Village Idiot

Just had the weirdest nightmare. Second leg of the Bayern-Real Madrid CL semifinal. Santiago Bernabéu. I'm a steward, standing near the Bayern goal in the dying minutes of the second half. Result is 0-0 which gets Real Madrid through. In the distance, I can see Bayern throwing everything at Real Madrid's goal, although I can't really see the action. Suddenly, a commotion in the stadium. Goal! Bayern have scored! I jump in celebration and run to hug Manuel Neuer, who hugs me back. But Real Madrid make a quick kick-off and Cristiano Ronaldo tries his luck from midfield. Neuer - still distracted by me - isn't unable to run back to the goal and Madrid score. They are through, and it's my fault. But the nightmare doesn't end up here. Ronaldo runs to celebrate to the stands near Bayern's goal, taking off his shirt, muscles glistening. Suddenly, he takes notice of me. I congratulate him, with pained voice. He watches me and says "remember you have to name your son after me". Then I woke up, sweating.

Still in shock. Dunno what happened yesterday. For all our issues, that was not the team I have been watching this season.

Valencia get into the race for second place. What a season they're having - although lack of Europe has certainly helped -, Marcelino is truly one of the great Spanish managers. Hopefully he manages to avoid picking up fights with the board or the dressing room and builds a legacy at Valencia like Simeone has done at Atlético. They're a club with great potential.

They are reliable when they talk Spanish football outside of the Barça/Madrid bubble. That said, I can't see Rafa taking it. It would be a sideways move at best (although Real Sociedad have a talented team that should have done far better this season), and I'm sure they can't match whatever you're paying him, nor promise much in the way of signings.

The amount of free kicks he's scoring lately is amazing 8 FK goals this season. Ridiculous. One game away from the all-time unbeaten record in La Liga, too.

Voted 3. An outside chance since it will require results against Arsenal/Chelsea/Spurs which will be hard to achieve.

Only way you're getting relegated is if you lose 7 in a row imho. Relegation will be around 36-38 points worst case scenario.

Reckon with Kenedy/Slimani available for the year you'd have spent the season around 7-10. Who would've thought that attacking talent makes teams better. Kenedy in particular has transformed you since he joined. Pity he'll be somewhere else next season.

Get in. Time for a celebratory beer.

That's it, you're staying now. (sorry if I just cursed it)

GTFI

FlashScores do f*** up with their formations here and there so I wouldn’t take that as true. Yeah he was part of a back four so I'd guess it was more likely he was holding midfield in front of a back three. He was playing CB.

I don't think I've ever seen a person dish so much abuse towards a fellow human being as my Argie missus is doing to Higuaín.

9 games to go and still unbeaten. No team has ever managed an unbeaten season in La Liga (Guardiola and Real Sociedad in the 1980s both came close, losing 1 game). We probably will rotate for the CL, and thus slip in one of the coming games since we can afford take our eyes off the league, and there's also the Clásico which will be tough, but it would be a great record to achieve. Still not changing my avatar though.

Love how PSG have dived straight into the decadence phase of any great team without having a success phase first.

The Ordinary One.

Boring-ish quarters, but cracking semis if there are no upsets.

We were quite ordinary in the 1980s. In the late 1980s in particular, the club was going nowhere pretty fast until Cruyff came. But as others have said, we didn't achieve our current status until relatively recently. Our glory era before the 1990s was the 1950s. During the 1960s-1980s we would like, win the league once in a decade. We were a pretty good cup team though. Early 2000s was certainly dire, as we were dangerously close to slipping back to the second tier after our growth in the 1990s, due to mismanagement on and off the pitch. We were below NUFC in the money league at some point, IIRC.

Yeah. There's also this Arthur dude we're supposedly signing in the summer, but he's an unknown quantity. Aleñà also being promoted to the senior team next season.

In other news, Iniesta very likely to go to China at the end of the season. Wish he retired being Barça's captain, but can't fault him for wanting to cash some Chinese silly money in his last contract.

Under our law, private security watching sports events can use violence to subdue problematic individuals - but it has of course to be proportionate. Chelsea fans can certainly sue Barça if that's not the case. There's no police in Spanish football stadiums, clubs are responsible for security inside them. Police is responsible for security outside the stadium.

There was bother between both sets of fans after the game, that's what got the stewards in baton mode. We'll need to know more I guess.

Happy for Dembelé. He needed an impact in this kind of game after all his injury issues. Take Iniesta off and we're ordinary. We need to de-age him somehow.

Marcelo is too much of a liability at the back. Luis is more balanced. It's a matter of what you want more in a FB, but I don't think there's much between them tbf.

Alba and Pique, too. Nah, not Piqué. Alba I have him on the "really good" tier, but granted there's few LBs I'd rate above him.