Group A: Chelsea, Roma, Bordeaux, CFR ClujI lol at everybody writing off Bordeaux. Fear Laurent Blanc, people. Fear him. This isn't as
straight-forward as it looks.
Group B: Inter, Werder, Panathinaikos, AnorthosisThis I think is as straight-forward as it looks.
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Negotiations with
Manchester United over (Barca youth academy grad)
Gerard Pique are
said to be almost complete. The player has passed a medical in Barcelona and if all goes well the
signing should be announced soon. [I am very pleased by this signing. Decent price, good player
coming home, everybody's happy.
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Frank Rijkaard was the perfect manager for FC Barcelona. Joan Laporta said so. Johan Cruyff said
so. His players thought so, all the way to the bitter end.
"Frank speaks so quietly you have to strain to hear him," says Ronaldinho,
"and when you do, you realise he's always right.
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All signs point to major changes in the
Barcelona squad next season. My (massively long, as
it turns out) two cents on who should be staying and who needs to be ushered out the door
below.
Keep in mind, though, that I haven't taken any economic considerations (e.g. selling X will get us
some cash to spend on Y) into account.
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As things have gone from bad to worse recently,
Barcelona fans have increasingly focused our
hopes on young players coming out of the club's much praised youth system. In fact, most of the
best and most consistent performers in the past two seasons have been new
cantera graduates
-
Messi,
Iniesta and
Bojan in addition to those who have been stalwarts for a
while like
Xavi and
Puyol.
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I was going to write a long post about recent events at Barca, but then I read Phil Ball's latest
column and agreed with pretty much everything he said, so I'm just going to link to it. I will be
writing a tribute to 'Frankie' later - how could I not? - but for now, here's a collection of some
of the interesting fall-out and commentary surrounding the change of staff.
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For all the hype about Super Sundays in the Premiership, and with apologies to the Milan derby
which is happening on the same day, in my humble opinion there's nothing that quite matches up to
El Clasico, the game of the century, Barca v Real, whatever you want to call it.
Remember what happened at the Camp Nou last season?
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Against
Lyon, a great European side, Barca's 3-man forward line had an average age of 20.
Eto'o wasn't quite fit enough yet,
Henry's body had finally given out after playing
continuously while not 100% fit, and
Ronaldinho was on the bench.
Andres Iniesta, 23;
Lionel Messi, 20; and
Bojan Krkic, 17, a forward line crafted in the Barca youth
academies, led the line in their stead.
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(graphic swiped from Sport)
Any other team might be pleased to win 3-0 (especially with most players coming off two
international appearances) and gain some distance on our rivals at the top of the table, but as
always, Barca are our own greatest enemy. It feels like forever since I've done one of my rambling,
player-by-player match reports, so here goes.
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Exams are over (hooray!) and I'm back, although currently preoccupied with...well, life in general.
To be honest, I've just been thinking a lot, and there's a couple of posts I want to make about
coaching styles, quotas in European leagues, and all that. But it's Barca that's really been
frustrating me.
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Club football is back with a bang with some interesting games in Spain this weekend and the return
of the Champions League midweek, amidst the sound of club coaches grumbling about their charges
returning injured (poor
Arjen Robben) or tired.
Internationals
Gabi Milito and
Leo Messi scored the goals for Argentina as they beat Venezuela away to
top the qualifying table with 6 points.
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I've got exams coming up yet again, so expect less posting for the next 3 weeks or so. Pity, it's
such an exciting time.
Internationals round-upAtt
Luis Aragones: if you're going to
fly
Puyol out to Denmark and then say he's not fit
when he patently is, then just
leave him in Spain next time and save him the travelling. No need to take him along if he's not fit
as you claim, after all.
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(I've recently taken over the Argentina World Cup Blog, so that's where all Argentina-related posts
will go in the future.)
Atletico were the last team to beat Barca at Camp Nou in the league back in February of
2006. Since then, Barca have gone 30 games undefeated at home, of which 22 were victories. So you
could say that this was a bit of a test.
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My take on
Barca's win over
Atletico will come later. For now, an update on how the
Spanish teams are doing in European competition.
Champions LeagueThe official UEFA website
has the group standings after two games.Sevilla 4-2 Slavia (Sevilla goals by Kanoute, Fabiano,
Escude, and Kone)I'm sure this victory came as a great relief to
Juande Ramos, as it
arrested a 4-game losing streak and gave them something to build on in the group.
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