes of Pep Guardiola and Johan Cruyff has lavished even more praise.) Oh, and lest I mention the 7 pieces of silverware to his name and being named as La Liga’s breakthrough player of 2009. Thus far, Biscuits & Gravy has made quite a name for himself on the world’s best national team and one of, if not the best, club teams around. But why does out fan base doubt the 22-year old star? This article endeavors to deconstruct our newest star, and determine just what to make of his past, and the future. Continue Reading

Hmmm….wonder what these two are talking about? I’d rather imagine that it isn’t the price of xocolata in Barcelona.

For anybody who’s been living under a rock the past few days, it’s international friendly time, and we have been gutted. The list of players who have been called to serve their countries is a big’un: Ibrahimovic, Alves, Xavi, Busquets, Pique, Puyol, Valdes, Pedro!, Messi and Villa. Yes, that’s 9 of our starting XI. But we also have, in a week’s time, leg one of the Spanish Super Copa against a Sevilla side that will be looking to do what it did against us in the Copa del Rey last season.

So now what?
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Just because there’s no news, doesn’t mean we don’t have something to get everyone excited. Those of you who have the new shirts for this year probably have already noticed this. For those of you who haven’t, this is a picture of the rear of the team crest, on the inside of shirt. It’s directly over your fast-beating cule heart, as it should be.

And yes, the Spearmint shirts look much better in person. Trust me.

So, there was a very interesting commentary on ESPN Soccernet about our recent visit to Korea, and how we, in effect, broke the toilets, insulted the host and left the party throwers unhappy.

I read that. I think they’re right. If you roll into a country as an ambassador of your club, you have your business correct. This means that there is stuff that you do and don’t do.
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It’s friendly time once again as our boys in blaugrana spearmint take on the K-League All Stars in Seoul, South Korea at 8pm local time. That means the match is at 1pm in Barcelona and at 7am here in New York. I may or may not struggle out of bed in time to find a working feed, so take this as your match comments post.

Despite previous suggestions that he wouldn’t play, Messi is contractually obligated to make an appearance. Expect Guardiola to put him in with 75 minutes already on the clock so that he can’t play more than 15. Apparently no one in Asia cares if Dani Alves will play…

Episode 6: And so the team returns to training after a summer of success…
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Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but the man in that picture at left, want-away whiner Alexander Hleb, could be one of the keys to this season. So the news that he is going with the squad on the Asian tour warms my heart, even though I know that it is to put him in the shop window, in the hopes that somebody, anybody, will pay around 7m for our 15m midfielder.
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