Village Idiot

Love Gio personally. Happy to see him have such a great sendoff to his career.

Apparently Larissa Riquelme has posed neekid for a Paraguayan mag, despite the team not winning against us. Very fine bird she is. http://www.as.com/recorte/20100707dasdasftb_20/C280/Ies/PROMESA_CUMPLIDA_Larissa_Riquelme_poso.jpg

Quite surprised to see the Madrid press pretty much sidestepping these news, thought they would prey on it like vultures. Like we say in Spain "When you see your neighbour shaving his beard, it's time to start cutting yours".

Didn't you release Pancrate already?

A bit torn here. I'd usually hate the Germans winning it again, but really I'm not in love with this Dutch side and I find myself kinda not liking the prospect of them succeeding where the Cruyffs/Van Bastens, etc... failed before them. So if we don't win it I guess I'd have Germany.

El Loco coming on

Pretty sure Sneijder has WPOTY tied up unless they crash badly in the final (and still).

Forlán in the form of his life to be honest, looks like he can't just do anything wrong.

Imho the jump from SA leagues to England is very extreme. The pace down there is very slow for the most part. Even success stories like Tévez and Masch were quite s*** the first months in England.

Forlán

Should be a drinking game, that.

Usually like the Dutch as a footballing nation, but can't stand Robben and Van Persie for some reason. Guess I'll still pull for them. Love Forlán though.

Pulled it from El Mundo Deportivo's photo gallery after the Portugal game.

Xavi's never been much of a fantasy footie darling.

Looks that at least the Chygrynsky cash is going to meet short term financial needs. And we need to cover Yaya's position. I'd also feel better with another CB/RB to cover for Chygrysnky.

At least we signed Villa early. Bargain given the tournament he's having. Guess it means no Cesc however but we should remain competitive while we recover.

Laporta had a great financial policy during the first part of his tenure. Astute signings and kept wages under control, the club was in very bad shape at the time and he was force to it. But during the latter part he's spunked money like no tomorrow and for that I'm happy he's not at the helm anymore. He also lost a bunch of his board due to internal strife in the latter years, which included the best administrators. I still like Zlatan the player. The money we paid was idiotic, however.

Rosell has denied that, saying that the long term scenario looks fine provided spending is reigned in. But I guess he's bound to say that.

And Mallorca have signed Michael Laudrup as their new coach

Racing Santander have signed Kennedy Bakircioglü from Ajax.

Mmm the Punxsutawney Phil of international football.

Honestly, I think it's pretty important given it's the biggest game in football. Again, not particularly taking for granted that we are going to take part in the final, but either us or the Germans have a valid complain there to be honest.

As I feared (and to be honest, expected) new president Sandro Rosell has revealed that Barça's economy isn't in good shape and we have cash-flow problems made worse by our TV rights holder filing up for administration. We are negotiating a €150m loan. Was obvious paying those wages and spunking tens of millions in crap like Hleb, Cáceres, Chygrynsky, etc... and crazy deals like Ibra just wasn't in good sense. Oh well, it's been fun.

How come both semis are not played the same day? So far teams in the same bracket (like us and Germany and Uruguay/Netherlands for example), played in the same day so no team had an extra day to rest up over the other.

Shaktar have apparently tabled a bid of €15m to get Chygrynsky back. We're likely to accept and post a €10m loss on him in barely a year. Genius.