Village Idiot

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).

Yeah but it got way worse in Paris for whatever reason.

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.

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...

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.

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.

https://twitter.com/lapausa_pod/status/1665464370740985862 They finished 0-0, which was enough to ensure they stayed up.

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.

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.

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!

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.

FWIW, what's being said over here is that he wasn't going to be given much money to spend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wish we were the Kubala, César, Basora, Ramallets Barcelona again.

LaLiga changed their FFP rules to prevent us from doing what we did last summer. So we kinda have to.

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.

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.

It's in the bag, isn't it? Would love to get drawn with you next season Because that means we won't be banned

What the fuck is going on?

Yeah, they're still in the hunt for a CL spot.

Joaquín has announced he's retiring at the end of the season - at the age of 41. He's just 7 games away of becoming the player with most LaLiga games of all time (it's currently Zubizarreta). Given that he plays very little nowadays (his role is more of a victory cigar), and there's just 9 games left, I fear he'll miss the mark. Legend, nonetheless.

So Laporta appeared before the media today. I'll spare you all the bluster and attack lines. It looks like the club's defence against the allegations has been distilled basically into two items: 1) That the hiring of Negreira's son was legal, and that the work he performed for the club (referee reports and advice) was real and not used to conceal a bribe to his father - the club claims they have hundreds of those reports, and also videos, which will be supplied to the court. 2) That if any moneys were diverted to other uses, that was done without the club's knowledge and approval (this was as an expected line of defence to spare the club as organization and blame just rogue individuals, and it has precedent in our legal system if certain conditions are met). It would sound far more convincing if they hadn't waited so long. If everything was above board, why not say so the day the allegations surfaced? Anyway, we'll see.