Neymar tries Isco Busquets: La Liga 13/14

the weight on the pass to neymar for the first barcelona penalty was exquisite, ronaldo has been better for the last year because of messi's injuries but the disparity in talent is the same, now he is playing slightly deeper and he is a better #10 than riquelme ever was

if they play two of pedro neymar and alexis, it is a 4-3-1-2 during significant phases in the game and messi's vision, close control and weight of pass is emphasized (not that this is anything he wasn't capable of in prior seasons)

it takes a special kind of pedant and fitba illiterate to think ronaldo's physicality and directness makes him nearly as dangerous as messi

also good work to whoever at the liga bbva found mikhail kalatozov to do the tv direction

http://i.imgur.com/lOnaYI8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4KfBfkY.jpg

Real Madrid suffered another blow in the title race, falling to consecutive defeats as Carlos Bacca's double saw them lose 2-1 to Sevilla at Wednesday.

another one of colombia's half dozen or so talented centre forwards

valdes crocked, that's barca fucked.

significant problem in the champions league, in the league their run-in isn't that difficult apart from that final game

pinto is awful though, surely the worst second goalkeeper at a major team

kind of want atleti to win now. not quite a Montpelier situation,but the nearest to definite underdogs.

don't know what that last sentence was meant to be.nearest thing to an underdog winning la liga maybe

bilbao vs atleti 1-1 at 50 mins is worth watching

oh shi-

ah right, I thought Bilbao were in yellow. Confusing

barca betis 1-0 messi pk after alexis shows messi level close control and drops a leg

not hugely fond of 34 y/o xavi, messi and iniesta playing at home vs worst team in league before the cl qf

2-1, ruben castro takes advantage of typically risible adriano defending

messi still fucking playing at 70 mins

75 mins, granada 1 barca 0

only half watched about 20 mins of this but it's grim viewing from a barca pov

and so it finishes

barcelona didn't seem to lack 'passion' or whatever, they just couldn't get past a solid defensive line, liverpool's lightning fast on loan cb tiago illori was creditable and the cameroonian rb nyom whom was brilliant, locked down the right side of defence and at 6'2 nearly outpaced jordi alba over a short sprint, which virtually never happens

everything with barcelona is as cristiano ronaldo used to say, 'polemic' and happens against the backdrop of idiot entitled fans and emotionally incontinent sports-press but i'd like to exculpate

i) tata, who landed his first european job at the last minute and has been dignified and mostly competent

he was outwitted by simeone and he will probably narrowly lose la liga, but neither of those is a disgrace

ii) messi, who for the second year running was tasked with rescuing their entire season as soon as he came back, and who has done that until the last two games -- took them past manchester city, kept their faint hopes in la liga alive with a hat-trick at the bernabeu

no idea what happened to him lately, but he took them to a position they would not otherwise have got to

the whole club has been traduced by cunts and idiots, the rossell administration

i) alienated guardiola
ii) tried to neg messi
iii) humiliated the club with the corrupt neymar payments disaster
iv) mismanaged the squad renewal by (eg) failing to give thiago the contract he deserved and thereby let a gold plated successor to xavi leave for scarcely more than they wasted on the very clearly inadequate alex song
iv) may well have given them a two year transfer ban, and even if this is eventually defeated on appeal, they will have to plan for this summer on the presumption that it stands

they urgently need to get their shit together now

two /window/ transfer ban

gr8 posts. i shall add the simplistic & plebeian notion that should results now proceed as expected, we may be faced with real madrid needing a title-excluded barcelona to get a result against atletico on the last day, and the consequent pressure on barca to not play 11 teenagers

hopefully that doesn't happen

atleti would win the title on the penultimate game if they win the rest of them, though they have valencia away and a couple of other tricky games

if not and barca are out of it then they owe it to themselves & everyone else not to be cunts about it, no youth teamers and no transparently shitty play like gerrard's assist to drogba in may 2010

Be fair, that was the purest most genuine shittines on Gerrard's part.

everything with barcelona is as cristiano ronaldo used to say, 'polemic'

:)

Furious Barcelona fans surrounded the team's bus and hurled insults when the players arrived back at the Nou Camp following the 1-0 defeat at lowly Granada in La Liga.
Full story: Marca

Yeah have at them current champions who have had a rough year and could still win the league.

should buoy them up for the copa del rey final on weds

they ranted at messi for supposedly conserving his energy to prepare for the world cup, and racially abused neymar

you can be sure that football supporter logic also holds neymar personally responsible for the irregularities of his transfer, and for not being maradona in his first season in europe

great football players must hate the fans and their inchoerent 'passion', not that they have much to do with them but if messi finds himself approached by people in barca shirts what is he likely to think? fawning sycophancy, aggressive requests for autographs or pictures, unless he has one bad game played on the right wing for the first time in half a decade, in which case he is suddenly a traitor and a disgrace

in spain the worst tendencies of the very worst fans are given license by the general febrile and political atmosphere

spain is in a state of deep sociopolitical sickness yh

there is a terrible recession but catalunya and barcelona specifically are probably the worst affected areas of the country, which has intensified the secessionist movement because catalan nationalists take umbrage at subsidizing the rest of spain

it doesn't help that from laporta onwards they have fused the pseudo-collectivist ethnic pride thing with a parallel identity as unicef branded evangelists of the one and only right way to play football, and the mourinho era worsened the tensions between the teams

football supporters don't need any of this superstructural nonsense in order to be cunts though

/least/ affected

copa de ray final between you know who and you know who else at 830, please may tata obey reason and not play messi or neymar on the right

del

looking frwd to seeing a alex song/mascerano CB pairing tonight seeing as the rest of Barca's CB's are injured. Pedro better fucking start and maybe Alexis too.

Ho hum it's the team that played last Weds vs Atleti I think.

nothing but scorn for whichever wastemen bought alex song play in order to play at least some of the time at cb

he played there occasionally for arsenal only because he was the only other > 6' tall outfield player they had at the time but it was obvious that his best qualities were never defensive ones, even as a defensive midfielder his most obvious assets were more to do with his playmaking ability than conventional defensive skills

Only Barca would buy a DM that didn't like playing DM and wanted to play further frwd and turn him into a CB

they underestimated how good seydou keita was, if they wanted to buy a player to do replace everything he brought to the side then they needed to spend more than £15m, and they needed to buy a dedicated centre back as well rather than attempt to buy one good but not great player to do both

not hugely enthused with the prospect of another attempt to buy david luiz in the summer

barc bought a dungeon master?

thought that was offside? shit from pinto

is modric now better than the current versions of xavi and iniesta?

pinto is a disgrace

fulham can have david stockdale as a reserve goalkeeper, west ham have jussi jaaskelainen and barcelona have that shithead

iniesta left neymar right is sort of painful to watch

1-1

excellent header from bartra

HANDBAGS

The Welshman Abroad

that goal probably establishes him as a real madrid player

it's been quite noticeable this season how reticent the rest of the players (not just the queeny 'cr7') are when bale scores a goal, he is one of only three non-latin players in the squad in addition to whatever resentments his record fee created

it wasn't really refined but good technique and sangfroid in the penalty area aligned with lightning quickness makes him a great player, maybe not a €100m player but enough to show the fee had some basis in reality

the way that neymar shot bounced off the post and into the arms of casillas was comical

kinda hate neymar now. hope he has a shite world cup tbh.

a lot more criticism of messi (and to a lesser extent neymar) from the worthless fans

anything other than robotic brilliance every single week and these wastemen congregate at airports etc and harangue him as a parasite and freeloader