Mind Games

The first two Clasicos have been played.

A tie in la liga and a loss to Madrid for the Copa del Rey (which their monkey-asses proceeded to drop under their team bus during their victory celebration in Madrid).

Losing la Copa del Rey was almost worth it to see Sergio Ramos drop the som'bitch. These guys aren't real winners...

Today begins their two-legged contest of the Champions league to see who will fly their flag above all the other clubs of Europe. Man U will almost certainly be waiting in the final. Which spanish goliath will they meet there?

Mourinho has been lobbing stones at Guardiola in the press conferences. It seems to have ruffled up Pep's feathers some.

The mass media psyche-out...will it work?

Will we win?

El Clasico (x4)

Starting saturday Barça will meet Real Madrid, their arch rivals from political beef of the Franco regime to the contemporary spending wars of la liga, in four games to be played over the next 18 days that will determine the titles both teams are still playing for.

The only out and out cup final will be the Copa del Rey match played on 4/20. Then the two champions league semi-finals to see who will advance to the European championship.

First, come saturday will be the second clasico to be played of la liga's competition. This one in Madrid, the previous was the Blaugrana's outrageous victory in Barcelona. The cup matches still to be played, Barcelona will have to figure out how to construct a solid arc of victory over Madrid in the next few weeks as they have already shown themselves to be the better of their rivals over two and a half seasons.

Barça have won every one of the last five games with Madrid, outscoring them 16-2. Four of those games have been shut-outs. Now they will play eachother as many times in three weeks as they have gotten to in two years.

All of the big euro spending to assemble neo-galacticos teams, the ravenous press speculation and cult of personality that has been blown up to gladiator status. Thoroughbred and bio-genetically engineered. Fút-bots for professional play in the greatest spectacle of team sports. That machinery has invested into creating this next stretch of games; the vintage of which has been blown up to the world as the master display of now.

They want you to grip close to the game as its being played. To watch enrapt and give of it your attention fully. To engage it's petty dramas and outrageous fruition. They are paying so you'll do it.

Get Well Soon

5-0 clasico

Eric Abidal is now two weeks past the surgery he underwent to remove a tumor from his liver. He is by all accounts feeling fit and was apparently well enough to come to train yesterday.

Abidal has been a key figure in the team's continued strong performance since Captain Puyol has been knocked out on the injured list. He fit in the back line better than anyone else. It's safe with him there.

He is also a playful figure in the international circles; being a member of the French debacle of last year that seemed to center on players vs coaching. One of the lads, if I can use an English term to characterize a frenchman.

**

Tomorrow Barça play Shakhtar Donetsk, the Ukraine side that has eight(!) brazilians on their roster. The game has the smell of one of the early matches in the competition they've already played against Rubin Kazan or Copenhavn. Not expecting an upset.

The perhaps more dramatic game in the european cup being played tomorrow is in England as Chelsea and Man U square off. Chelsea's last chance to salvage anything from their season that has seen them eliminated from contention for all other championships. For Man U, it is the possible refurbishing of their brand in a new incarnation that has become focused around Rooney's resurrection from a world cup wash-out, tabloid adulterer and petulant contract negotiator, to the return of St. George. Plus, Chicharito is on the squad. The first Mexican in the Premier league, his ascendance has been publicly softened by the Rooney comeback, but the boy is a shaky joy to watch.

Madrid eviscerated Tottenham today in their champions league quarter-final game. Adebayor is looking hungry for the goals and maybe his cutting his locks has made the difference. Inter, last years douchey champs that were helmed by Jose Mourinho, lost 2-5 against German side Schalke. A stunner, in spite of the tremendous opening goal at the 20 second mark scored by Inter's captain Zambrotta.

You can't always get what you want... get well soon.

Rain Delay

In a money dispute with Spanish television, la Liga has postponed the games to be played on April 3rd until three weeks after the season ends.

This means Barça's scheduled game of that day with Valencia (currently in 4th), will have to wait until the season may already be decided. Of course, la Liga could be close enough by then for it still to be undefined, the drama stretched thinner and tauter after all the other contests of 2010-2011.

The next game will be the April 6 match in the Champions league with Ukraine powerhouse Shakhtar. It's a matter of weeks until the two showdowns against Real Madrid in the Madrid clasico and Copa del Rey final.



The current money clash between la Liga's top money teams and domestic TV is over the law that one game be broadcast on a free channel per week. The top teams don't want to give it away to the public anymore. Try to watch a free stream of a game online and you'll find out how vigorously they protect their 'property.'

The teams are in direct disagreement with parliament and the law providing for football fans to see some of their great national pride gratis. It's equivalent to if the music industry was trying to enact a law that removed music from the radio unless you paid for a sirius subscription.

To see how this will resolve has the same butterfly-winged political scent of many social and cultural issues of privatization vs. business. Are big money mandates to legislators taking the air out of the ball again?

Superfans

To follow a team is a tricky thing.

In the city of Chicago there are hundreds of thousands of Bears coats that putter around in the freezing cold, dragging with them the old wrought glitter of the 85' Superbowl win. The greatest team ever, they maintain.

The skies are grey and the wind is too deeply painful to call 'cold.' You see, cold can freeze locks but it takes something harder to freeze a heart. The blues.

People talk about the Chicago blues a lot, but beyond being a reason for electric boasting folks may consider the firmament that made it.

The bigger factory that created Chess Records, extra saucy ribs, sausage everything and the most sinister urban politics of the country. Immigrants from Poland, the South, Ireland and Mexico, all come together to work under the hard wind. No one came for the sun. They only came to load their bellies and trudge.

That pressure has made a sharp blade with few places to grind it. The fewer the outlets, the more voltage you try to get from what's there. Go Bears.

The problem is that the city is broke and it's sportsfans have the same depleted jones of low-stakes gamblers. We're trying to get that that first-high back after 25 years...

But the city has taught us not to expect anything other than hard times and a tongue lashing from old man winter. Play the blues. Industrialize disco. Cheese them fries.


da Mayor

Barcelona played and beat Arsenal to advance in the Champions league. It was a brutal and nerve-wracking game. Violent and full of fouls. A fight.

Barça scored all 4 goals of the game though they only won 3-1 (Busquets marked an own goal to tie the game after heading a miserable corner right into his own net). In fact the team took 100% of the shots in the game and had 70% of possession.

Undoubtedly the goal of the match, the magic moment, came in the bonus time of the first half when it was still 0-0. Fabregas tossed off a careless backheel pass that was picked off by Iniesta and then dished to Messi for a goal that echoed both Xavi's opening goal against Real Madrid in November, and Messi's own first goal in the Champions league five years ago.



The game was a heart attack to watch. The goal offered the kind of relief you get when a dam breaks over Gommorrah. Let's end this shit. Let's get the satisfaction that only justice can bring.

Our golden age is now.

SAMO

Tuesday Barcelona will be playing Arsenal in the second of two quarter-finals matches in their champions league draw. The first game on 2/16 was lost in London 2-1.

In a strange repeat of last year's second game with Arsenal in the champions league, Barça will be without their defensive backbone of Pique and Puyol (from yellow cards and injury). Last year Messi put the norf Londanas to bed with a hat-trick before the first half ended. Another goal after the break brought his tally to 4. Somehow this year's parallel situation is stunning - as if time had not really evolved and the weird comedy was prolonged in a warp.

Barcelona are at the top of the table in Spain, though their wins have been low scoring ones of late. In England, Arsenal are three points behind Man U for number one with a game in hand, but they have some serious issues closing the deal when they look to be on the cusp of big wins. The thing is that Arsenal play best when they play at their most Barsenal. This distinguishes them among so many other clubs in the Premier league. Facing the actual model for their style on the pitch in opposition at the enormous Camp Nou will they wither as they did last year?

After Barça beat them then, the Blaugrana went on to play Inter Milan, traveling by bus along the mountainy trip because the volcanic eruption in Iceland grounded all flights until the one that would eventually bring them home, having lost.

Last year was close, but no silver. What kind of story will be written now while the world watches the team. As talent meets the ashy winds, which play will be favored?


samo shit

One touch, half-a-touch

*
There is a refrain on the training grounds of FC Barcelona that is emphasized to the players as they move the ball around.

One touch, half-a-touch.

This ideal can be applied in different ways.

To interact with people as a quick boost of energy that only moves you both toward your ultimate goal. A half-touch even that doesn't get tripped on possessing a single moment; instead, each action reflecting and bouncing the momentum further and further.

It's not me, then you, then me... it's a steady uninterrupted movement that gains clarity as it winds.

If it's slow enough to own then it isn't really shared.