Village Idiot

Your avatar is fantastic. Just seen that. Risk of sending this thread off topic but yeah, that avatar is f***ing immense I don't get it, and I used to watch that series. Jay-Z? 99 Problems? Ah, I'm not much into hip hop.

Marca reporting that Madrid has turned to Adebayor after Hamburg refused their latest offer for RvN.

Your avatar is fantastic. Just seen that. Risk of sending this thread off topic but yeah, that avatar is f***ing immense I don't get it, and I used to watch that series.

I have seen Mou rehearsing a 3-4-3 lately for some strecthes of Real Madrid games. Wonder if that's what he'll try to unleash on us. It was rather effective against Villarreal who are the closest in La Liga to Barça in style of play.

Madrid now linked to Pavlychenko according to our press, citing the prestigious "footylatest.com" website as their source.

Loved this bit, maybe they should build a basketball arena too since they own Peter Crouch.

Athletic tracks are a big buzzkill. I used to go from time to time to our Olympic Stadium to watch Espanyol play lose and the atmosphere was awful, even the nights all of their five fans showed up. They are much better off in their current place.

Aye, and what did Mou do at the Camp Nou? Certainly not sit deep and hit us on the counter. He played a high line with (timid) pressing. There's some things that Real Madrid can't do. Playing defensive football against us at their turf would be tantamount to sacrilege.

I don't think last year's Inter was such an inferior team to current Real Madrid imho, particularly given the form of some players. The difference between both squads is basically Cristiano Ronaldo. Will still be a big challenge to win at the Bernabéu, of course.

To be honest I have been wanting to see what Suárez can do outside of Netherlands for a while.

That ref is *fat*

I have started seeing Spanish press printing and quoting tribalfotball and caughtoffside transfer talk, which I don't know if it's sad or hilarious.

Garth Crook's team of the week is a pile of s**** man, I sometimes even look at it when I fancy to feel righteously infuriated

And I say this, Puyol is out for a few weeks. Milito closer to starting

According to AS/Marca, Madrid have upped their offer for RvN from €2m to €2m AND A FRIENDLY.

And yet you were still only a goal away from grabbing a draw Deceptive scoreline though. You gave us a bath like we say in Spain.

That's just never going to change. UEFA and TV right holders need all these big guns qualifying for the CL by default and playing a bunch of games. That said, I'm not terribly opposed to countries having more than 1 CL spot. The current format forces you to beat tougher opposition in order to lift the cup. The year we won it first we beat a bunch of average teams, and not a single truly top side, while in 2006 with the new format we had to beat the likes of Chelsea, Milan and Arsenal. But I'd probably leave it at 3 spots *tops*.

It was the feeling of utter confidence going into the match - after the show we had been putting the league - and thinking "Barça's back and we are going to win this s*** again" only to spend a whole game chasing shadows and looking massively out of our depth. That game was also a harbinger of times to come, of being utterly average in Europe until the mid 2000s.

That CL game. I'm still scarred after all these years. Ranks up there as one of my 3 worst European memories for Barça.

Man, I loved the old CWC. Coupled with only the league winner going to the EC, made winning the domestic cup feel more momentous.

Oh, I agree about the format thing. Dunno why they insisted in turning it into a CL lite, at least the different format gave a point to the UEFA Cup and made it exciting. UEFA's obsession with group stages is almost sexual in nature. The CL had TWO of them at one point FFS.

Villa haven't even progressed to the group stage two years in the running. They aren't a valid example of European game congestion...

That then would be a one off, I would prefer to build up the squad and have enough strength in depth to qualify on a regular basis. If it takes a little longer then so be it. I don't think the Europa League even brings in much money so it wouldn't pay for an increase in squad depth or quality. So you wouldn't want to qualify for Europe because then you wouldn't qualify for Europe? Fulham qualifying for the EL was a freak result (they barely avoided relegation the year before), so I don't think it hurt their development as club. I really can't see how making the EL would hurt your growing and stabilisation.

Fulham and Middlesbrough struggled in the league though? I don't remember how Boro did, but Fulham finished comfortably midtable last year.