Village Idiot

Aye, the last one was also a rather shitty game that we won 1-0 with a set piece goal by Alexanko. Saved Cruyff's ass and set us on our run of the early 90s.

We bought Mascherano to start in cup games apparently.

Singing our anthem before every match at the Camp Nou. It rocks. Probably one of the things I missed the most from not living in BCN. Again I'll hate myself for not going tonight. But I need to f***ing finish this project.

Depends on how strong is the side we put out really. Rumour is that it's going to be a strong one but we'll see.

Insanely hostile atmosphere at the Pizjuán. Probably better than ours for the Clásico...

Jesus christ. Shall I? Or Brummie? O'Neil was deemed (and rightly so) to have wasted a lot of money on high wages for players who weren't really doing anything. He was told to get rid of some of these players before he could have any more money. He also, apparently, went to Lerner and had this conversation: MON: "I want to sign Aiden McGeady" RL: "What sort of price are we looking at?" MON: "Whatever it takes" Poor, wronged Saint Martin. Ha. I'll stand corrected. Didn't realize those were the players he was spending on. Sometimes it's tough to get the whole story over here in the States. That being said, I think the guy can flat out manage. Maybe not as good an evaluator of talent though? From the outside - and brummie feel free to correct me -, MoN's player cycle looked like this: 1.Buy player of average ability for a non-average price 2.Player of said average ability naturally performs averagely 3.MoN feels betrayed by the averageness and chucks the player into the pits of oblivion 4. Go to 1 He seemed to have an obsession with fullbacks in particular.

Depor's president had agreed to sign Málaga's Baha but Lotina has blocked it as reportedly Xisco is his first option. Wages are the main problem. (According to Marca).

I guess Milan staff have finally watched some videos of Emanuelson playing at LB, then.

When I broke up with my ex she confessed that she lied to me all along and didn't care one bit about Barça. Spiteful b*****

Yeah, I love them too, just that with such tiny talent pool available they get mugged in every transfer deal. €10m is a huge deal nowadays for any club not in our Top 4.

Nice, that's what I did on FM with Bilbao. There isn't much to choose from to be frank Bilbao always splash big for Basque players. €12m for Roberto Ríos in the mid-90

He will be a good player, in my opinion. If he will be a great one, though, I have more doubts.

Bilbao ready to spunk €8m rising to €10m in wonderkid Ander Herrera. Villarreal also in the running. This kid can be a star but needs a move.

That opening paragraph/sentence. LookslikehowmyIrishfriendswouldtalk.

Mahmadou Diarra has been left out of Madrid's 25 man squad to make space for Adebayor. So I guess he'll be off somewhere soon.

To be honest nobody knows what to do with Barcelona's Olympic Stadium now that Espanyol aren't polluting it. It's fine for the odd big athletic event (like the European C'ships this summer) but way too white elephant-ish for the regular athletic events we host throughout the year. To see it make by as a concert venue is a bit sad.

They are not like English reserve teams. We can't chuck Hleb there for example. Only U23 players can be placed in a B team, or players especially contracted to the B team which can't be included in the team's main squad. Ah right, that makes more sense then. Still think it's a bit harsh on the clubs that only exist in the lower leagues... in theory everyone is part of the same league structure. Yeah, as I said I believe B teams should be capped to Segunda B (our third flight), which has 80 teams in it and it's the lowest professional tier.

Guy that has Berbatov in my league just erased my 50+ point advantage. Somebody injury him, please.

Honestly, the way your pyramid works I'd never institute B teams. The only way it works in Spain is because we have a "true" football pyramid where each lower level has a shitton more clubs. 90% of B teams are in the third and fourth flights, which have 400+ clubs put together.

They are not like English reserve teams. We can't chuck Hleb there for example. Only U23 players can be placed in a B team, or players especially contracted to the B team which can't be included in the team's main squad.

I'm a bit torn about our B teams allowed so much up the ladder to be frank. I love that Barça B is in the second division but if I were a neutral that place would be better used by a real team whose fans could enjoy football at a good level. Our third flight has 80+ clubs in it, so I think B teams don't hurt so much there. But it's true that it prevents an excess of developmental loans in our league. Also, loans are an easy way for an unwanted player to try to rebuild their career instead of rotting on the stands until the contract runs out.

Any restriction could easily be sidestepped with sales with buyback fees. Real Madrid do that a lot instead of regular loans.

Nonono...the trick is that it's the player who is paying the fee, not the club. If a player wants to use his release clause to leave a club, it's him who has to pay his employer under our sports law. The buying club will give him the funds, including VAT, under whatever formula (since this will accrue even more taxes for the player) but the buying club won't be able to claim VAT since they haven't paid it directly, and the player can't either. Now, in most transfers this doesn't happen since there's a gentlemen's agreement between Spanish clubs to just accept bids that are equal to the release clause, and save on tax costs. But if a seller wants to resist the sale, forcing the player to trigger the clause with all the added tax costs is a way to increase the cost for the buying club. I'm not a tax law expert at all, mind, but that's how I have been told it works (and in particular the whole 'it's actually the player who pays the release fee' angle to it it's true)

They can claim the VAT, but they'll only have to hand it over in any case, surely? Yeah, it will go to the state. In most cases the selling club just agrees to accept a bid for the value of the clause instead of having the player actually triggering it, since they won't be seeing any extra money anyway. But in truly hostile player buys it's a way to defend themselves and increase costs for the buyer. We claimed tax in the Figo sale for example.