Liquid Swords

The Squad salute their 500 supporters in the cheap seats

Barça went to Madrid on Saturday and beat their rivals 3-1. Though el Clasico appeared to be an uphill battle in light of Madrid's current run of dominance, Barça still managed to create the opportunities needed to come up on the (then) league-leaders.

How?

The game was thrown into a tailspin upon first getting possession of the ball in the first half, after sending it back to Victor Valdes, the goalie gifted it directly to Di Maria, who dished to Mesut Øzil, whose shot was deflected right to Karim Benzema, tapping it into the roof of the net past Valdes. 22 seconds into the game and Madrid was up 1 nil.

Jesus...

The problem was that as Barca had gotten possession their defensive backs started splitting wide and heading to play deep out of their end. They were so wide and far back, in fact, that they were way out of distance to effectively defend in front of their goal, which is where the Madrid front line were pressuring to attack and pounce on just such an opportunity.

Barcelona was playing the kind of daring football that no one else on Earth attempts. By splitting their defensive backs so wide apart and so deep up the pitch to play out from the back, they were daring their adversaries to challenge them up high in order to make holes in the midfield. 22 seconds in, they got caught.

But as they regrouped and got the ball into their own rhythm, steadily they managed to create those holes in the Madrid midfield and fatigue their forwards who were busy chasing the ghosts of opportunity created by Pique, Puyol and Abidal in the back field, still holding on to their now-you-see-me-now-you-don't style.

By the second half, the merengues were having to dash back upfield to defend their goal after being drawn out time and again, and their breath was no longer able to sustain the effort of keeping up with the claret and blue zig-zags.

The line-up that Pep fielded was different from the one that faced Madrid a year ago in the 5-0 rout at the Nou Camp. Instead of David Villa and Pedro on the wings, he put in Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fabregas--both of the summer signings. Indeed, both of them would score in the game.

It wasn't the starlets presence on the pitch that won the game, though. It was Pep.


El Genio

Though he started the game with the team lined up in a 4-3-3, keeping four defenders in the back to deal with the aggressive Madrid offense, by the tenth minute, down a point, he switched it up to a 3-4-3, sending one of the backs up into the mid-field and beyond. Dani Alves was exemplary in shooting up the field in the role we saw him in last year as a make-shift winger that sent his pitch-perfect crosses towards the forwards swooping in at the goal. Sergio Busquets acted as a sweeper to make sure the defense always could get some kind of entry to Xavi and, most effectively, Iniesta.

Iniesta seemed to exhaust his counterparts as he whirled all over the pitch with his beguiling gait. They could not get a handle on him. And though he did not always connect with his teammates in the way we are used to seeing--in fact, the team in general seemed to give the ball away much more than would have been comfortable for their fans--Iniesta was always a problem for the men in white to contain. He was such a dazzler that as he was subbed off the game in it's final minutes, even the Madrid fans applauded his master-class.

Pep made the adjustments necessary to counter Mourinho's press-crazy tactics, while Mourinho let his boys keep playing the same way.

The resulting win for the Blaugrana was a win for flexibility.

The team is in Japan today, set to play in the final for the FIFA Club World Cup. Another fairly arbitrary cup, but a cup nonetheless.

On Friday is the Champions league draw for the final 16.

The pendulum is swinging back our way.

The Unlikely Underdog

Kill em' with kindness

Here it is:

The Clasico.

Though Barcelona are the reigning champions of Europe and Spain, this week finds the team in second place behind their brawny rivals from the capital. Real Madrid are currently widely regarded as the strongest team in Europe; dominating the power listings of sports journalists and sitting on top of the domestic table by three points with a game in hand--the widest margin since Pep Guardiola took over the Blaugrana three-and-a-half seasons ago.

Pep has only lost a single game in all of his squad's 11 meetings with the men in white, but as Madrid have just won every game in the Champions league qualifying round (the only team to do it since Barça in 2002), the challenge facing the Catalans is greater than ever. Though the season is not yet half-over, with the way things shake up in la Liga it seems that this game could be a deciding factor in the outcome of the 2011-2012 season.

Speaking of shake-ups, FC Basel beat Manchester United today in Switzerland to knock out the giants from the Champions league and into the second tier Europa league. It was a milestone achievement for the Swiss outfit, and a humbling shock for the English champions who got outclassed by Barcelona in the Champions League final in London this past May. It seems that the Sir Alex Ferguson has no antidote for claret and blue.


Brothers from another mother, FC Basel send Man U out of the Champions league

If Basel's uniform seems familiar, it should. The red and blue kit echoes Barcelona, as both teams were founded by Joan Gamper back in the 19th century. Though Gamper would move away from his Swiss homeland for the sunnier pastures of Catalunya and create what would become one of the world's most celebrated teams, he first hailed from Basel.

One has to wonder if he had some magic in place that would be the downfall of English teams.

Let's hope Pep has a similar juju to make meringue collapse.


Joan Gamper wearing claret and blue

Stutter Authority

Ibra shakes it off

Barcelona flew to Milan to play AC at the San Siro yesterday.

Both teams were guaranteed a place in the next league of Champions play, but though the results were irrelevant to the competition's outcome they charged head first at each other with the gnarly focus of intimate enemies.

The refs were very bad, nearly never carding the fouls and only then misguidedly. Hand balls? Not a problem. What game do they play in Italy?

Messi took a penalty to bring the team ahead 2-1 in the first half. As he approached the ball, he stuttered his stride, sent the keeper one way then dished the ball into the other corner. It reminded me of a penalty taken by Balotelli in Man City's win over Newcastle last week (although Balotelli managed to shoot without stopping step, and then glare at the keeper like a dickhead).

Leo gets a yellow card, and the shot is done over. This time he sends it clean past the keeper on the same side he just sent him.

Ibra played a very good game in his first outing against the team of his former employment. He picked up a goal in the first half and generally managed to get in good crosses and position himself in the final 1/3rd. Prince Boateng, however was an outstanding talent against Barcelona. The second half goal he marked to equalize was stunning, but it would be drowned out by a key strike from Xavi off of yet another brilliant piece of teamwork that would be the winning goal for Barça.

The Catalans played in their third kit--mint green: same as last year's away jersey.

Whatever the uniform, the talent is the fabric of the outfit.

Ball Boy

This morning FIFA announced the 23 candidates for the Balon d'Or award for the world's best individual player. Barcelona's squad featured 8 of the 23 names, including Abidal, Dani Alves, Cesc, Piqué, Villa, Xavi, Iniesta and the back to back winner of the last two years, Lionel Messi.


Last year's Golden Boys

The idea of individual achievement seems to be something of a double-edged sword for the beautiful game. As players excel, they become of vital importance to making their team perform more cohesively. Once they get a sense of their worth they are afforded certain indulgences and rapidly that excellence starts yielding diminishing returns (take a look at Carlos Tevez' ongoing soap-opera at Manchester City).

For Barcelona it seems that no matter how superb the results that their players net, if they do not subscribe to a selfless style of performance (both on and off the pitch), they will not last in Guardiola's squad.

Samuel Eto'o was Spain's highest scorer in 2008-2009, and it seems he was not sufficiently Barça in Pep's eyes, so he was despatched to Italy. The next year, Ibrahimovic scored a great goal tally for the Blaugrana (wearing the same no. 9 that Eto'o had just vacated), but he did not jive with the team's humble and light-footed philosophy and he was gone before the 2010 season started.

Messi has been the highest scorer for the squad since Eto'o left, but he has also come up with brilliant assists and shown how instrumental he is in raising the level of play of those around him. Of all the goals he scored last season, the most remarkable play he made may have been a pass to Villa for the fourth goal in the 5-0 routing of Real Madrid.


Mo and Pep react to teamwork from opposite sides of the scoreline

Above all other achievers and champions, this blog is really about Pep Guardiola. Pep has been at the helm of the ship after spending a lifetime building the character necessary to define and apply it's ethos. Now, for the third year running, Pep is nominated for FIFA's Coach of the year award and is a clear favorite to win the prize.

Originally a ballboy, Pep has come through the ranks from the bottom and learned how to embody the elusive esthetic of a squad that is "more than a club." Some successes are deliberate and willed; some are mystical.

The best are both.


Pep's early celebration at the Nou Camp

Why Italians Celebrate...

It seems like any time I see some clip from Serie A, if there is a goal the entire team explodes in the kind of celebration we are used to seeing in footage of VJ-day, or something. Dudes are pulling off their jerseys to show the messages emblazoned on their undershirts--referees are pulling out yellow-cards. The water boy runs off the bench in a back-flip.


Osvaldo gets excited for Roma, but Lazio still wins in the roman derby

I wonder why they make such a big stink from it? Even a penalty goal--which in the old days was always considered poor-form to celebrate--will get the same orgiastic response.

Well, this weekend of the 10 games played in the Italian league, a full half of them ended in 0-0 draws. By contrast in Spain only 2/10 ended goal-less. In England, Germany and the Netherlands, none ended scoreless. As for France, well, nobody watched the games so who knows how they ended?

The kind of defensive stranglehold that has become emblematic of the Italian style of play can be tough to watch. It's like a bad juju contest. For ninety+ minutes, let's get nasty. In the Italian philosophy of the game that came to dominance in the 50's and 60's, the ideal result for a game was a 1-0 win off a single goal scored as late as possible.

No, wonder they party like it's 1999 when it goes to the back of the net.

Yesterday Barça played Racing Santander and soundly outplayed them, winning 3-0.

Leo Messi was genius on the pitch, inspiring loud 'bravo"'s with each magnetic possession. The rest of the crew is still tenuously in and out with this dang'd epidemic of muscle tears.

God bless the child that's got his own...


Messi; Four sweet touches before the ball meets the ground


*** (added on October, 18)

Miroslav Klose, the German star that has signed with Roman team Lazio, has disassociated himself publicly with banners that were drawn in Nazi-esque old-German fonts.

The banners read "Klose mit uns," a play on the military mantra used in nazi Germany, "Gott mit uns [God with us]."

Lazio has perhaps the most outspokenly pro-fascist fanbase in Italy, and their ethical alignment with the WWII idea of Germany is not so surprising. Neither is Klose's willingness to run away from the pairing.

This is the thanks he gets for scoring in Lazio's 2-1 win over Roma?

How long will Germany be seen through the prism of the second world war, which ended 66 years ago?

Well, it was a doozy...

But the war is still something that Germans get their faces pushed into, like a dog into his filth by a cruel master. The wrong-doings we've done; and the goals that we meet, they get weighed and tainted through the resonance of our achievement.

As a stain and glory you wont let go.

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

Willy Wonka

Ferran Adriá

Barça have announced that they have retained the services of Ferran Adriá to design the menu at la Masia, their youth academy, in an effort to "foster healthy eating and exercise."

This move, which brings together the team with the world's most famous genius of cuisine, is a daring and lovely flourish on the body of their Catalan love's labour. The brilliant Adriá has been the most followed and beguiling chef in the world from the out of the way mecca he created at his restaurant in Catalunya, El Bulli.

Now Adriá has closed his mecca and moved on to different projects; one of them being the feeding of the young athletes at the school of the world champions. On the current first team the youth academy alumni are Messi, Cesc, Xavi, Iniesta, Thiago, Piqué, Puyol, Pedro, Busquets, Valdés, and the mister, Pep.

As that line-up could probably count it's estimated worth at or near a billion dollars, the interest the club has in giving their little brothers the best food in the world is clear.

As I started gravitating toward football a while ago, one of the reasons that I became particularly interested in FC Barcelona was the fact that they represent a place that also had the world's "best" restaurant. In addition, the architectural tradition of Gaudi's mind-bending and outside status within the bounds of their own country seemed to mark the team as something larger than what they ostensibly were.

Football teams are a dime a dozen. Cheaper, even.

But when something you are looking at becomes transformative to more, somehow.

When the game is no longer simply something that is played, but elevated to a medium for the most wild of possibilities to be made real.

That is the key to enlightenment through any endeavor.

A cherry on a plate or ball on a field.


Great minds...

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.

Avocados

"...So much is crowded into the middle –
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados..."
-Aristotle by Billy Collins

In Mexico, the price of avocado is climbing ever-higher and putting the squeeze on people who often eat only a select amount of vegetables to begin with. The Mexican parliament has officially re-designated many vegetables as 'meat' in order to get people to eat more of them. People are pissed.

Here's something I did not know before today:
Aguacate, Spanish for Avocado, is derived from a Nahuatl word for nut. Like testicle-nut. Not like a brazil-nut. Like, a ball. Thank you BBC.

In Spain the focus of the shitstorm of la Liga politics has returned to the owner's hands after resolving the player's strike--a strike which delayed the season a week. Currently on the bitching block are tv broadcast rights and revenues.

Madrid and Barça split almost half of all revenues (though they get 3X the viewership of all other teams) and the other teams say that the additional money helps them reinforce their choke-hold at the top of the table. This issue isn't a threat to play, though.

On the field,the season is sputtering into gear and focus as the Champions league tournament is set to start. Barça will play AC Milan in their group's first round. They last played them in the Gamper cup right before last season. It was not a game as much as an embrace between Ronalidnho and Barça two seasons after his leaving for Italy, and a kick in the backside to Ibrá, sending him back to Milan after a mal-tempered, though mostly successful season. His last game at the Nou Camp.

Tomorrow there will be no Ronaldinho, having gone back to Brasil to teach Neymar how to play, and even Ibra has pulled out citing a practice injury. It seems a little auspicious since Ibra was traded away from Barça after costing a net loss to the team of around €40 million. It's poor form then to go and play against them in their home.

The Italian league, Serie A, just started this past weekend after being--you guessed it--on strike. Serie A and by extension AC Milan should be out of form for a while. Barça would have been presumably in good shape to win, but they drew 2-2 at Real Sociedad on Saturday.

Up in the Basque country games usually are pretty spirited. The history of Spanish football has always had a very strong corner in the northeast. Though Athletic Bilbao is more decorated, Sociedad have shown that they can bring heat to Barcelona and after capitalizing on two weak defensive plays to equalize in the second half, they managed to hold the stunned champions of europe to the draw.

Barça, two games into la Liga, are in fourth place behind Madird, Valencia, and Real Betis. I'm happy for Betis. they were elevated from the second division recently. Enjoy third place while it lasts.

Another cost of the game was Alexis Sanchez tearing a thigh muscle and now being out for about two months. Inversely, Carles Puyol, our team captain, is looking set to play after being almost entirely out of commission since January.

So many players, so many people are pressed into the middle of a struggle between opportunity and time. People are aware of their decay, and fear the deadlock of inactivity while their sell by date comes running to them.

Squeezed under a mountain of avocados,
that nobody can afford.


Ronaldinho vs Neymar, summer 2011

ILOILO

Patron saint of Football.
Iloilo City, Philippines. 2002.
photo by janine lim


Today Barça played Portuguese champions FC Porto in the UEFA Super Cup.

The cup is put on before the start of the new season, and pits the Champions League winner against the Europa Cup winner. Though the Europa Cup translates to a second tier competition, the games are not necessarily totally lopsided.

Porto, who have gone over a year since their last domestic loss, were unstoppable under their coach Andre Villas Boas--but after they won the Europa League he left the team and returned to Chelsea where he'd worked with Mourinho, this time as Boss.


AVB: Goddamn that's handsome

Now that he has left (along with their pre-eminent striker Falcao), Porto looks potentially shakier than they had.

By contrast, Barça are getting their legs again, and their performance in the 2-0 victory over the Portuguese was a fairly invigorated display. Messi scored one and assisted Cesc to the second just before the clock ran out on regulation. Another cup; 12 major ones tallied up in the last 3 years under Guardiola.

Messi looks set to mark himself as the team's all-time leading scorer in the next year or so. Up to now, that title has been held by a man who debuted one hundred years ago at the age of 15.


the net breaker

Paulino Alcántara was born in Iloilo Philippines in 1896, the sixth child of an Ilongga mother and Spanish father. He moved to his father's country to play football as a teen, and he was soon discovered by club-founder Joan Gamper and signed to the team. Thus, the first Filipino player entered into European football.

He was a total phenomenon and scored a goal for each of the 365 games he played for the team over the span of his legendary career. He ushered in the first Golden era of Barça. Paulino also represented the nations of both his parents--featuring in the Philippine whomping of Japan 15-2 in 1917 as well as playing for Spain against France and kicking the ball clean through the back of the net--cementing his fame.

The fact that one of the great legends of the club, nearly 40 years before Pele, was from the Philippines is really endearing and speaks to the culture of the team. There's a fair share of nationalism in the support of them and Catalunya (which are nearly inseparable in the eyes of the world), but the great figures of the club have been from other nations and come together under the shield.

Gamper was Swiss, Alcántara from Iloilo, Crüjff from the Netherlands and now Messi has brought Argentina to the league of distinguished gentlemen. Players of the world unite.


Mr. Alcántara and Mr. Gamper

The Sword of Doom

Who started it?

The Supercopa has been played and since the Spanish Liga is in the midst of a labour dispute, it looks like we will not get much more football for a while. The season will be delayed a week or more. Perhaps til' the middle of September.

It is a good thing that the two-game series did not disappoint at all. The series saw a Barcelona team that had not played together in months and shown only a thin shadow of their champion form over the course of their three or four pre-season games, meeting a Real Madrid squad that has never looked tougher.

Madrid was physically imposing and looked ready to run up mountains. The scot commentator described them as "fit as butcher's dogs." Additionally, Mourinho had changed their style of play from the knee-breaking defensive vice, to a barrage of attacks and pressing for every ball at all parts of the pitch. They utilized their offensive force in a way that was more dynamic than they have shown before. As I said, Mourinho teams take a year to warm up before really getting into stride, and this one looks fit to be a demon.

In Sunday's game at Madrid, los Merengues outnumbered Barça in shots 20-3. It was also the first game in the three full seasons that Pep Guardiola has coached that Barça did not keep a majority of possession on the ball. While they usually get up to 70% of it, at the Bernabeu stadium they had to settle for chasing the action around and scoring on the break--much like Mourinho had coached his previous teams (Chelsea, Inter and last season's R. Madrid) to do against Barça. The shoe was on the other foot.

In spite of that bizarro-world flip-flop, Sunday's first leg score was 2-2. Madrid could not capitalize on their abundant opportunities. Valdes was a phenomenon in the goal, and Dani Alves performed admirably on defense.

It's funny, but though Alves is ostensibly a back, we get so used to seeing him break up the wing to get crosses in to the attackers that he looks almost out of place in his actual 'position.' Nonetheless, he showed that his defensive instincts are really unbeatable (at least if you're Cristiano Ronaldo...).

The games were a total tug of war with each team answering the other's goal through the course of it's three hours, ratcheting the drama tighter and tauter. The signing of Cesc Fabregas between the two meetings just pressurized the environment, as it became the major piece of sporting news on the continent and shored the attention of the football world on the cup Clasico. The Supercopa is usually regarded as a pretty minor championship, but these Madrid/Barça Clasico meetings always take on a lot of symbolic weight.


Who's gonna take the weight?

Messi, who had gone back home to Argentina to play in Copa de America only to return to Spain empty handed and salty, performed like the world's greatest player. He scored or assisted every goal that they marked over the two games. His first assist on Wednesday to Iniesta, who was clear to break free and chip the ball past Casillas, was brilliant. His play with the pass is the sure reason that he is the best.

As Madrid equalized to bring the score to two after Kaka had been brought in late in the second half Wednesday, the game looked set to go to extra time. But Fabregas' substitution (in his first adult moments on the pitch as a member of his boyhood squad) changed the energy substantially. First he collided with Pique to inadvertently gum up a break to the goal in front of Casillas' box. His first touch wasn't with the ball, but with his teammate who was looking to score. But then he redeemed himself by meeting up with Adriano who dished back to Messi for the game winner in the 88th minute.

It was at this point that Madrid, after so nearly beating their opponent at their own game, fell apart. In the extra time Marcelo sent a scissor kick tackle to Cesc to bring him down right in front of the coaches.


Marcelo gets down and dirty on Cesc

It was an outright red-card, and a clear reflection of the frustration that the team of the crown felt at still not being able to beat their rivals--who were weaker than ever and yet again managed to pull rabbits from their hats. The benches cleared and everyone started fighting.


Same as it ever was

Right away, the brilliant two games of play--probably among the best examples of football I've ever seen--are reduced to battles in the same dirty war that has gone on so long. In the ensuing scrum Mourinho walks over behind Barça's assistant coach Tito Vilanova and flicks his finger in his eye. In the 95th minute of the second leg of the Supercopa, three players get red carded-two of them (Özil and Villa) aren't even playing.

There are sure to be sanctions imposed by la Liga for the mud that was kicked up. The complete collapse of Madrid in the closing moments of the contest has resparked the spring's debate over the ill-temper of Mourinho and the rivalry. Is it worth all of the acrimony and nasty vibes? Will the anger on the pitch spill over into the streets and be played out by the team's supporters as proxies?

Pique has come out and declared that Jose Mourinho is "...destroying Spanish football. It's not the first time and it's always a number of players and the same ones so there has to be some way of stopping them. I hope they adopt the necessary sanctions because every game cannot end this way."

Yet almost all of them do.


One last thing

In the classic Okamoto film, The Sword of Doom, Toshiro Mifune is attacked by a group of assassins that mistakenly target him. He delivers all of them to their miserable snowy end, then scolds their ringleader. "An evil soul; an evil sword. Learn the soul to learn the sword."

As the conduct of Madrid's leadership has become so bitter and cynical, the games cannot help but devolve into static. The figures in Madrid's Olympus pavilion of elder statesman are displeased with the brutal character their squad has come to personify, but they are largely tied to the mast of their Ahab. As Madrid had tried to beat their nemesis by out-hustling instead of brutality and still came up short they are left with all their tactics frustrated.

They know there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all.


the scrum

To Rock Madrid

This week is starting to get busy, as Barça are going to play their galactic rivals in Madrid for the first leg of the Spanish Supercopa.

The Supercopa is a cup played over two games between la Liga's champion (the blaugrana), and the Copa del Rey winners (these dudes). Sunday should bring the starting team together for the first time since the championship to unofficially kick off their season at the Bernabeu.


Pep isn't scared of white people

Before the game, it looks as though Cesc Fabregas will indeed be coming back to Barça (probably for around £35M--at least 5M less than what Arsenal had wanted to give him up for, but the little guy gave them the puss-n-boots face and they caved). It is said that he himself will shell out 4M on the move, but some things are worth more than millions.


Francesc Fàbregas i Soler

So what have Barcelona done in the off season? They have gotten rid of Milito, Bojan and Jeffren. Pep has signed Alexis Sanchez (Udinese's Chilean striker) and (almost certainly) Cesc, thus further empowering his attacking midfield.

The defense remains a concern, with the job of the backs frequently being given to players more accustomed to the midfield. But that is how Pep seems to want to augment the defense. Since the barcelona defense is also keen to switch positions and move to attack, their versatility and refusal to be purely reactive keeps their opponents on their toes. Last season every single member of the squad except for Javier Mascherano scored. Pretty illustrative of their defense's creativity.

Mascherano himself came to the squad from Liverpool, where he was a (you guessed it) midfielder. Though he was known as a hatchet-man to deliver tackles, he was not employed defensively in the back third.


Masche got serious love in Liverpool

He made the switch to Barça last year after the World Cup, where he was captain of Argentina under Maradona. When Maradona first took the coaching position for his short and curious tenure as the national manager, he was asked who he wanted for the team. "Mascherano and ten other guys."

Puyol hasn't played much lately, still working on his fitness after yet more surgery, and the dudes they have played in the pre-season have not covered themselves in glory along the back line. Losing against the prides of both England and Mexico isn't a great look.

But now the first team is fittin' to re-form like Voltron and have a cup showdown with their nemesis. Their small statures are towered over by the broad boys of the capital, but they take the pitch in Madrid like Jay Adams hit the ground at Del Mar.


Rascal

Since Pep has taken the coaching gig at his alma mater, Barça have not lost in Madrid. Like a wave of bees, the blaugrana have flooded their senses over and again. If the Mourinho team will opt to continue their barrage of fouls and negative-play in order to grapple the little guys to submission (as they did for their Copa del Rey win [Madrid's only victory in the last three years against Barça]), remains to be seen.

But for anyone who likes to see a littler kid walk up to the face of a bully and dis him, this is the kind of contest that is the sweetest. The kind we pull for and giggle at. Time to play, time to play...


Even in Madrid they know who rocks
\m/

Hogwarts

It feels like the team is going through the stage in Harry Potter where Laura Bush took over Hogwarts. The best they've got is like one Weasley brother at a time while their heroes are tied up.


spooky

Harry Potter is nowhere to be found. In the forests off in the hinterlands; recovering from national play disappointment. Finding a bogus hoarcrux in South America.



Last night Chivas beat the shit out of Barça. Well, more Pinto than Barça--but still. Indeed, the lessons of the game were (1.) that Pinto aint shit, and (2.) that Marco Fabian is a bad-ass.

His first goal to equalize at one was a straight cañonazo, and he followed it with a back-flipping scissor kick right past Pinto three minutes later to bring Chivas up 2-1. The Guadalajara side and near-national team for Mexican identity kept on attacking and when the clock finally stopped on the game it was 4-1.

Marco takes flight

Like dey say: "watch it like youtube, watch it like youtube..."

I am happy for the brothers from Mexico and Fabian in particular, who was gracious in the moments after:
''This is a dream come true, to score not one but two goals against a great team like Barcelona. Life continues but this is something I will cherish.''

The LA Galaxy

In Los Angeles. The crispy meat of summertime.

Off-season friendlies are underway, and the leftover victory stains are slowly being wiped away from the eyes. To follow a team from far away makes the experience take on a butterfly-effect. You are there by virtue of being psychically attuned, but there is nothing that remotely resembles the immediacy of the game on the field:

Grass that's cut, wet and smelling faintly of chemicals sharing the air with the bodies of 90,000 people there in the arena. Cosmetics and body sprays. Heat on flesh and the sweat of the players themselves as the game moves onward.

Those elements are replaced by the local drama of the internet connection and the missing focus of helping cook dinner while getting ready for an imminent appointment. The blindfold is being put on and Yoda is telling me to strike at the ball with my lightsaber. But all around the galaxy, things are looking ominous.


Let's have a look in my crystal ball...

A few weeks ago Real Madrid played in Los Angeles against the Galaxy. David Beckham and Landon Donovan posed for pics and swapped shirts with Iker Casillas and Cristiano Ronaldo. The boys from Spain looked über-tan, like bionic George Hamiltons--and they proceeded to take the pitch and defenestrate the Galaxy 4-0. I didn't go, because what am I an asshole?

R. Madrid in California

Of particular note was Ronaldo's solo effort goal up the wing across the keeper. Damn! Madrid have also signed Coentrao, who played for Benfica and the national team, and he looks to be a pretty bad motherfucker. There must be a lot of portugese being spoken in that clubhouse. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone on the team can speak it.

In Barcelona, the boys are probably still speaking Catalán, although who knows what they are saying. They have not played a game as a full first squad since the Championship, and now they are donning these funky-ass new colors and the team is still publicly courting Cesc Fabregas back from Arsenal. This makes two summers in a row of this frustrating rumor. I don't think he's coming back, though, and that should just be dropped.

We have sent Jeffren to play in Portugal. He scored the fifth goal in the Clasico last fall, but that only showed that he could on occasion make the most of his very limited minutes on the field.

Also gone is Bojan, who couldn't sit idly with as much sweet understanding as Jeffren. Before packing for Roma, Bojan had a weird press conference where he kind of cried and complained about the side and Pep Guardiola not believing in him. Still you can kind of understand him as he has to leave the world's top team to go someplace he will actually get a chance to start nearly every game as the favored attacking option.

Bojan leaves.

On Saturday Barcelona played Man U in Washington D.C. No Messi or Xavi, and a limited contribution from many other traditional starters. It was mostly a showcase for Thiago to see how he could meet up with the wizard Iniesta. Iniesta is clearly a genius. Thiago looks very hungry and happy to be getting his playing time on the first team. He obviously wants to make an explosive impression, hence his three goals in the last two games. He scored a pearl to equalize with Man U, but then they answered only a few short minutes later. Let's hope he performs more consistently than his two former teammates.

Last season: Bojan, Jeffren and Thiago

Barça lost the exhibition 1-2, in their black colored kits with no names printed on the back in order to save room for the relocated UNICEF badge. A shaky start, perhaps. In a related bit of shudderation, Kobe Bryant showed up and put on the new Qatar Foundation jerseys at a team luncheon. Shit, man.

Tonight the team will play Chivas in Miami. It is all just a publicity jog until they return to Spain to play Madrid in the Spanish Supercup on the 14th. We just need to stretch out and get the feel for these new clothes. We don't know how to beat anyone else, but we know how to beat ourselves.

Offseason

The 10-11' season is over and the books have been written on the outcome.

It has been an obvious high-water mark for FC Barcelona, and perhaps football in general as people have lined up to sing the praises of their particular style of apparently, selfless play.

The team has also gone through the measures of shoring up their squad with contracts designed to keep their nucleus largely intact for the next four years. Pedro recently re-upped his along with Thiago, as Busquets, Alves, Xavi, Messi, Iniesta and others (almost all of them, actually) are committed until at least 2015.

The only familiar dudes that seem to be candidates for inevitable trade are Bojan and Gabby Milito. Neither one of them has had a remarkable season in a few years. Milito has been injury-ridden and showed himself to be less than up-to-task in filling the gaping holes in their defense last season.

Bojan is a more tricky issue: He is a second generation player on the team who showed real flashes of brilliance while still in his teens. He was almost like a Messi-alternative for a short while.



But then it seemed like his touch stopped settling and in the key final moments, his shots would fly awry. I felt that he may have been sent a bit off course by his feeling an urge to replicate Messi's jaw-dropping improvisations, rather than keeping a holding pattern that would allow him to clean up on second chance strikes as Pedro has done so effectively. Now he is rumored to be a bargaining chip to be moved to Italy and help alleviate some of the team's 500 million Euro debt.

Speaking of debt, distinctive chinks in the superman armor seem to be showing under the weight of the bank balance. After years bearing only the mark of UNICEF on their chest, Barça will begin featuring the label of the Qatar Foundation--a group that seems to be a broad consortium of scientific, industrial and educational interests that are designed to advance the oil-filthy-rich nation socially. It may not be AIG, but it seems vaguely like a cabal compared to the polio-vaccinating and baby feeding peacemakers of UNICEF.

The £125m price of selling the front jersey real estate, while moving UNICEF to the back as a tramp-stamp, will make some progress in making the world's most dazzling team more economically viable, but it looks a little nefarious.

Elsewhere, there is still talk about signing Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal--this makes two summers in a row that have had the rumour blazing. Arsenal is a mess. He should move, but I still don't see a sure place for him in the lineup, at least until Xavi or Iniesta leave (knock-knock). Even then, they just signed Afelay like six months ago and he will be such a great fit with the team in the season to come. Cesc, just stay in England.

Meanwhile, Real Madrid have been signing a ton of defensive midfielders and look to be scrambling to meet the needs of Jose Mourinho after a season that saw them finish in second place for the third straight year. Next year they will most likely be even more competitive, as all Mourinho teams tend to take a year to warm before really getting rolling. Current speculation links Brazilian striking phenomenon Neymar to Madrid. That kid's one of these Justin Bieber dudes...


Neymar warms up

There is already a match scheduled for the numbers one and two teams to meet twice in August for the Spanish Super Cup, where the Copa del Rey winners meet la Liga's champions.

In the meantime, some players are getting a break, while others from the western hemisphere are playing in the Copa America. Even for those who've got to play in July for their home country, the feeling looks to be pretty post-orgasmic. The real heavy dream lifting has been accomplished back in Catalunya, and what comes now are just gravy contests to please the die-hards and show the folks back home a taste of the jedi lessons that have been learned in the Camp Nou.

If there is darkness on the horizon, it is still distant.

My senses haven't returned to me just yet.

Seasons

2010/2011 has been a golden season.

Having won the Champions League of Europe and la Liga in Spain, the team as directed by Pep Guardiola, added two more to their total of 6/9 major championships possible during his tenure (la liga/copa del rey/champions league X three years).

It's true that they are genius athletes, but the real mark of their excellence is in their coaching. More than Messi, whose personality only shows his love for the game, Guardiola personifies the esthetic of the team.

He had previously worked in the mid-field on the 90's dream team under then-coach Johan Cruyff (the Dutch superstar who himself moved to Barça in the 70's and was the key influence on the team of the last 30 years).

Pep learned the legacy of the Dutch/Catalan patois from being a kid in Barcelona, playing ball constantly through the club's youth academy, la masia. He made it on to the first team young and was on the field for the win for the European cup at Wembley 1992.

Josep Guardiola

Flash forward to May 28, 2011 and Pep Guardiola is on the pitch again-albeit a reconstructed Wembley. His team has sealed their domestic title for several weeks, he has a superstar central forward that is hailed as the greatest player of a generation. The traditional captain of the team has been injured for the last three months and largely out of play. Another base in his defensive triangle underwent surgery two months ago to remove cancer from his liver.

The weeks previous in Europe saw his team put on their most loathed performance ever during his tenure as manager, with a brutal series of games against Real Madrid that left a nasty taste in every one's mouth. How low can you go...? And those were the same players that his boys won the World Cup with last summer. At least 70% of them from both rival squads.

Players having more babies. The team in the red financially in spite of the victories and accolades. Next season we will wear the emblem of the Qatar Foundation on our chest, with UNICEF moved to the back.

Cruyff is still involved. Upstairs and in the administration.

And Pep's own contract is only negotiated for one more year--as each of his contracts have been. Though the club continues to push him for longer, he doesn't budge.

On the pitch facing them is Manchester United. Their coach, Sir Alex Ferguson has been at the club for decades. Winning-est manager in England and Europe. But while his style is perfected at bringing different talent together under a single flag, Guardiola's is in cultivating the ethos of a single style and bringing in a few elements to enhance it.

All of that is bullshit. It's not worth anything if Pedro and Villa don't come up today. The two strikers have been misfiring for three months, and genius or not, it isn't Messi's job to make a magic win. The three of them had been working together brilliantly in the fall. Breaking the lines in front of them like rascals on bikes. So give it up boys, quit holding out...

And the game started:
And then they did.

The game was tight. The game was weave-y.

They were squeezed by United early and didn't get to finalize their touch, but they soon started chatting back and forth building steam with it. Twenty minutes in and Iniesta meets up with Pedro to skate past the d and shoot to the lower right corner of the back of the net. 1-0.

Pedro is back. Don Pedro.

A few minutes later, though, Rooney launches one from the top of the box to equalize in merry ol' England. **cue double knee slide-------and, cut! 1-1.

The game felt good. Energetic and exciting. Hundreds of millions of people in every country watching it and now locked in. Both sides were inspiring eachother.

At the start of the half Man U showed up to the field three minutes before Barcelona. They wanted to pick it up. Barça had been holding the ball constantly and making the English champs chase it all over. They were on the field in their white jerseys that bore the name of corporate sponsor AON, a replacement after they parted company with AIG.

As the ball dropped on the pitch, Xavi and Messi and Iniesta locked it up between them, zig-zagging around and completely spinning the Man U men into ball watchers. Then in a little kick-around moment Iniesta dishes to Messi who wails it into the goal. 2-1.

Messi is a short man, but he could have dunked a watermelon in those moments. He shot to the corner by the club supporters, with Dani Alves in tow for the celebration.

A few minutes later, it would be David Villa who would get to celebrate a goal. After looking impatient to get a shot, Pedro sent one his way and he set it cleanly before arcing the ball in from 20 yards.

All three cylinders; firing again.

The D was held steady by Abidal, his cool gait breaking down the midfield before they could make headway, and before the clock ran out injured captain Carles Puyol got to play the final minutes. Also given time was Ibrahim Afelay, who since coming from Holland this year has been keen to get into the swing of things. If he will go as far as Cruyff did in Catalunya is still a mystery.

All that we have is now.


Pep as a coach at Wembley. 3-1.

68/69

Since the start of the 2010/2011 campaign, Barcelona have played 68 games. Now it is the end of the season and there is only one left.

Wembley.


Freddie rocking at the old Wembley

On Saturday they will take the field to meet Man U in the Champions league final--the last game of play in Europe before the summer coolout of vacations and harmless friendly exhibition matches.

The last few weeks have had the feel of vacation, as the Spanish league has been won and settled with a point total of 96. The entire top ten is as follows:

1 FC Barcelona 96
2 Real Madrid 92
3 Valencia CF 71
4 Villarreal CF 62
5 Sevilla FC 58
6 Athletic Club 58
7 At.Madrid 58
8 RCD Espanyol 49
9 Osasuna 47
10 Sporting Gijón 47

Almeria, the scene of a personal industrial-coast dis, was relegated to the second division. They finished with 30 points.


Almeria

The team are the favorites to win on Saturday, against the side they beat two years ago for the cup. Man U no longer have Cristiano Ronaldo or Carlos Tevez, but they have picked up the blossoming Chicharito as striking power and Wayne Rooney has been having a great four months.

Likewise, Berbatov has been one of the Premier league's most dominant scorers and Ryan Giggs-now in his 26th season playing professionally in Manchester (with the last 24 being at United) has been solid as a rock. He is what John Terry wishes he could be. Outrageous sex scandals and all.

In fact, the last week has been looking a little shaky for Man U. Giggs' is in the storm of a media freakout over an affair with a reality show chick, and he has ducked the press and skipped practice. Man U also played a friendly this week against Juventus, and the Italian side came to Old Trafford and handed them their first home loss of the season.

In the meantime, it seems that Barça have been studying up and doing their training for the final. They had to fly a day early into England as there is another Icelandic volcanic explosion threatening to shut down air traffic soon. That could be lame for the blaugrana since they would naturally want their maximum fan turnout in a stadium that holds 90,000 (the second-largest in Europe behind the Camp Nou).

Though the crowd should be overwhelmingly Man U supporters, there is a kind of harmony to the appeal of Messi these days that could persuade any football fan to their feet.

The dude is now 23 and he's got that young Obi-Wan Jedi knight stride. Guardiola looks excited and focused in the pre-match, while Sir Alex Ferguson seems to be hedging his optimism in the face of jedi.

If Barcelona get a stunning win on Saturday, it will clearly mark them as one of the great teams to ever play professional football.

It feels like everyone is preparing for that eventuality.

One to go...

The Marathon

League Champions of Spain 2010/2011.

This is the third year in a row--the entire tenure of Pep Guardiola who has built three sterling teams.

The first was the Eto'o-Henry-Messi squad that won in Rome with Sylvinho playing in his last game. A team that had stunning goals from the three most spooky-artistic scorers in la liga.


the 3, 08/09

Last year was the Ibra season that brought the emergence of Pedro as their piercing alternative to Messi since Henry was out to lunch.


cheeky monkey, 09/10

This year was the killer bee attacking swarm of Villa, Pedro and Messi as Iniesta continues an era of brilliance.


this one's for my baby

But in yesterday's away tie at Levante (1-1), the team just barely slid into home to seal the league on points. Although the century point total will not be met, nor last year's record of 99, it seems like the team will get a slight vacation over the next two weeks leading up to the only remaining title.

The Champions league final will be played on saturday the 28th at Wembley Stadium. The interim should be spent getting Puyol back healthy enough for the full 90, along with bringing Abidal up to as high a level as he can muster post tumor removal.

Villa continues his streak of no mojo, scoring only a goal or two in the last three months. Can somebody please give el guaje some ham? The boy needs some grease.

Their current form, winning but not with much to spare, shows their fatigue after a grueling few years of play in the broad schedule of international, league, and random cup and promotional play. Over a hundred games in the last year and a half for some of them. It's battery time.

It was nice to see the goal that came yesterday courtesy of Keita's header. He always makes a real impact on the pitch with his forward mid-fielding. Though Messi created a stunning cut through four defenders to shoot, the ball rattled out off the inside of the post a cm off the mark.

The second half was played out with both teams resigned to the draw and not attacking. We got the point, can we go home now?

Still, the team did make time to celebrate the league for a little on the pitch, and their supporters were in high numbers. La liga's is the title that the team prizes the highest, as it is the most arduous contest they play in and names them the greatest in Spain.

For Catalunya, it is a source of pride. The winners of Spain, the world champions; Catalunya is the height of football on Earth. Soon Barcelona will be lifting up the cup, with their red champions hats on, toasting
"Visca Barça,
Visca Catalunya."


Levante, 5.10.11.

The Annointed ones...?

Jose Mourinho was banned by UEFA for five champions league games following his outspoken criticism of referees after Real Madrid's loss last week in Madrid. One of the bans will be suspended for three years. As he was already red carded during the game, he had to sit out and not watch his team fall again finally on tuesday in the second leg at the Camp Nou, 1-1 (Barça 3 - R. Madrid 1 agg.).

After dropping the first game in Madrid, Mourinho sensing the impossibility of victory in the champions league opened his mouth wide and let fly:

"It's clear that against Barcelona you have no chance.

"I don't understand why. I don't know if it's the publicity of UNICEF [the club's shirt sponsor], I don't know if it's the friendship of [Spanish football federation president Angel Maria] Villar at UEFA, where he is vice-president, I don't know if it's because they are very nice, but they have got this power. The rest of us have no chance."

He went on to temper the achievements of Guardiola--who in nearly three seasons as coach has brought Catalunya two Copa del Reys, two la Liga championships (soon to be three barring some unforeseen extraordinary catastrophe in the next few weeks), a FIFA World Club Cup, and a Champions league cup--the second to be played for in three weeks at Wembley.

"Guardiola is a fantastic coach, but he has won one Champions League which I would be ashamed to win after the scandal at Stamford Bridge and this year, if he wins it again, it will be after the scandal at the Bernabeu."

In fact, the sole sour note of last year's season for the Blaugrana came from their elimination from the Champions league by Mourinho's men at Inter Milan. Though Barça finished the season with two championships and a record point total of 99, the missing Champions league cup stuck out to the team that felt undeniable in so many ways.

People have been murmuring against the Catalans for a while--the mountains of praise heaped upon them has made the team a target for those who resent their dominance. Mourinho has become that sector's bullhorn, albeit with his own interests in mind.

Still, his ideas have cost him with many in football's hierarchy, including some of the royal elders at his own club. Football legend and honorary Madrid president Distefano criticized Mourinho's coaching style and the team's lack of personality. The personality Madrid fail to exhibit on the pitch is instead on full ranting display in their press conferences. With a team assembled at a cost of over 600 million euros, the frustration is understandable.

Unfortunately for Mourinho, the only philosophy he has for getting out of the pit is to keep digging...

In less sensational UEFA-banning news, Jose Pinto, Barça's reserve keeper, was banned for three games following his tussling with Madrid as the teams left the pitch for half-time at the Bernabeu. Earlier in the season, he was banned for whistling to mislead a Copenhavn forward into believing he was offsides. He's a real hot-head who had a great run in the Copa del Rey (his domain for the majority of the season) until the one costly goal against them in the final.

Barça have stated they will appeal the ban.

Back in Black

Pep watches as Mourinho plays himself

So far, the string of clasicos has been kind of a stalemate, with both sides drawing in la liga, then Madrid winning the copa del rey final and trophy, and then last week's first leg of the champions league semi finals which saw Barça beat Madrid 0-2 thanks to two great second half goals from Messi--The later of which was a work of individual art on the pitch as he darted up and cut past four dudes to sneak the ball in the far wall of the net past Casillas.

The team has been trying to shake off the defensive jitters, but as Puyol appears to be back and fit again along with the imminent return of Eric Abidal fresh from whooping a tumor's ass, it seems that the cylinders may be firing again along the back line.

The protracted war with Madrid has been grueling, and as the final game of it approaches to be played tomorrow, there is a relief coming on. Big-show fatigue.

Soon enough, there looks to be the champs league final which will be a rematch of the final two years ago between the Catalans and Man U. This one will be played in London.

That is, unless there is a stunner tomorrow at the Nou Camp and Madrid can get past the deficit they are in for the series and season. Post-match controversy has been rife as Mourinho has decried a long list of referees that he insists are part of a pro-Barça conspiracy against his teams over the years. He had to sit out the second half of last week's loss from the stands after he mocked the ref's decision to red card Pepe and reduce his squad to 10 men. He shouldn't complain; his team's are usually better with 10 men. They have bastante talent that cannot be coordinated without a frozen hearted mentality that drives them to play aggressively and break legs.

And then the special one rants about it in his droll laconic frustration, gets fined and benched by the league as the ball rolls closer and closer to his own goal.

La Liga all but already secured for Barcelona, their main issue now seems to be if they will beat their league record 99 points of last year by winning all the remaining four contests left in the spanish season. Having lost on Saturday against low positioned Racing Santender, they have set themselves up to finish in first with 100. What is this, cricket?