The Kaiser of Michoacan, Rafael Márquez Álvarez, made his debut for Barça on September 3, 2003 against Sevilla and, 242 official appearances later, he has come to an agreement with the club to rescind his contract. Rafa has always been a team player for us, has always played wherever we needed him to, and has made little to no noise behind the scenes, but the arrival of Piqué and the resurgence of Milito have pushed him towards the back of the center back queue. That’s not a position Márquez feels comfortable in–he’s the captain of his national team, after all–and with several canterano centerbacks vying for a place in the first team, it makes sense for Rafa to move on and, hopefully, find a team where he can be a star.

There’s no reason I need to stop seeing him play just because he’s leaving the blaugrana, though, right? Yaya, you should have moved to Red Bulls too!

Take care, Rafa, and many thanks for your  7 years of service in blaugrana. Your leadership (and looks!) will be missed.

I was able to watch the Valerenga match today and I have just a few thoughts on it:

Bojan being captain was both chuckle-worthy and wonderful to see. I have this overblown sense of what a “captain” looks like–big, commanding, not 12–so Bojan wearing the armband over Milito, while it made sense, definitely caused me to say “aww” at the sweet little tyke getting honored by Pep for 45 minutes. And he scored! Wait, no, that was the other Bojan. My bad.

Because I watched without commentary (thanks for the links, Jnice), the second half was confusing. There were no graphics about who had been subbed on, so I had to listen to the PA announcer in the background and then guess who was who. Around minute 75 I got bored with it and checked the final score and team sheets. Sure enough no one scored again and I was able to figure out that Nolito wasn’t Sergi Roberto and Edu Oriol wasn’t Nolito, so I had to change some of my match notes.

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Valerenga – Barça, 7pm local, 1pm EST. (brief preview here)

It pains me to have to tell all of you to take part in a comments post instead of a liveblog, but my plans for running one have been derailed at the last minute by the generous offer of an authentic Nicaraguan meal (gallopinto is probably my favorite food) on the other side of town. I know that I should be prioritizing Barça over food (and air) but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

There’s a chance I’ll be home by 1pm to watch it, in which case I’ll fire up the liveblog, but don’t count on it. Apologies for leaving you stranded when we could be discussing the babies on the field. I’ll definitely download it later and watch it because, really, I can’t live without Barça.

With all the buzz ‘bout who’s coming, it’s easy to dismiss who’s going. Who’s coming generates excitement: He’s only 14 years old! He scored 8,973 goals for the youth squad! Imagine what will happen when he plays alongside him! And HIM! And HIM!

The goings, meanwhile, read like rejections from an on-line dating service: He’s too old. He has no style. He doesn’t get out enough. He didn’t live up to his profile.

But the goings give me, oh, what would Pep call it? Ah, I know. A fee-leen.

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Highly placed sources tell me a confidential agreement has been negotiated between Arsenal and Barcelona for the transfer of Cesc Fabregas. These sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because this is an ongoing negotiation and “is Super Top Secret stuff”, confirmed that the Arsenal captain’s transfer will take place “in the future maybe” and will include an amount of money “larger or smaller than expected.”

In order to maintain the confidentiality of the agreement, the contract was drawn up in invisible ink. In fact, the details of this agreement are so secret that, in order to maintain the veil drawn across the negotiations, even the parties involved are not sure of them. A further failsafe was put in place when the document was written in code and only those with the proper rings will be able to decipher it. Even then, they’ll have to immerse the contract in a special liquid capable of showing the invisible ink, the recipe for which is found only in a locked vault in an undisclosed location presumed to be the inner sanctum of the Knights Templar. This process will be undertaken at the appropriate date, which was also written in invisible ink, tied to a brick, and dropped in the Thames so as to be completely impossible to find and publish in Spanish sports dailies.

One source, speaking confidentially (and whispering in order to make it more chilling), mentioned that Sport and El Mundo Deportivo are getting too close to the truth and they must be stopped at all costs. “The truth is that Wenger stands at his sink all day washing his hands and muttering, ‘Out, out, damned rumors,’ while Rosell and Sepp Blatter cackle madly together in the belfry of the highest tower of La Sagrada Familia. Shit, don’t print that, okay? They’d kill me if they knew I’d said anything.” He then looked around furtively, pulled on the hood of his cloak, and slunk off into the murky darkness of the deserted alleyway in Bangkok where we had agreed to meet.

FC Barcelona are about to embark on the 2010-11 pre-season, so it’s probably appropriate to clue all of you in to what the plans are. Norway and South Korea. That’s it. Thanks for stopping by!

I’m obviously kidding with the lack of detail:

Friendly: Thursday, July 29: Valerenga – Barça in Oslo, Norway. Kicks off at 7pm local time (7pm Barcelona, 1pm NYC).

Friendly: Wednesday, August 4: K-League All Stars – Barça. Kicks off at 7pm local time (noon Barcelona, 6am NYC).

Friendly: Sunday, August 8: Guoan – Barça. Kicks off at 8pm local time (1pm Barcelona, 7am NYC).

SuperCopa de España: Saturday, August 14: Sevilla – Barça. Kicks off 10pm local/Barcelona time (4pm NYC).

Supercopa de España: Saturday, August 21: Barça – Sevilla. Kick off TBA.

Gamper Match: Wednesday, August 24: Barça – AC Milan. Kickoff TBA.

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“I think, therefore I am …. not.”

Finally, the desired outcome has transpired in the Cesc Fabregas case. We have all been waiting for someone, somewhere to say something, anything that would give us an indication of what the hell is going on. And our very own Tiny Vampire, Andres Iniesta, comes to the rescue. He has had a conversation with the Catalan midfielder, and knows what the deal is. He spilled the beans to News of the World.

“Cesc wants to be with us, but he told me how close the Arsenal fans are to his heart.”
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Sometimes I wonder why we so often proclaim our cantera to be the world’s best and as being one of the main reasons our club is so much better than all the other clubs in the world.  I mean, it is fantastic and it has given us the majority of the squad we currently field, but if it’s so great and wonderful, why don’t we trust it?

I wrote a piece over at Soccernet (shameless self-plug, of course; get used to it) in which I voted in favor of Thiago and JDS over Cesc, Ozil, or Gourcuff. It’s not that the latter trio is bad by any stretch of the imagination, but rather that the former are ours and have remained with the club in an effort to break through. It’s fun to talk about how some of the world’s great players would fit in our system, but when it comes down to it, are we prepared to remove the direct connection between the first team and the  cantera? Do we want to send the message that canteranos must  be fully developed by the age of 17 or we’ll replace them with a superstar brought in for tens of millions of euros?

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Episode 5: In which the dastardly plans of Barcelona come to light…
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So here we are, post-Cup and pre-Liga. For those of us whose teams broke our hearts, said organs are still tender but on the mend. For those of us whose teams broke records, we still smile, but not with all our teeth. And for all of us, the inner ear no longer vibrates quite so violently with echoes of a vuvuzela drone.

The first season I watched the last Barça match with the Hunky Soccer Husband, I sighed at the final whistle. ‘It’s all over,’ I said. ‘What to do until September?’ He blinked at me with surprise and disappointment, the way Sister Mary Holywater always did when a particularly gifted student gave a particularly stupid answer. ‘What ‘over’?’ he demanded. ‘It’s Transfer Time!’ And then he wrung his hands, like an old-timey villain in a silent film.

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