Village Idiot

Saw it on the telly yesterday. Awesome goal

Here it's pretty common to issue a verifiable apology as soon as possible (too late and it works against you, as is seen as insincere and motivated only to mitigate punishment). I'm no law expert though, and you might be right that it's only done when guilt is beyond doubt. An apology (or lack of) actually carries weight on a penal sentence here. The whole point of our system is rehabilitation so remorse plays a part. And it's observed in footballing courts.

I suspect he's been advised against that by lawyers. If Ben Arfa's career is over, he could get sued, with an apology used as evidence. I thought it was the opposite, demonstrable remorse would weigh in his favor (that's how it's reported in Spain at least).

Yank-tastic

FIFA has demanded that La Liga docks 6 points from Segunda outfit Recreativo de Huelva for defaulting on payments to Boca Juniors for the transfer of Sebastián Nayar. It would be the first time that a Spanish club gets a point deduction on financial grounds (there's relegation for defaulting on player wages repeatedly but that's about it). Recreativo are currently in administration.

If I was a pro footballer, I'd die to play in the real Clásico. La Bombonera full to the brim, man...

International breaks are only boring when your national team has 0,0005% of not qualifying, which is the case for England or Spain, so there's not much going for those games. I need to dig up my French genes and support them, that would be entertaining.

Still can't get around that De Jong hasn't gone out to the press to even pretend he's sorry.

Masked vigilantism is the only answer, imho.

Samuel was truly awful, I rate him as a player but was genuinely not fit for La Liga. Woodgate had a 'mare but wasn't his fault most of the time. Good times.

Not as such, but there's some emergency funds for relegated sides set in place.

I'm a Barça fan but would love a bit of financial rebalancing in La Liga. I'm afraid that would mean PL teams winning the CL for years to come, though.

The La Liga clubs are debating a counter-proposal from Barça and Madrid regarding TV rights sharing. Sevilla and Villarreal are the only ones objecting as of now. The new formula would be as follows (currently RM and Barça get around 50% of La Liga money via their separate agreements): 34% of all TV revenue shared between RM and Barça (minimum €100m each) 11% to Atlético and Valencia (minimum €50m each) 9% to Second Division teams remaning 46% distributed according to league position, overall audience, etc... Sevilla wants to be in Atlético/Valencia's share, while Villarreal wants a model like the Premiership. Preliminary calculations show that RM and Barça would lose around €20-30m compared to their current gross, which should be offset by increasing overall TV revenue in the forthcoming years.

There seems to be a lot of guesswork and eyeballing on that list. Not much credibility there.

To be honest I think the gist of it it's right: Van Marwijk is a hypocrite.

Aye, it isn't. As SEMTEX said, this is hardly the strongest group and I consider this game the toughest tie in it.

Got money on the line?

I will say it now it was a pointless signing. Too high profile to sit comfortably on the bench and worse than Busquets given the way we play.

Getting un-boring now.

You going to the Barca game on sunday? I'm away at Valencia for work this weekend... you going? Yeap, 4 of us are going. Cool, hope you get a good game.

You going to the Barca game on sunday? I'm away at Valencia for work this weekend... you going?

FFS, I just went to take a pee and missed it.

Dammit, that was easy wasn't it?

Not discussing that, my initial statement was more meant as a praise to Kazan than an indictment of other clubs. They are just the only club that we played last season and were *never* able to break them down.

Twice! Seems it's again going to be hard work breaking down these russkies...