The Turmoil of First

The club has been slogging through a wilderness of corporate compromise and astronomical injury.

This is one of the keys to the paradox of the world's greatest club. In order to remain resolutely competitive at the highest level of professional sports, the cash coffers have to be loaded. To do this requires, among other measures, the corporate sponsorship of their jersey for the first time ever in the team's history.

Not only that, but the label Qatar Foundation seems to muddy the message of a squad that has represented the nation of Catalunya so vocally. It is part of the standard sign-off for the team in public: Visca Barça, Visca Catalunya!

They accepted the deal as a counter-measure against their €550 million debt last year. They also accepted as it complied with seven conditions for consideration (chief of which being that it be the most lucrative such deal on Earth).

In fact, the €150 million brought from the deal has been spent on, among other things, new talent for the team. Alexis Sanchez, Cesc Fabregas, and Ibrahim Afelay have all been significant signings since January. The money spent on them alone is over €60 million.

And currently all three players are out injured.

Cesc is gone for three weeks after a practice scrape, Alexis is looking at another month out for a leg mishap and Ibi Affelay, the golden boy from PSV Eindhoven--the new great Dutch hope--is gone for another six months following his surgery today to fix a ligament.


Ibrahim Affelay, get well soon

The injury jinx hasn't just gone to the new boys; Pique-out. Iniesta-out. Abidal-out as of Saturday in their 1-0 win over Gijon.

The game against Gijon, in their black away kits (just as black as R. Madrid's away jerseys), was a drag for the lack of finish that anyone showed. A 1-0 win for Barça feels like a draw or worse. They keep it and move it so much that watchers expect them to take it to the hole all the time.

Nonetheless, the win put Barcelona in first place in the league for the first time this season. The top six places are separated by two points. It's still a tight race.

Carles Puyol returned to the pitch recently after being out with leg problems since around the same time as the new Qatar Foundation deal was inked. The captain has come back just as Xavi was looking really comfortable wearing the band. Puyol is still not quite match-fit though, and with the current streak of injuries depleting their notoriously make-shift defense, each game is getting to be nervous to watch.

On Saturday, the key moment of the game for me was at the end of the first half when Mascherano took a tough leg to the head from Dani Alves. As the players headed to the locker rooms for their 15 minutes, Masche was laying on the field bewildered. He is already bearing the mean brunt of central defensive duties with so many lynchpins gone. If he was taken out of the frame as well there'd be almost no one left in the back.

Have the ghosts of Catalunya been haunting the team and taking the players off the field?

Have the psychic injuries inflicted by the sponsorship just dug the hole deeper?

Are we still the good guys?


Carles Puyol; Back in Black

No Shirt, No Service

either way...

On the 24th of September, the Barça club members will have a vote to potentially abort the vastly lucrative €150 million deal their president recently signed with the Qatar Foundation. The agreement, which saw the team put a corporate sponsor on the front of their kit for the first time in the 111 year history of the club, has been widely reviled by the more 'romantic' supporters of the team.

Johann Cruyff himself came out as calling it "vulgar," and the decision to put the chest real estate for sale has shaken the confidence of many--myself included--who took the crest of being 'more than a club' as symbolic also of a moral high-ground that the little giants held in the world of sport beyond their athletic achievement.

Barça had paid UNICEF nearly €1.5 million a year for the privilege of bearing the organization's mark on their chest. It was a clear reminder of the persecution that the team had faced during the Franco-era and their commitment to human rights in it's wake. UNICEF is still on the kit, but as a tramp-stamp along the bottom of the back.

For their parts, Pep Guardiola and club pres. Sandro Roselli have been vocal in their support of the Qatari sponsorship, but with the ballooning club debt and increasingly astronomical operating costs of the world's greatest team clearly at the forefront of club logistics, it seems like they are simply trying to put the best face on an unsavory situation.


Alexis seems to have a problem with the shirt

A few weeks back, during the 5-0 routing of Villa Real, new signee (and €26 million brick in the wall) Alexis Sanchez scored in his first Liga appearance for the squad. Hot with excitement from his victory, the Chilean forward pulled off his jersey during his celebration like a regular mook.

The bench looked furious; the players looked annoyed. The team huddled around him, partially to cover him from the ref's view in a vain attempt at avoiding a yellow card, and partially to talk some sense into him. You could see Iniesta delivering some words.

Even with the Qatar Foundation corporate mark on the jersey, it still means something.

Wear it with pride.