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.