Atletico Madrid: Lesson Learned.

Yesterday Barça lost to Atletico Madrid 2-1.

After the whomping that Barça delivered them in September it was apparent that the eager punk team of Madrid would go to some measures to get their comeuppance. As it stands, they are the only team in Madrid to have beaten Barcelona recently--
hundred million dollar signings, or not.



The real drag about the loss is that not only did At. Madrid nearly shutdown the striking power of Ibra (who scored the sides lone goal off a corner), but the failure of composure that the team showed.

Puyol, of all people, made costly errors that resulted in both goals. Their captain slipping, the crew got into trouble. Hasty fouls. The current stink-eyed play of Ibra continuing and growing greyer. Lack of control.

But the performance of the team's captain seemed to tell about the mounting pressures on the team. The team fit has started to look shakier after the honeymoon in the fall. Is it the whole world right now? Obama's healthcare. A shittier crop than ever in the oscar race? Winter storms and earthquakes.

Carles, let us know when you get back from vacation;
The team's in trouble without you.

Boring

If you want to see some beautiful passing play from current coach Pep Guardiola, from back in 1999
Also a super intensive blog in spanish http://www.paradigmaguardiola.blogspot.com/



I saw a video of english commentators on Barça playing Sevilla. They were gushing. "[can you] imagine Iniesta in midfield for England? I wish."

I'm telling you guys, never mix with menthol.

The Answer for Politics

Valladolid at home on grass that's wet with rain.

Barça haven't played in near a week and which face they're going to show is in question. Conflicted or cooperative.

Though the team is winning and in first, their game is best measured by the expression on coach Pep Guardiola's face. In today's first goal for the team, Dani Alves led a charge of the forwards rushing to meet his cross. A triumph of horse-power and adherence to a plan. But though they were on the board, Pep seemed unimpressed. Or distracted by some error in execution he'd detected in a play that still scored.



And even less than a minute later when Dani Alves broke out again to run the same bolt/cross. But none of his teammates present, he was forced to lob the ball into the far wall of the net just above the keeper's head. 2-nil. Alves does a little samba dance.

Go ahead, you earned it.



But later in the game, the goal would come that finally brought pleasure to the coach.

When Ibra broke out ahead of Valladolid as he got the ball in position to strike, he didn't get good first touch and the ball veered away from him. Rather than take a shot that was no longer ideal and force it, he hung back for a second, then quickly dished it to Messi who was charging up the field, still with intent for the strike. Messi blasts it in, 3-nil.

Guardiola jumps up, his face ecstatic. But he seems to be thrilled with Ibra for the pass. The assist is the most thrilling accomplishment in a team of superstar egos.

The pass notwithstanding, Dani Alves was for me, the man of the match. He also received notice from the Valladolid fans by hearing whistles every time he came near the ball following his blitzkrieg of the first half.

In a weird turn, Pique got a yellow card for parrying the ball off his hand midfield. It was just the type of touch that Henry did against Ireland while wearing the French jersey. Henry has not been at the top of his form. His fast dribbling with the ball up the top of the field is still thrilling to watch. But the drive up the field usually seems to end in a shot that is not as sharp as it was a year ago.

That rise and fall is what makes the assist so gratifying. As abilities go up and down, people feel compelled to vindicate themselves through their accomplishments. This is the "Ego game." It can turn into a vortex.

So as people watch and some mumble pessimistic missives about the turns of a player's career, the response that speaks louder than words is on the field of play. As we deal with the game our hearts are measured not in size but strength, and words are not measured at all.

Defenestration

The team is white-hot right now.

After a somewhat slow start-up in 2010, the Blaugrana has scored nine goals in the last two games. Today's victims: Sevilla.

The first half was a fireworks show for Barça: Henry scored early (his low number of goals not discounting the impact he has had on the team), followed by Sergio Bojan and then two more by Messi--his 100th and 101st for the team in his career. As the half clocked down, they were up 4-nil, and once the game had ended the 4-0 win was sealed. Sevilla had been defenestrated by Barça.



For a little while, it seemed that there were ego conflicts on the team. This looked apparent to me between Henry and Ibrahimovic as the superstar strikers would angle for the spotlight. But that tension has receded somewhat as the rest of the team have stepped up on the scoreboards.

And that pressure to score seemed like it was getting to Thierry. In what is probably among the weirder seasons of his career, Henry has gone from being one of la liga's highest scorers last year to almost vanishing from the board entirely while becoming an international pariah for his handball against Ireland in World Cup qualifiers.

He struggled with the team upon his arrival at the squad, and it looked like they had passed the awkward stage last year. But this season with the arrival of Ibra, the fit for Henry got cramped. Just how many gunslingers did this town have room for?

So while the egos collided, the other boys stayed on track and kept the game on the field. Which brings us to Messi's 14th goal in 15 games. He has stayed warm while the streakier players have flashed and cooled. And though this is almost certainly the last season that Henry will be at Barça (while there is chatter of him going to play in New York for the MLS next year a'la Beckham), the team has clearly marked it's future with their commitment to Leo.

The wave of the future, strong enough to blast Sevilla through a window.

Enemies: A Love Story

Barça played Deportivo yesterday and beat them 3-1 on the strength of a driven performance by Leo. Messi scored twice and looked like lightning on the field. Relentless.

To satisfy the gods of superstar trades, Ibra also scored once.

In Madrid, meanwhile, Real Madrid played Almeria. This game makes me conflicted because as much as I dislike Real Madrid, I have a personal grudge against Almeria that ought to supersede grudges that I accumulate as a result of my support for Barça. Lucky for me, there is a perfect confluence of mutual misfortune for both teams. Almeria lose to Madrid 4-2, and Ronaldo gets Red carded.

And what did the superstar get ejected for? He got his first yellow for taking his shirt off after a goal, and the second for a nasty foul in the last minute of regulation play. The hubris of this jock inspired him to pull his shirt off and show his chest muscles in front of the world.



Only a few minutes before, his penalty kick was rejected by Almeria's goalie. Though his teammate knocked the ball in for a goal as it bounced away from the keeper's hands, Ronaldo did not celebrate the score--after all, it wasn't his goal, but the team's. The goal he scored a few minutes later was then celebrated with the kind of bully gusto that over-compensated for the disappointment he felt at not being the guy who broke the tie.

There's no "I" in "Team", big guy. Smell you later.

As for the city of Almeria, I got my grudge after a long day spent roaming through the town waiting for a bus. I had been pretty mercilessly ejected from where I'd been staying and ended up with an impromptu layover in the city. It seemed everywhere I went, I was told to leave. I walked into a café that was full of people, was looked at sideways and told they were closed.

Spent the rest of the day walking around listening to the Stooges on my walkman. No fun to be alone, Walking by myself. No fun to be alone, In love with nobody else.



But if all you have is love for yourself that burden can ruin what soul you were born with. Talent; Strength. Beauty and Ego.

Some of us can juggle.

Some know how to play football.

El Clásico

Real Madrid made the trek south to Barcelona and the Camp Nou to meet their rivals. The time since their 6-2 trouncing at the feet of Barça in May has not been unproductive: They spent hundreds of Millions of dollars to acquire superstar players that could help them avoid such a humiliation again. Pobrecitos.

Neither Cristiano Ronaldo or Kaka could save them from the defeat that came on Sunday. Though it was not the 6 point display of pyrotechnics that Barcelona unleashed on them in May, the 1-0 victory was enough to show the Madrillenos who is still running the show in Spain. It also returned Barça to the top of the league after they had fallen one point behind Madrid for a week.

To be fair, Real Madrid looked better than any other club that has played at the Camp Nou this season. They had a lot of solid opportunities and generally played Barça with the kind of parity of ability that is nearly non-existent among clubs that play the world champion team. Still, their shots flew wide or were deflected by Valdes (who made a brilliant save against a charging Ronaldo), or were sent astray at the feet of the ever-passionate Carles Puyol. Puyol was seriously on one; he played as intently as ever and came up with several win-saving plays. Likewise, Dani Alves was a true force on the pitch. He was, for me, the man of the match; playing with grit and guts on both sides of the field-seemingly everywhere. Alves showed his dedication to the club and game by leaving it all on the field. It was an inspirational performance.

The lone goal of the match came off of Alves' beautiful driving pass to Ibra, who had only recently been subbed in the game for Henry in the second half. Ibra, the club's own superstar acquisition of the summer, showed again why he has become the highest scorer for the team this year. His speed and ability are top-class, and it seemed to be a victory of management being played out: As Madrid's marquee trades could not get it together against Barça, the Blaugrana's ended up coming through to save the game for the 98,000 spectators at the Nou.

A few weeks back, during the 6-1 trouncing of Zaragoza, Ibra scored his greatest goal yet this season on a lightning swift free kick. As he did his victory stomp, he seemed to look to the owner's box in vindication as the club president barely restrained his glee next to his counterpart from Zaragoza. The moment was a diamond of athletic ego; the 60 million euro player validating his paycheck with the kind of performance that only he can produce. That display of platinum skill and ego came again on sunday when it mattered most for the team.

This was the most hard battled game of the season and it had been simmering since the summer time. No matter what comes of the rest of the season, it's alright now.

Good News and Bad News...

So,

Barça drew today with Athletic Bilbao. This drops the Catalans down to second place behind Real fucking Madrid.

However, Barça remain undefeated with three draws and eight victories. Real Madrid are up by one point in the standings.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the whole game--as the stream was down. I think my interrupted psychic support may have been some factor in the loss. This clearly marks me as an asshole.

The other good news (besides the team remaining undefeated) is that the draw came against Athletic Bilbao who represent Basque country. As people with some knowledge of the ethnic peculiarities of the peninsula will know, the Basques have a centuries old culture of resistance--and more recently one of fringe bombings and assasinations carried out by leftist mullet-donning separatists. As this heritage and circumstance distinguish them from the majority of the Spanish population, they are an outside region. Hence, Athletic Bilbao is an outside team.

Likewise, Barça, as the flagship of Catalan heritage and society in a country that persecuted them under Franco, are also an outside team (albeit one that has an enormous fanbase among the larger society). This is why their rivalry runs so deep with Real Madrid. Franco persecuted Catalonia and cheered for Real Madrid. Barça played in direct opposition to that dictatorship.

Perhaps there is an irony at work here; The way the marginalized lose ground against the dominant culture is through in-feuding with other marginalized people.

Or maybe I'm just blowing it all way out of proportion and losing context of the real issues at work (namely Pique's continued crappy performance). It's distinctly possible; I already told you I'm an asshole.