Village Idiot

At times.

It's a bit of a myth that Madrid didn't press during the 5-0 win. Watch the match opening moves and you'll see that they were obviously ordered to do so (why wouldn't they?) they just aren't used to it and their positioning on that regard was dreadful.

The penalty sums up why I don't think Busquets should play in defence, he isn't a good tackler.

GTFI Very good keeper and then he goes and does that. Legend. Piatti scored a beauty in the same game, but everybody will talk about Aranzubia's goal, shit luck to him

Should I...? Nah.

Barça "fans" at Nevada were insufferable, ended up going to a Spanish place in Astoria, much better atmosphere. I remember when I first moved to the US and there wasn't nearly a single Barça fan in town that wasn't a Spanish emigrant like me. Cue a treble later and you couldn't get rid of them.

I really need to start watching more Bundesliga, but it's hard to get it down here. Love the apparent randomness of it, with teams going from hit to s*** in a single season.

Miquel was playing in pretty much a pub team when they picked him up, now that was scouting.

Toon Army NYC are great bunch of lads (was one of them till moving to Miami)- meet in Legends now on 33rd street, so easier i coming on PATH train from NJ. Quite a few of them often watch in NJ - should connect on forum at least on www.toonarmynyc.com Thank god you don't meet at Nevada Smiths like the Barça supporters. Absolutely loathed that plastic coven. I went to watch some WC games at legends and found it a decent place.

Very rare I would guess. It's also confused me by having both 4th and 5th round matches during the same weekend. The FA Cup is such a glorious mess, I love it.

While women's football is an afterthought around here, it is very big in the US.

Good enough that if we don't get past Arsenal, it won't be Pinto's fault. Valdés wasn't particularly brilliant in both of Arse's goals tbf (good save in the first half though).

Valdés out for today and likely will miss the next month due to knee injury. Pinto's decent, but those corn rows FFS.

It would be quite a feat if WBA manage to get relegated given where they were a couple months ago. Still see them pulling a Hull and barely scraping it.

Valencia have a couple of quite good strikers in Aduriz and Soldado. Adding Gameiro to the mix would be very good for them. Now if they started playing with more than 1 striker away from home...

That said, I hope the yanks get pissed off enough at FIFA that they go all Department of Justice on them, like they did to the IOC.

"Dutch thug Nigel de Jong", gets my vote for that only Wait, I don't vote. Good luck with that then.

You're great brummie, particularly when drunk

No San Martín? Palermo?

Anyway, going back to the EL being a shopping window. Espanyol sold off most of their UEFA final side (Riera, Zabaleta, Rufete, Lacruz...). If you are playing for a midtable club that doesn't qualify often (not the case of Villa these past years) the EL is a great place to get yourself seen and noticed.

Hey, I have suffered my share of EL games at the Camp Nou too. Witnessed the footballing glory of Panionios and Matador Púchov. And I even wanted us to win it! Wholly agree with the league format bollocks.

£35k That's €2m-ish a year, isn't it? If those are net wages (always get confused if PL wages are net or gross) Real Madrid's and Barça's starting left backs aren't on much more. (Marcelo's reportedly on €2m net/year, Abidal reportedly on €2,5m net/year). Wages over here are quoted net. Same as in Spain then. LB isn't a big ticket position unless you're Ashley Cole and crash your car if you're only paid 50k, so I don't think José Enrique can't get significantly more. Just of interest was is Dani Alves on/being offered? We are offering him €5m net basic wage plus some bonuses/side commercial contracts to take him close to €8m (which is what he's asking for). IIRC he's on €4,5m net.

Leo Messi Pipita Higuaín Carlos Tévez Diego Milito Sergio Agüero Fucking mental.

£35k That's €2m-ish a year, isn't it? If those are net wages (always get confused if PL wages are net or gross) Real Madrid's and Barça's starting left backs aren't on much more. (Marcelo's reportedly on €2m net/year, Abidal reportedly on €2,5m net/year). Wages over here are quoted net. Same as in Spain then. LB isn't a big ticket position unless you're Ashley Cole and crash your car if you're only paid 50k, so I don't think José Enrique can't get significantly more.

One of the names mentioned was Villa, they have less chance than us of reaching Europe. I'd also add that I can't believe any player on the planet really aspires to playing in the Europa League. "Oooh, the glamour, I get to play against FC Titwank (Albania) on a Thursday night in front of 21,000". Don't get me wrong, they should do, but managers, directors and (largely) fans don't give a s*** about it these days, it is hard to believe the players do. Don't diss FC Titwank, they have won the Albanian league 39 times in a row. I think players see the EL as a shopping window.