Village Idiot

Still got a really bad feeling about this guy. Nothing can be worse than Ashley (NOTHING), but a dodgy Sheik wouldn't be that much of an improvement... Like we say in Spain "bread for today, hunger for tomorrow".

Several footballers of Spanish first and second divisions arrested by the Spanish police in relation to match fixing. Nobody particuarly known, mostly players in relegation stragglers (most match fixing alegations usually involve these kind of teams).

Pic looks like Mourinho wearing an arab robe. Obviously a windup

This is ancient and at least over here it resurfaces every few years, he apologizes, says he has no issues with homosexuals, and everybody moves on until the next time somebody picks it up.

Wait, Dave left? Shit.

Maldini was definitely the more complete player. Amazing defensively, pretty good offensively. There have been better attacking LBs than him (both Carlos and Alba, for starters), but nobody that I've seen brought such a complete package to the table.

God, this was fantastic. We're going to be so shit when Lionel retires.

The Spanish FA have approved the new formats for both the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa. - The Copa del Rey will be much more like the FA Cup. Single game ties on the pitch of the lowest-ranked opposition (draw if teams belong to the same division), except the semi-final. Roster of teams taking part expanded to reach all the way down to the fifth tier of Spanish football. Awesome change. - The Supercopa will be now contested by the League and Cup winners and runners-up (4 teams total). It will now be contested after the winter break, instead of being the opening game of the season. Crappy change for a crappy competition. There are strong rumors that the FA intends to ship off the competition abroad because €€€€€€.

We've won the league.

Former Barça prez Sandro Rosell absolved from money laundering during his dealings with the Brazilian FA (that was before he became our president). This was one of the legs FIFAgate, and reading the sentence it sounds like "dude was probably dirty, but it's not proven beyond reasonable doubt". He's spent two years in jail awaiting trial...

The Spanish FA is in talks to hold the Spanish Supercopa in fucking Saudi Arabia, for the next 6 years. Fuck this shit, fuck it with fire.

Nice goal by Aleñà.

I guess the weight of the shirt thingie gets lost in translation and doesn't make sense in English It's a pretty common retort from Spanish PFMs.

Espanyol posted a 20,000 attendance today for their women's team, playing against Atlético (who's leading the table). Can't really compare since this was a one-off, but the men's team is averaging 19,000 this season.

Hate those "you have to feel the weight of the shirt" managers, they're the footballing equivalent of Nigel Farage

Hey, that's our excuse!

Interesting record for Benzema. Most consecutive goals scored for Real Madrid (8) without anybody else scoring for the team. He might still extend it...

I missed the Hennessey drama, but I got this amazing Guardian headline instead.

Guedes is getting his last season's form back when Valencia needed it the most. Big turnaround to their season btw. They started like shit but they are 2 points adrift of 4th place, in a cup final, and in the EL semis.

Huge win for Getafe. They look nearly certain to capture that 4th CL spot!

Is that his 10th goal of the season? First time he hits double figures in the Prem He's still 25, I'm still holding out that he'll eventually sort his focus problems and go on to become a solid scorer.

Aspas is having another monster season. He's going to single-handedly keep Celta up. Pity he seems unable to perform at this level away from Vigo.

The Referee Committee of La Liga releases some VAR stats regularly. These are up to Game 31, so nearly the full season: - A VAR decision has been made every 3,56 games - 6,25% of goal decisions have been changed after checking VAR - Average delay has been 69 seconds when the referee didn't ask to watch the replay himself, and 115 when he did - They also estimate that the rate of right decisions made by refs in the penalty box has gone up 4,79% (to 98,24%) thanks to VAR. Given that VAR usually only gets involved in key decisions, that seems like a very positive change (note that it's the refs themselves releasing this info, so it will be skewed to make them look good). All in all, I'm really happy with VAR, and my only issues with it are ones of procedure (what gets and doesn't get checked). Most controversy in La Liga nowadays is why this key decision wasn't reviewed by VAR, or decisions that were unclear even with VAR. But when VAR gets drawn into it, it usually provides a good decision and it's refreshingly healthy to know that refereeing errors are much less influential in the game. The dreaded "we're going to get 3432354 penalties every game!" effect was real in the first weeks of the season, but the number of penalties has gone down to more normal levels since - whether that's players or referees adjusting I don't know, though. Probably a bit of both.

Really looking forward playing Liverpool, btw. It's a side I've been wanting to play while we're still a top dog (aka, Messi can still walk and hit a ball).

Got the feeling Spurs are going to win this. No rationale whatsoever, just that after yesterday they seem to have the Mandate of Heaven.