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.
