Village Idiot

An(toni)o Jiménez is an awfully common name in Spain, I have two friends named that way for starters. And wasn't "your" Toni Jiménez and Englishman despite his name, to begin with?

This is probably his best season in the Premier League, isn't it? I think he's been much more decisive than in his Fulham days.

I would be in the fucking moon if we signed Silva. He's great and still very young. El Mundo Deportivo has a good stat breakdown of Messi's 101 goals for us. It's in Spanish, but you can easily make out what the stats mean: http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/infograficos/101golesmessi.html And I remember the handball goal, it was against the parakeet scum no less

I think that until his injury it clearly was Filipe Luis, I am afraid we (Barça) missed on a potential gem there. €15m for a non-international leftback was a bit of a steep asking price though.

Okay, I will try. Not sure a 4-4-2 would work with such lightweight wingers, but only way I could cram everybody I wanted to. Aouate (MLL) Azpilicueta (OSA) Dragutinovic (SEV) Godín (VILL) Filipe Luis (DEP) Messi (BAR) Javi Martínez (BIL) Canales (RAC) Silva (VAL) Cronaldo (RMA) Agüero (ATM) Although I should probably drop Messi and go with... Aouate (MLL) Azpilicueta (OSA) Pareja (ESP) Godín (VILL) Filipe Luis (DEP) Javi Martínez (BIL) Xavi (BAR) Silva (VAL) Cronaldo (RMA) Agüero (ATM) Navas (SEV) Which is a much better team overall, imho.

Raúl has an official offer to go play for NYRB after this season, and Real would let him go on a free (or maybe some marketing kickbacks in the MLS). They are matching his wages at Real (which are quite high, €7m net, 3rd highest at Real). Madrid would be quite happy to let him go "honorably" and save them the dressing room politics and the gigantic wages for a player who's no longer a starter. Rumor is NYRB also wants Henry and Paolo Maldini... do they want to make another New York Cosmos?

Remember when Barça was in tight on money in the early 1980s, and the board asked the club members to pitch in a fixed amount to be able to afford to repair the Camp Nou (which they did). Easier to do in a fan-owned structure I guess.

He's not finnish, he's from Iceland!

La Liga XI Valdés Alves Piqué Puyol Abidal Touré Xavi Iniesta Messi Ibrahimovic Silva

What if Pompey dissolves (which I still find hard to believe, I think they will keep the club alive until the end of the season)? Will they get another promoted team from the CCC to make up? Or just relegate two this season?

-----Zlatan --- Villa -----------Messi Iniesta- Toure-- Xavi Not too bad that Villa Messi Zlatan Iniesta - Touré - Xavi Maybe, Messi has trouble coming through the middle due to his size and is way better cutting in from the wing. Zlatan certainly has the ability to play as a recessed forward. Still a bit weird change of formation for us, since classic 433 has been working so well. Scary firepower though.

We have been linked with Villa again, our press reporting that there's an informal agreement between Villa and Valencia to let him go in the summer since Villa wants out to have a stab at silverware. Makes no sense, where would we play him? Looks wasted on the wing for example. So probable another rumor to put on the waste bin, although El Mundo Deportivo is usually the most reliable one concerning this kind of rumours (when they mention we are interested a player, it's usually true even if it doesn't pan out).

If Arsenal wins at Liverpool they'll have a piss-easy run of games after it, they could still get themselves back in the race as both Chelsea and ManU have been dropping points easily this season.

No but I think they should. I cringe when I see all these Italian clubs with ridiculous NFL style squad numbers, your 1-11 shirts should be your number 1 choices for each position Remember Ivan Zamorano 1 + 8? http://cdn.bleacherreport.com/images_root/image_pictures/0157/6035/zamorano_18_feature.jpg Aberdeen's Zerouali wore the number 0 short in reference to his name Lizerazu - number 69 Zamorano's 1+8 thing is actually proof of how highly shirt numbers are still regarded in some places. He was forced to relinquish it to Ronaldo and he didn't take it lightly. #9 shirts are a big marketing icon.

He had the balance of bambi on ice and he went down extremely easily, but I don't think he did it in a cynical way to be honest. At least not much more than the average modern footballer.

Not yet. His game is progressing a lot, but is still very much based on his pace and leading counterattacks. Fernando Torres, for example, was a purely pace-based forward and he went on to develop and impressive bag of tricks as centreforward.

Man, you outclassed us that night. The 3-2 is misleading, we were never in that game.

I feel pretty honored that so many people in this board consider a benchmark of your recent history your 3-2 victory against us Still stings though

Metzelder has also publicly stated that he will be leave Real Madrid at the end of the season due to lack of playing time. No clubs linked yet but I assume he will go back to Germany.

Higuaín > Juventus forwards. I just went to the Juventus wiki page and saw they have a forward named "Ciriano Immobile" in their books. I hope he is a big, slow target man

Marca reporting Juve is planning to offer 35m for Higuaín. Real will probably laugh at it if true (as they should).

Newcastle, three months ago . I quite liked you in the 1990s though, like everybody else. Shearer obviously a legend. I remember watching the English League highlights show, and the presenter used to say "And now, Shearer's goal this week". Barça, I don't know... the first clear memory I have is the league win in 1985 and me watching the game that clinched it with my dad (he taped it and my parents still keep the tape, although I assume it probably no longer works), I also have fragmentary images of Maradona in 1984. My first football memories are the 1982 World Cup at the Camp Nou, though.

Spontaneous celebration in the streets of Barcelona during our 2006 CL win (I'm there somewhere, came back from Madrid to be there in case we won).

I feel exilarated when Barça win something, man. Our fortunes are relatively recent. 50% of our league championships have been won in the last 20 years, and all of our European Cups/CLs. I run, I scream, I sing, I jump... it's awesome. I amit that Barça is something that also gives me a connection to home, and everytime they win one of the first things I do is pick up the phone and call my brother in Spain, and we scream at each other for minutes. I mean I was even overjoyed when we won the CWC joke. When Barça win something is really, really the greatest thing on Earth. May long it continue. And yes, a big part of the joy of winning the league is that it means that the Franco c***s haven't. Envious of that, tbh. It's not like I'm never jubilant like you, it's just that it never happens during that championship moment. Being a Yankee fan must rule too. I mean, everybody in the nation hates you lot, so when you win is like

No need to look that far! This is the one that the Catalan TV network made last year (the guys doing the playback are actors of "Crackovia" a comedy program about Spanish football). We actually sang it at the stadium when I was there in the opening match this season