Village Idiot

What kind of playoff would that be though? Wembley games or home+away legs?

Probably wouldn't apply this season. Interesting idea, although we enter the usual "who deserves it more vs excitement" debate when playoffs are involved.

That one yes.

Muniesa at CB and Puyol RB, or maybe Bartra at RB. I guess Guardiola preferred two senior CBs to deal with Agüero and Forlán, but Reyes really ran us ragged tonight. Muniesa's highly rated and has played in a CL final already, so I think he would have copped better than poor Jeffren (guy's confidence is probably shot after tonight).

Well, some day we had to lose. Also, I worship the land that Guardiola steps on, but putting Jeffren at rigthback was a big big mistake. Guy's a winger, and the only time he's played there he was *woeful* against very poor opposition. Reyes ran circles around him tonight, and he was lucky not to be sent off since he made a lot of mistimed tackles. Rather he put an specialist there, even if he hasn't played games at the top level.

That fixture has only ended 0-0 once in 72 years. Last year we lost 4-3, and the goal average for the past decade is something ludicrous like 3 goals per game. It's going to be fun for a neutral (me, I'm going to suffer) I'm leaving now to catch it with a Real Madrid fan, Atlético fan and me. It's going to be a fun afternoon.

That would be American sports movie material.

What did he say?

Just take a look at Emile Heskey's scoring record, says it all really. Well, it's not like he starts for them every week. Agbonlahor is moderately prolific but they have only 32 goals this season, by far the lowest amount of the "top 7" (top 4+City/Villa/Spurs)

Brummie, Villa seem to have lot of trouble finding the back of the net. Do you think it's because of your striking options or the midfield? (midfield looks good on paper, but I haven't watched Villa that much this season).

Meh, 14$+taxes and shipping at Amazon. I should watch this, though. Will rummage through Ebay. EDIT: Bah, I'll just queue it on netflix.

A banana, I think. I see. I'm totally dumbfounded when one set of fans do that, as pretty much every team has black players in their squads.

What is it they threw to the Villa player? can't make it in the picture.

I caught the tail end of this game and he was impressive, fair play to him.

top post this Good post, but isn't Fulham bankrolled by Al-Fayed by significant amounts?

And Bilbao missed a pen to make it 2-2. Mental finish to that game.

My fault, in all my egomania I usually assume everybody knows where I am from

Spanish clubs have their own club songs. Not ‘cover versions’ of existing tunes but original compositions written just for them. I know that, that's the "anthems" I mention in my post... As said, anthems are hugely popular for home fans and are sung often. Also, it's usually the only song the whole stadium will know, which makes for some really chilling moments when it breaks out spontaneously: There have been several attempts to get "Viva La Vida" (one of Guardiola's favorite songs) up at Camp Nou when I have been there, but it's hard for a bunch of Spaniards to sing an English song without resorting to "lalalalalala" kind of lyrics.

This seems to be a bit of an English/British thing? Can't think of any Spanish club that has adopted a non-football related song in that way at least. All our clubs have anthems though (which are all quite popular in the stands), which I guess sort of gets in the way.

Crespo had some great movement to get to the end of it too. Class play overall.

kaká was immense on that 2007 final, I distinctly remember him making a fool of Riise (IIRC) as he was slide-tackling him on the haflway line with an elegant turn.

0-2 to Real already, was a bit of wishful thinking that they would drop points against Xerez. Huge game for us tomorrow, we don't have a healthy senior defense so we'd need to scrape from the B team to stop the likes of Agüero and Forlán.

Would be surprised if Madrid didn't break Xerez, they are by far the worst team in the league. The pitch is apparently in terrible condition, however.

Domenech somehow seems to always do enough (or more than enough) to keep him in charge though. France were utterly clueless during 2006 qualif, and they got to the final which gave Domenech a wildcard for the next 4 years really. A bit the same now, he managed to qualify them, so they can't really fire him.

Vieira looks like he's 40. He seems to have aged a lot these past few years.