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Village Idiot

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Everything posted by Village Idiot

  1. I was too little to attend the 1982 WC, I hope to be able to grab tickets for this one.
  2. Yeah, Xavi doesn't fancy him and it's the kind of player (pacy and crafty forward) that he usually loves, so obviously there's something wrong with Ansu. The injury did take a big toll but mentally he's also a far cry of that confident and daring player he was. A loan might be what he needs.
  3. Yeah. The boy is so fearless. Love him. Man, we're so lucky that our youth setup is bailing us out.
  4. And right on cue, one of Rubiales' stooges has formally requested UEFA to intervene in his favor because of "government interference". Will see what they do. Note that while FIFA has began a formal investigation, UEFA - of which Rubiales was one of the VPs and was close to Ceferin - has remained mum.
  5. Last time the government tried to increase oversight on the FA, FIFA threatened to exclude Spain from all international competitions. The Spanish FA is a political machine. The president usually wins the election by promising funds to the regional FA's - which are funneled into generous wages for their presidents, and their own clients. Rubiales may seem crass, but he's been extremely skillful at building his network of clients. That's how he got all that people clapping at his deranged speech on Saturday. He's also been very good at leveraging the popularity of the national team (men and women) to bring even more cash in.
  6. The whole FA needs burning down to the ground and be built anew. This seems a chance of doing it, but I guess we'll end up with yet another corrupt scumbag at the top. One of the worst parts of this controversy is Tebas scoring brownie points (he's been a sworn enemy of Rubiales for a long time, for all the wrong reasons though).
  7. Yeah but it got way worse in Paris for whatever reason.
  8. A bit sad to see Neymar pissing away his last years in SA. At the end of his tenure here he seemed headed to so much greatness. Few major transfers have gone as badly for every party involved as Neymar from Barça to PSG.
  9. Was there a week ago. Tough watch. My dad attended the opening match at Camp Nou back in 1957. I've made it my life mission to get tickets for the first match back, and bring him with me. Although I expect them to be prohibitibely priced...
  10. Spanish press is reporting that UEFA won't ban us this season due to lack of evidence re: the Negreira scandal. That was pretty expected given that the court probe is still ongoing. We'll see what happens down the line, I can't see us not getting banned once the court hands over a sentence, though - but that's still a few years away.
  11. The Spanish FA has announced that it wants to build a "national stadium" for the Spain team. This is a stupid waste - I've always liked how Spain plays its games in stadiums throughout the country, instead of being "owned" by the capital.
  12. https://twitter.com/lapausa_pod/status/1665464370740985862 They finished 0-0, which was enough to ensure they stayed up.
  13. So, one of the undesirable effects of Spain putting B teams in the professional football pyramid. Barça B is playing a promotion playoff to the second division. Celta B are in the same bracket. Today, Barça plays Celta in La Liga. If we beat them, they might get relegated (currently 1 point above the drop). If they get relegated, Celta B can't get promoted. If Barça B and Celta B meet in the final (and currently they are both leading their ties), Barça B gets automatically promoted. I have always been of the opinion that B teams should be capped at two divisions below the main team.
  14. That is correct. Usually it's rather easy for away fans to get more tickets than the official allocation because Camp Nou only fills up in big games, but it will be harder with 40k less seats.
  15. Big congrats, I've been a member of this board for like 10+ years and I know how much being back in Europe in a big way means for you all. That's where you belong. Hope we get drawn together and we can share some pints when you come to town!
  16. They have been sacked. That was completely beyond the pale. I mean, sadly our racist fans are sort of part of the landscape, but the VAR people targeting him is like, what. The whole thing is disgraceful. Maybe it's the kick on the arse the league needs, but it's not the first time we get a major incident like this and after a time of dropping the hammer, things go back to regular programming.
  17. FWIW, what's being said over here is that he wasn't going to be given much money to spend.
  18. Second best thing to happen this week is that Alemany has broken up negotiations with Villa and looks like he'll stay at Barça. Gotta love being second choice after Aston fucking Villa but it is what it is.
  19. Did you see the pitch invasion? Of course it was. Probably most of our more, ahem, global fans won't care, but at the local level it is very much alive. We all have friends, family, or workmates that are Espanyol fans, and football banter is an indelible part of those relationships. That said, it's not helped by the fact Espanyol have been so historically shit for decades now. When I was a kid they were always an upper midtable team with top6 aspirations and that made the rivalry much more competitive. But they are still very capable of playing spoiler (the Tamudazo!) and they are always pumped up for that. Rivalry with Real Madrid has always been higher though, even when I was young. Espanyol do have an issue that many of their newer fans are actually local Real Madrid fans that have Espanyol as their second team (old school Espanyol fans don't give a fuck about RM). I think that may hurt the club in the long term.
  20. I don't think it's solely on him. The issue was playing too many unathletic players in the defensive unit. If we'd surrounded Busquets with pace we'd been fine - instead we played him with Piqué and Lenglet.
  21. I hope he goes somewhere that's not a complete joke of a competition - the MLS would be nice indeed, but my bet is the Saudis, the money is way too silly to refuse. Anyway, I know he has a (deserved) reputation to be a bit of a tosser, but he was one of the best holding midfielders of his time, and a key to our success. He's still an incredibly smart player that can be very useful in a less demanding league.
  22. Wish we were the Kubala, César, Basora, Ramallets Barcelona again.
  23. LaLiga changed their FFP rules to prevent us from doing what we did last summer. So we kinda have to.
  24. Personally I don't think he's world class, just about a tier below that. But we live in a world were people like Tony fetch nearly €100m.
  25. Because we're broke? And yes, he's been great, particularly in the past months - it took him a bit to get integrated into the side.
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