Ibrá- 'I'm not a fag!'

I saw a clip of a Catalan reporter speaking to Ibrahimovic after a practice.

In her hand was a photo of Ibra huddled close to Pique, a lynchpin of the defense. There is an intimacy present.



As she tried to get to the footballer amid the crash of hysterical fans circling his sports car, she circled to the passenger side and Ibra opened his window to her.

She asked what he thought of the photo and if he was angry.

"Venga[come on]," he responded.

Then he beckoned her to the window, as she continued asking if he was angry, and he told her to come with him and see who's a "maricon." She responds, 'oh, then let's go to your house', to which he tells her to bring her sister. She says he's mad and he drives off.

I can imagine him beating the wheel with his arms and cursing on the ride home. The tension that would rear up in the locker room at the embarrassment. Ibra is a hot-headed striker. A self-prizing ferrari. A dick.

There are certainly gay players and club members, but almost none openly. Instead there is adonis intimacy alluded to by the marketing of the game and by the players themselves. They just had a spread in Vanity Fair of the top World Cup jocks in their briefs painted with their national flags. Gayest thing since the village people. I keed...

There is a lot of sexual marketing in sports, particularly for a sport (soccer) that has yet to break big in the states. I can hear the PR team screaming 'Push the Beefcake!'-...and cue the blow-up of the Vanity Fair cover to Oprah's stage...now!

So how does the game and it's players respond to the implication of homosexuality? By macho thuggery. But when you make it a game of alpha males, you know what you get.

Europa Cup: Fulham vs. Atletico Madrid

V.

UEFA Europa league championships were held yesterday. It is a second tier cup below the Champion's League, which both of these teams were knocked out of earlier in top European play. That is the title that Barcelona were knocked out of last week by Inter Milan.

In the semi-finals of the Champion's League Barça went down after failing to overcome the 3-1 loss of the first game in Milan. Instead, they scored one goal at home but didn't overcome the deficit of the week before. 2-3 cumulative. Bye-bye champion's league.

Those hopes were slashed months ago for At. Madrid and Fulham. Excellent teams of European play's second tier, they had to duke it out in London. It was a tough game that showed Atletico's Spanish passing struggle to catch fire. They scored once, only to have the English side answer about seven minutes later. Then the tough winds blew and the ball stayed away from the goals. Hesitation from Atletico's strikers, though they had lot's of opportunities. My boy was talking about Eto'o playing for At. Madrid... That would be badass.

They went to overtime, and played an additional 30 minutes, looking half-haggard. At the 118th minute, one of the Atletico plays finally broke through their place of frustration. Score. They celebrate--the Madrid supporters ecstatic as the English fans begin to re-sharpen their fatalism.

All the drama unfolding in interrupted bursts from the heavily broken down feeds to the game; it's hard to watch football on the internet. The games--the marquee ones at least--are so hyper-protected by UEFA copyright holders that any signals which are uploaded are quickly pulled. This equals: Finding a good signal, consistently refreshing the page as it fails, then finding a back-up feed in the inevitability that the previous channel collapses. Repeat. Repeat.

This was a long game, so hosts weren't ready to broadcast the OT. It was murder to watch. Tense. For the players, supporters, commentators, and the poor scum at home trying to watch the game for free.



Rolling Stones, 'Connection'

chairs

I guess it was all about chairs. A place to sit down and collect myself amid the chaos around me.

Waist deep in the measures of bad news and broken expectations. Bush years. 20's gone weird, almost as I'd hoped they might. Anything to break away from the sad silence of windy chicago fields planted with grey memories.

To sit far away from the fields in plush acceptance from the cushion beneath me. Yes, that was what I wanted.

This city, with it's jumbled ethnicity and mixed-up defense mechanisms--this dream became my own and I fed on it's confusion. Contributed to it's polarities. Set-tripping and maneuvering. Made plans and love. Little money and visions held & followed. Peace Frog and LA Woman. All felt from a chair.

It was some 'time of life'-as all times are. A place to be. Is any place the right place to be? If it is, how long can it stay right before it dissipates and reforms in another location? Beautiful city; the more I lived in you, the bigger the question got.

Is it the ground or the ether that controls us all?

The Long Arm Language

The team played Inter Milan. Internazionale. That name is a bit of a joke. What they are referring to doesn't seem to be trans-nationality. In Italy, citizenship is eligible based upon un-renounced citizenship of parents or grandparents. This stops citizenship for immigrants. No one is seen as Italian if they are not ethnically Italian.

During the time of Il Duce, Mussolini cheered his team Lazio and the stadiums throughout the country have had spectators flashing the straight-arm salute ever since.


Canio throws it up after a win for Lazio. 2000's. Source: BBC.

The game on Tuesday in Milan saw more of the twisted same.

Crowd shots of Milan showed folks casting horns at the field (ostensibly at Barça), and straight-arming as their team took a brutal lead. Bad ju-ju afoot... Pedro scored early in the game and got the coveted away goal which counts for more in the series.

But then Inter broke through from Barça's mid-field weaving and cracked the whip. Their strategy was to explode upfield when they got possession deep in their half. Lightning attacks that shot up field in a few short seconds to the goal and scored.

Ibra didn't hit nothing. Messi was shutout. There were glimpses of the attacking wonderment (a late-game bicycle shot that Pedro didn't get by the keeper), and the clever passing play the team throws around like witty reparté--but it was not enough to keep Inter off of them.

Diego Milito (Argentine-Italian citizen) scored a nasty goal that was clearly off-sides and overlooked by the referees. His brother, Gabi, was not a factor in the game for Barcelona's defense against Milan.

And then there was the story of Samuel Eto'o playing against his former squad. Though Ibra was part of the trade with Inter, his narrative is less involved than Eto'o's. This is because everyone sees Ibra as a mercenary prize-horse that is less personally involved in the game and more invested in his own worth. Not a public speaker. Samuel Eto'o, though, was the most outspoken critic of racism in football and Barça's high scorer. Then they switched their play up around Messi and decided to unload Eto'o to Milan for Ibra and 40mil€. Have fun playing at Lazio; See you in the Champion's league.

Eto'o didn't have a great game, and there was little drama around him aside from his punting the ball into the stands after he was disappointed at a call. That earned him a yellow. He caught pressure from Barça and they seemed to have his number. The other boys on the Inter attack were a different matter. They just blasted through at the urging of Mourinho, their coach punching his palms from the sidelines.

Barça got five yellow cards, though they looked to have caught the brunt of the abuse in the match. Fouls overlooked against them. Cold calls. Inter drew only two in the whole game, while they unleashed a battery on the visitors. The Camp Nou would not be like this.

As the Blaugrana boarded their flight to Barcelona after the match, they were no doubt relieved that they didn't have to sit in a bus for 14 hours as they had to get to Italy. Airspace was open as the air was deemed clear to fly while the game was played.

They went home to cook something up. A dream game that will validate their wet grass magic of arcs and lines. That game will be played on the 28th in front of nearly 100,000. I'd love to be there instead of here struggling with my feed to the game. I have some cooking-up to do too.


Straight-Arm Salute

Catalan Derby

Yesterday was the Catalan derby, which played out with the local squads duking it out across town. FC Barcelona played Espanyol just a few kilometers from Barça's home at the Camp Nou. A new stadium for their brothers across the way with the pitch spanning into two different cities: Cornelia and Él Plat. Stats could be kept as to which city in the same stadium had more goals. Espanyol hadn't had their own proper stadium for 11 years and this was the first time they'd host Barça in it.

The two Catalan squads have an eerie rivalry. Espanyol have fought Barça on the pitch with a focus that is nearly unmatched in all of football. To look at the players on the field ~ where internationals hold such presence ~ we saw nine Catalans. Four for Espanyol and five playing for Barça. Local football, as exemplified by the coaching and captains of each team. Pochettino coaching Esp. had played and been involved with the squad since the days Guardiola played for Barça. They were former adversaries on the field who were now still battling via their coaching.


Pochettino and Guardiola

Barça were three points ahead of Real Madrid for first place and now they were to face a team that had consistently drawn or beaten them in La Liga. RCD Espanyol showed why they were such formidable opposition. They took the field among their rabid fans in blue and white. This was the game they looked forward to with the most bile. The chance to keep the local giants in check. Someone threw a coin and hit Messi with it. The field is closer to the stands than most arenas.

Dani Alves was playing hard, but he was thrown out in the second half for getting his second yellow. The squad was down a man. Messi was shutdown by the defense. Xavi was not hot. The thing about Xavi is that his primary instinct is to always set someone else up for the play. Too much of the team has been focused on activating the magic Messi and leaving the rest of the assault as gravy. Xavi gets key opportunities he could take to score, but then pauses to check for someone else and the momentum is broken. Drawback of the play-maker.

In the second half both Ibra and Henry were brought out to try and make some goals happen, but neither one looked fit. Ibra is nursing his recent injury and made his first appearance in weeks, and Henry has simply conked out for the season. This season has seen his playing age five years.

So it ended in a draw, and I'm satisfied. Espanyol are local boys. They couldn't beat their big bros, but they did draw a line and hold their ground. It was a Catalan thing.

Now the team is in Milan to face Inter for the UEFA quarter-finals. All flights in Europe grounded from the Icelandic volcano plume so the team has taken a coach. The last time the sides met was in September in Milan. A draw at nil. Now they go back for the first of two games this week and next. Eto'o vs Barça and Ibra. Milito brothers facing eachother's world-class squads.

But it's a different point in the season than it was in September. Last week Barça climbed to first in their jiu jitsu lock with Real Madrid, and Inter slipped down from first at the hands of Roma in Serie A. The end of the season is approaching and the screws are on in the races.

The only way to win a race; keep running, keep running, keep running.

Jedi

El Clásico was just played in Madrid. Biggest game of the season.

Madrid has lost to Barcelona tonight. Barça are back in the top spot of la Liga after having been in a stranglehold tie for first with Madrid. That's exactly how the game was played--as a taut twisting grapple for dominance between two teams that are eager to stomp the other out of the picture.

The first half was a bitter war of inches and possession. The sides struggled against eachother and gave up fouls. Lot's of thrown bows and whistles blown. Still, Barça managed to eke out an advantage in possession and direction of the ball.

The team seemed to be playing in direct psychic opposition to the rough play of Madrid. Madrid were vicious. Each possession of Barça would receive a brutal challenge. Players all over the field; ankles twisted back and their eyebrows scrunched with pain. The refs didn't feel like calling the most egregious fouls and decided instead to blow the whistle when the guilt from negligence reared randomly.

It was after one of these violent clashes that Messi broke through off a quick pass from Xavi. Leo skated up through the center of the pitch and snuck to the box to shoot past the keeper. It was another in the current streak of successively more incredible goals for him. One for the ages.


Messi scores

Ibra was out for the game, so the team employed a different lineup that moved Messi to the center. This was not ideal, as his lack of height made the chances for headers slim to none.
Pedro was on the side.

Pedro did deliver through out the game with a lot of possession and brutality endured. He then came up on a goal in the second half. 0-2.

But where was Ronaldo?

The Madrid star was consistently denied by the defense of Pique. The two players, both of similar stature and alumni of Man U. were well matched. Pique had his number. That combined with Valdes' supreme handling of the net created a hull that Madrid found they couldn't breach, no matter how many rusty cannonballs they lobbed.

Madrid mostly showed their confusion in the face of Barça's game philosophy: The deft handling of the ball at all times kept la Merengue always one step back. The world's most expensive team couldn't break the code of Barça's frequency.

It was easily the most difficult win of the season so far. They were met at all times and were contested with more audacity than by any other team in the spanish league. The team of the Empire used all of the sinister tricks available to them to try to claw the eyes out of Barcelona, but it was trumped by adherence to their philosophy. Guardiola directed his team to victory by playing their unique game and not getting into a slugfest. Same way they won against Arsenal-who showed a surprisingly physical game in the face of their diminished chances.

How do you kill a sith lord? With a jedi.

Inter moving forward

Today Inter Milan is beating CSKA Moscow out of the champions league.

This means that the possibility of Barcelona beating Arsenal in the next game, and then setting up the series against Inter Milan is becoming tantalizingly real.

Eto'o, traded away from Barça to Inter for Zlatan Ibrahimovic and 60mil Euros, will be facing the club-mes que un club. Inter's Milito and Barça's' Milito are in fact brothers. A dramatic rivalry that could only be conjured in the Spanish Kingdom and Italian terra.

Today's team for the Camp Nou battle is looking good. The line up has me psyched. Alves is due for a great game, and Milito is on the pitch for Puyol. Abidal is playing with Keita, and in the front the young great attacking line of Pedro, Messi and Bojan. It feels like a good representation of the team's ethos. Who will wear the captain's band is yet to be seen.