Village Idiot

One of those days were the opposition goal seemed to have a force field, we were terribly wasteful. Iniesta's goal was worth the ticket alone though Bring on Sevilla on the weekend.

Savo Milosevic was class in Spain, and that is indeed his forehead

I'm trying to keep tabs on Roma with Bojan and Luís Enrique there, but it's almost impossible to find decent coverage of Serie A in this country. Can somebody recommend me websites/blogs about it? (preferably in English, can reasonably understand Italian but it's a bit of a chore to read).

We didn't score as much as the other home games this season, but we were excellent to the eye yesterday. Hope we do it more often against 9-behind-ball teams.

Pep tried something interesting yesterday, we lined up without a natural defensive mid. He's tried that seldomly in games, but it's the first time we started like that, with Thiago as an old-school number four sitting in front of the defense spraying passes. Given that the "Guardiola role" was obliterated by the "Makelele role" I can't stop thinking that he's trying to go full circle and exact revenge on the defensive mid.

Might be an Andalusian thing I suppose, all Andalusian club fans favor country over club in the poll.

Why is it "not surprising" that Osasuna are up there with the Basque clubs ? I don't know a lot about Osasuna. Navarre has a sizeable Basque population, and Osasuna in particular a large Basque tradition. "Osasuna" is Basque for "strength".

Or, more likely, 1 in 25 of every human supports 5-6 of those 13 teams

Well, they are the reason we are "destroying the league", Barça and Real Madrid completely obliterate the rest of the league in terms of viewership and merchandise sales. It's quite chronic for people in Spain to follow their local team and then pick a side in the Barça/Real Madrid war.

Still can't get over the fact we apparently have 270m "fans", I remember a study in the early 2000s saying we had around 40-45m Heck, when I first moved out of Spain in the mid-2000s some people mistook me for a Crystal Palace fan

According to them we have like 100 million more fans than Real Madrid? Probably bollocks but this goes straight to my Facebook profile to rile up my Real Madrid friends.

Irrelevant but slightly amusing news of the day: a Catalan newspaper has found documental proof that Messi and Bojan are distant cousins (their great-grandfathers were brothers).

Another batch from the poll today on As. The topic is "club vs country". Here's a table listing club fans according to their preference for club or country, on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 means total preference for country, 5 total preference for club. http://s5.as.com/recorte/20111011dasdasftb_10/LCO/Ies/Preferencias_Seleccion_equipo_propio.jpg Overwhelmingly people prefer their club, even the "patriotic" ones like Real Madrid. And that's despite our NT going through its best period in history. Unsurprisingly the two Basque clubs and Osasuna top the list too.

Getafe are almost RM's little bro. Even their president is a self-confessed Real Madrid fan and ST holder. A bit surprised about Rayo, while I was there I always got the impression there was a pretty strong rivalry between them and Real, with lots of anti-RM chants at their place. Might have been a vocal minority.

How is it a terrible rule? I just dislike it. It doesn't reward your cumulative efforts over the group stages like goal difference does. I don't feel sympathy for us in 2006 or South Africa now, though. They've been set against inferior teams and have failed because of their own underperformance, disorganisation, and infighting. To be honest, I think the head-to-head rule makes a lot of sense in these kind of group stages with wildly uneven opposition, where qualification shouldn't hinge on who put more past Liechtestein or Andorra.

Didn't anybody realize this, even in their media during the buildup to the game?

Here it is. To the left, the most liked teams, to the right, the most hated. It doesn't add up to 100% because people had 3 picks. Massively surprised the amount of Barça fans that don't name RM as their most hated team. The "hate ratio" of Espanyol may look low but can be explained by the fact the rivalry is actually low outside Barcelona, and they asked fans/gloryhunters throughout the country. Apparently they are going to publish more results of the poll in the following days.

"As" has published a poll that says we have surpassed RM as Spain's most liked team. There's also a pretty wicked graph with the most liked/hated teams by the fans of each of the 20 First Division teams, gotta see if I can post it.

On-form Torres is the best Spanish striker, and I think he's been progressively improving this season. I have faith he'll be fine by the time of the tournament. Also most of our depth is concentrated on midfield and the wings. Our depth at the back and in the striker position (Negredo/Soldado are fine but no Torres or Villa) isn't that great. Also, as I referred to with my "Training Cone" joke, Del Bosque isn't even calling up natural LBs lately.

Aye, the SA qualifiers are pretty drawn out.

The Espanyol board makes your board look like the ManCity owners. Every time they get a player remotely interesting he's happily sold in the next transfer window. This summer they sold their entire front 3 and replaced them with a 35 year old Pandiani and a kid from their B team.

4 seasons is hardly a record etched in stone. But you should be good for a top half finish.

Well, it's mostly the fact that Del Bosque sets up Spain more defensively than Barcelona rather than just "lack of Messi". He plays Iniesta on the wing instead of an out-and-out forward, and uses Xavi and Alonso as the midfield pair. Both operate from deep, and have a more advanced midfielder at their clubs as partners, namely Özil and Iniesta. It's a Lampard/Gerrard kind of situation really, they should bench the lesser Xavi (still a great player mind) but the Madrid media would go apeshit... We have already won both darn cups, I think we can afford to take some risks and give some entertainment. Casillas S. Ramos Piqué Puyol Training Cone Busquets Xavi Iniesta Silva Torres Villa All fun and giggles.

http://www.libertaddigital.com/c.php?op=thumb&id=http://s.libertaddigital.com/fotos/noticias/degea-simpson.jpg&x=580&y=0

Aye, I laughed when I saw that too Caparrós will do just fine there, though.