Village Idiot

Real Madrid, and Mourinho hardly underrates defending, almost always leave two players upfront not tracking back. I think that there are two things at play here. It's one thing to have good work rate to press the ball, another thing tracking back to a defensive position when losing it. While all players should have the first, you can have players (and imho, should) not doing the second. Quick and skillful players like Ben Arfa are great counter-attacking outlets, having a couple of them in front of the ball and not behind is a constant threat and forces the opposition to stay back a bit themselves.

Apparently Real Madrid are looking to loan out Nuri Sahin next season. Marca cites "several Premier League clubs" as interested...

We were looking at an offensive LB to complement Abidal, and Alba was the one most linked. But with Abidal out of the picture I'm not sure if we'll prefer somebody to fill in his role as the more defensive fullback to complement Alves at the other side. We'll see in the summer I guess.

Enrique you mean? We haven't been linked with him since the summer. Can't see it happening, to be frank.

Legend for us, wasn't aware he was known outside of Spain. Always been a bit of a Barca fan myself, without sounding too glory hunter-ish, so know a bit about their history and great players etc. Btw V.I. I've seen a few sources saying that Muniesa will come in to play left back, what do you reckon? Happy to hear that, Basora was an integral part of our 1950s team, which was considered our all-time best side until, well, the current one. Kubala, Moreno, Basora and Manchón, legendary forward line. Muniesa is a good prospect, and unlike Adriano a more defensive-minded LB. But he barely has senior experience and would be a bit much to throw him against the likes of Robinho and Cronaldo.

Legend for us, wasn't aware he was known outside of Spain.

Klasnic only has one kidney too. Terrible news like and obviously a massive blow, just hope the blokes health is OK regardless if he can play again. Maybe should've kept ahold of Maxwell? (Despite him being fairly average) Maxwell put in a transfer request, we would have hold on him until the end of the season. Still, he was pants defensively. Losing Abidal will be a massive loss indeed. Adriano will cope well in La Liga but he'll suffer against world class wingers in the CL. Wouldn't be completely surprised to see Pep deploy Puyol there.

But now I'm reminded of Klasnic... didn't he play with a transplanted liver too? (although he took almost 1 year off IIRC). EDIT: checked, it was a kidney. Dunno if that makes a difference regarding this issue.

Does he have any specific knowledge of Abidal's case? He said that the problem isn't that he won't make a full recovery, but that the transplanted organ would be vulnerable to trauma, and that he shouldn't participate in a contact sport like football.

La Liga is a sunny SPL, etc...

EL draw: Atlético Madrid - Hannover AZ Alkmaar - Valencia (tasty) Sporting CP - Metallist Schalke 04 - Athletic Club

Guardiola: "Bielsa is currently the best manager in the planet"

Weaknesses? Isn't Barcelona their only weakness? Madrid have trouble dealing with wingers roaming between their midfield and the defence, plus they struggle in the air (they have conceded a high amount of headers, something Mourinho himself complains often about). Thus Robben/Ribery/Gómez can potentially torment them. Not saying that will be enough to put them out, but Bayern is the only side outside FCB that I think potentially could eliminate them. And yes, Milan is a bad (or good depending on how you look at it) fit for us, too. I also feel uncomfortable playing the same side so many times the same season, gets harder to go and surprise them.

Madrid would be favorites against Bayern, but they should to well not to be too confident. Bayern's strengths match Real Madrid weaknesses to a pee.

Anyway, our vicepresident has admitted they are exploring the possibility of building a new stadium, first club source to do that.

According to one transplant expert they just interviewed in the radio, Abidal is very unlikely to play football again

Don't get too ahead, Madrid - Bayern will be a tough semi. And it's not like we walked over Milan in the group stage either. Bayern will be up for it with the final at home but still can't look beyond Real. As for Barca-Milan, Messi seems to turn it on against everyone in the latter stages, can't see Milan winning over two legs, they didn't in the group stage after all... I just hate playing Milan teams that we already played against in the group stages, featuring one of our ex-strikers that didn't get along with Guardiola.

Don't get too ahead, Madrid - Bayern will be a tough semi. And it's not like we walked over Milan in the group stage either. I fear them more than Chelsea. But Apoel man, Madrid are so lucky.

Ah well, at least we have the second leg at home. A potential all Spanish final set up, too.

Milan - Barça, the team I wanted the least.

Madrid - Apoel

Incidentally, our press reported a week ago that Chelsea representatives contacted him, and he just answered that "he doesn't talk to people that represent other people".

Guardiola considers Bielsa one of his masters. When Pep leaves, I'd love us to go for him. We will forget the fact he's managed Espanyol (he had the good sense of quitting after a few months, afterall).

To be frank, Athletic had a torrid start to the season while the players adapted to Bielsa's methods. They'd be comfortably in a 3rd-4th otherwise, in my opinion.

Hooked up with some Basque friends and got drunk while watching Athletic. It was beautiful