Liga Pundits articles

[Cal-FCB]

I have zuperpowers , i post in HD you can't see me without an HD screen

LOL

[Hamzah]

you can't see me (unless i failed and i'm online)

and do you know about the hd thing cal?

[Gnegneri]

It's all over the internetz.

[Beast]

Barça’s bore-fest and an awful Atleti

Thursday 17 September 2009 10:11
The much-trumpeted Inter Milan vs Barcelona game was so god-awful that if it hadn’t been for a timely episode of Bones on a rival channel, La Liga Loca may well have pinned its tiny brain to the ceiling with the aid of a crossbow.

The weapon was just seconds from being removed from the blog’s battered old trunk marked ‘Deportivo games’ - a trunk which also contains distress flares, Liberian pain-sticks and an inflatable Penelope Cruz doll.

A truly awful encounter merely served to maintain the wider world’s belief that Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a colossal dud whenever the forward faces anyone decent and that Italian football is still frackin’ awful despite the arguments from some that it is the game in its purest form.

What’s more, the match did nothing to help to improve José Mourinho’s laughably low poll ratings in the Catalan capital with Pep Guardiola’s complaint that “it’s not easy to play against nine men in the area.” Not that the Inter boss will care one jot, mind.

Joan Laporta looked so bored sitting in the stands, it’s as if someone was playing a year’s worth of his own speeches back to him.

Still, Thursday’s Barcelona papers were still content to claim that Pep’s Dream Boys were the worthy winners in the European encounter despite the goalless scoreline, with Sport’s headline declaring that “the champions were the best” and Mundo Deportivo boasting that “only a goal was missing.”
Sport's Josep Maria Casanovas complained that “the duel between Eto’o and Ibra was a huge disappointment.” And this was a big surprise indeed for a columnist who said the previous day that Barça’s game was the only one worth watching that week in Europe.

“In the group stages of the Champions League, there are sides full of players whose names we have never heard of," he said, perhaps referring to Sevilla. "Like Zurich, for example, who took on the Whites, last night.”

Nevertheless, that particular match is one that has given the Madridista press even more proof, if that were necessary, that the Third-Choice Chilean will be leading his side to Champions League glory come May, with AS snarling that “Real Madrid warn Europe.” That they cannot defend set-pieces, perhaps.

Despite the 5-2 victory, the paper’s editor Alfredo Relaño was spitting ham over the performance of English referee Martin Atkinson for daring to award a (very funny) penalty against Madrid and book six of their players. Clearly, the man in the middle hasn’t read the la Liga handbook.

“They have Platini as an ally in this plot to stop Madrid lifting the European Cup in the Bernabeu,” grumbled Tomás Roncero, who also noted that “Cristiano is smelling the Tenth.”

Over in Laporta-land, Mundo Deportivo merely sniffed that Madrid were “forceful up front, a flan[?!] at the back, and managed a suspiciously big score-line.”

Atlético Madrid didn't disappoint their many followers on Tuesday night with a campaign-crushing goalless draw at home to APOEL Nicosia. And neither they did not disappoint the watching hacks, who got to take off their gloves - metaphorically speaking - and punch Abel Resino’s side onto the canvas of oblivion.

“The referee should have stopped the game to preserve the mental health of the spectators,” stomped AS's Iñako Díaz-Guerra, who also turned his attentions to midfielder Cleber Santana, whom he compared to “the AVE [Spanish super-train] of footballers: no one carries the ball faster to the feet of the opposition.”

His partner-in-crime at the paper, F. Javier Díaz, sighed heavily with his lamentation that “other sides would have taken the opportunity of APOEL’s visit to put an end to the bad start to the season. But not Atleti. We’re different.”

The normally stern and sober El País thundered that Atlético’s “performance in the first half was a criminal offence,” with the Cypriot opposition missing two clear chances to cause an even bigger upset on the night.

No such blank-firing at the Sánchez Pizjuán, with the mighty Sevilla ruthlessly dispatching Romanians Unirea Urziceni 2-0.

But even more entertaining than Luis Fabiano’s rather fine opening strike was one Spanish TV channel trying to get the local fans to tell them who Sevilla were facing.

“Uuussssss...” “Ooohh-something...” “Uuniiiiii...” were some of the shrugging responses from the Andalusian answer-givers.

Atlético fans are unlikely to be suffering from such problems in naming their own opposition - rivals that made their team the undisputed Champions League chumps of the week.

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[Cule Angles]

I didn't think it was THAT bad.

[Beast]

Maybe because you are a cule, sometimes you stay an watch an awful game because you just can't stop watching .
You look for positives even if your team is in dire shape or form , happens with every single fan in the world (par glory hunters )

[Poor_Sunyol]

I liked the tactical side of the game. I actually thought it was a good game....:confused0006:

[Cule Angles]

Definitely more intriguing than exciting but I quite enjoyed it I must say.

[Beast]

Well the only Intriguing part i saw was the Ibra - Eto'o facing their old team mates (kinda )

[VivaBarca]

It wasn't a bad game at all. Only neutrals can say that.

[Gnegneri]

It was a rather disappointing game. And boring for non-fans probably.

[Beast]

The Battle Of The Best Has Begun
Posted 21/09/09

Tim Stannard

With a roguish ruffle of the hair and a head-cradling hug, Barcelona president Joan Laporta made little Leo Messi both a very happy and a very wealthy young man on Friday.

Some twenty-four hours later, Barça's gentle genius began to repay the vast sums of money now being dumped into his account with a simply stunning display to pour even more misery down on Atlético Madrid's worrying world.

The footballer described in Monday's Sport as 'the Crack of Cracks' has scrawled his signature on a deal keeping him at the Camp Nou until 2016 with a pay check totalling some 10.5 million Euros a year. Plus bonuses.

And a mardy middle finger to anyone who doesn't believe that the truly magical Messi isn't worth every cent of this impressive pay-packet, not only because of what he can do on a football field but also because he's such a loveable lad who is more likely to blow his cash on Pick n' Mix and pogo-sticks, rather than Porches and prossies.

On Saturday night in the beating heart of the Catalan capital, Leo Messi tore Atlético Madrid a new one in a victory whose margin would have been a whole lot bigger had it not been for a referee taking pity on Barça's truly hapless opponents by ignoring a series body checks and bundles by the visitor's defence.

Atleti had managed to limp from an awful 1-1 home draw against a ten man Racing last weekend, to an even worse result - a 0-0 against APOEL Nicosia in the Champions League clash at the Vicente Calderón.

By the time the club's trip to the Camp Nou had come around, the punch drunk rojiblancos were merely looking to avoid a thrashing the size of their 6-1 defeat the previous season, despite tough talk from the visitors' camp about putting on their prettiest pulling pants for the weekend's sexiest encounter.

As it happened, Atleti succeeded in their main goal by only being tonked 5-2 this time around.

An early sign of the miserable night to come for the visitors came after just 45 seconds when Thierry Henry rattled the rojiblanco crossbar with a fierce shot. But the merest of minutes after this let-off, Zlatan Ibrahimovic made no mistake by grabbing his third league goal in three to open the scoring for Barcelona.

A quarter of an hour into the game, Messi began the slow and steady torture of his guests by collecting the ball in a marginal offside position to ghost past the stand-in Roberto in the Atlético goal.

Dani Alves grabbed a third, soon after, with a poorly defended direct free kick. Messi then inspired Barcelona's fourth with a sublime piece of trickery to bamboozle Atleti's dunderhead defenders to feed Seydou Keita before grabbing his second and Barcelona's final effort in injury-time.

With that near-perfect performance, the Argentinean striker proved beyond any right-minded, reasonable doubt that he is the best player in the world. And that Diego Maradona is the worst manager.

Just eight days before his arse-ripping of Atlético, Messi had returned to the Catalan capital after a terrible time with Argentina, suffering from the Don of all downers and the father of all funks after two international defeats under the Donut-loving Diego.

But a perspicacious Pep Guardiola and Laporta knew that the best way to raise the spirits of this most sensitive of souls was to put Messi straight back into a side that actually knows how to play to his strengths, as well as offer him a record breaking deal at the club he truly loves.

However, whilst Messi is currently the best in the business and set to scoop up all the end of year prizes, a certain Cristiano Ronaldo is beginning to show signs of life in la Liga and a real return to form.

After a sluggish pre-season, the former Manchester United man is feeling his way in his brand new world, has grabbed six goals in four official games for Madrid and is already the top scorer in la Primera along with David Villa.

His latest two efforts came in Sunday's 5-0 win over lowly Xerez with a score-line that defined the whole concept of flattering.

Despite Ronaldo giving his side the lead after just forty seconds, Madrid fell into a footballing coma until the final quarter of an hour when the midfielder grabbed his second with a towering header from a corner before Karim Benzema, Guti and Ruud Van Nistelrooy managed the rest.

Although he is still prone to the step-overs and showing off that was a mark of his early years at Manchester United, Ronaldo is slowly getting a handle on his new home.

And that's rather ominous for Madrid's opponents to come with a rather optimistic Marca noting that the current scoring rate of a half-speed Ronaldo will give the million-dollar man 50 league goals this season. But that's nothing compared to a hyped-up AS, that's banking on an even more impressive 80 strikes in all competitions.

Whilst expectations are so often raised in sport only to be crushed by grim reality, the Messi v Ronaldo mega-duel is already showing signs that it could be as sensational as everyone was hoping.

And that's good news for two particular teams in la Liga. But bad news for the rest.

[Beast]

SPANISH PRIMERA LIGA
Bilbao step into the spotlight
By Phil Ball

In the season of the widely predicted two-horse race, a lion is making a go of jumping the early fences in style. I refer of course to Athletic Bilbao, who have managed to take all nine points so far on offer, as have the two more celebrated racehorses immediately above them

The bats of Valencia were very close to being included in this first paragraph, but Sporting spoiled their party by equalising in the Mestalla with four minutes to go.

The lions of San Mamés are the more unlikely of the early front-runners, after struggling to retain their top-flight status in recent years, although to be fair, in the last two seasons they have rallied quite well in the later parts of the campaign and finished a respectable 13th and 11th, with a King's Cup Final appearance thrown in for good measure. But nobody expected them to obtain full marks in their first three games, especially given the extra burden this season of the Europa League, for which they qualified on the basis of their losing the cup final to Barcelona last year.

Barça, of course, have plenty of other international distractions, so Athletic were able to sneak in on this new competition. By the looks of their excellent start and the ease with which they mauled Austria Vienna in midweek, the extra fixtures for them at the start of the season have oiled their machine quite well - so well, in fact, that the start represents their best in the last 21 seasons.

Add to that the emergence of the new Basque version of Wayne Rooney, 16 year-old Iker Muniain. On Thursday he scored one, set one up, and generally terrorized the Austrian defence with a frighteningly confident display. Like Rooney when he first appeared, Muniain has a face slightly older than his years, and looks as if he had been born to play the game. Athletic's youngest ever debutant and youngest ever goalscorer, he may not be destined to stay long in Bilbao.

Athletic's need to move stadium, stay afloat and remain competitive may see them cash in rather sooner than later, if indeed Muniain proves to be more than a flash in the pan. Small, quick-footed and intelligent, it says a lot for manager Joaquín Caparrós, so often accused of being a defensive obsessive and a reluctant risk-taker. Indeed, he sent him on half-way into the second half of this weekend's 3-2 win against Villarreal, who are struggling to get started this season after the departure of their guru, Pelligrini, and the loss of Nihat to Besiktas.

There is still enough quality to see them climb up the table, but for now the attention is on Athletic. Ironically, for this game, Pelligrini's successor, Ernesto Valverde, was something of an institution as a player in Bilbao, and although he has already experienced returning as a manager with Espanyol, the discomfort of these visits can never be easy to overcome. The only negative note for Athletic this week was the scary design of their Europa League kit. Ever since the Guggenheim, the Bilbainos have taken on the air of innovators with admirable enthusiasm but often mixed results.

How many bottles of Rioja had the designer knocked back before he/she came up with the huge wine stain on the back of the shirt - an enormous purple blob that makes the players look as if they are running under some inexplicably heavy burden? It's a horrible sight, and may have been enough to put off their Austrian opponents for the entire ninety minutes. Another negative note was not so much of Bilbao's making.

I actually watched the game on English TV, courtesy of my digibox. It was a rather odd experience to settle down to ITV4's coverage of the game on a Thursday night - never a night I can manage to associate comfortably with football. The two 'experts' in the studio were ex-players Robbie Earle and Andy Townsend, and whilst the two of them struggled manfully to pretend that they knew something about La Liga and the Austrian scene, it was painfully clear that they didn't. Does this matter? Well sort of, yes. For the intended English audience, the game provided a bit of exotica. Nobody goes out on a Thursday night anyway - since they're saving all their energy (and money) for Friday, and the competing telly was pretty poor as well - I mean in England. It always is in Spain. But apart from watching a game whose players you have probably never heard of and whose city (Bilbao) you might only associate with the Guggenheim and all-Basque player policies, you should surely expect at least one person in the studio who knows something about the local scene, and whose background knowledge can help to make it a more interesting evening for the half-interested telly spectators.

Earle and Townsend, as ex-players, will always be capable of analyzing certain aspects of any game they see, be it in Bilbao or Beijing, and their pronunciation of the players' names (save the ever-problematic Exteberría), was half decent - but their very presence on the programme reveals a horrible conservatism at the heart of the football media these days. Why does it have to be so dominated by ex-players? It's the same in Spain, although to a lesser degree. Journalists still maintain a reasonably high profile on the TV here, and several radio commentators have become national institutions, but ex-player power has crept in, slowly and insidiously. In England, the speaking journalist has all but disappeared from the football TV media, only surviving as linkmen/women or MC's. Their opinions are never sought.

This is weird, given the globalization of the game and the greater need to seek contributions from a wider range of people. Sky's English coverage of La Liga has benefitted from the Catalan import, Guillem Balagué, and the Englishman Sid Lowe has been successfully incorporated into certain areas of the Spanish media down in Madrid, but elsewhere it seems that protectionism and conservatism rule. It's not that I'm after a job with ITV - but all they had to do was give me a buzz and ask me to drive down the road to Bilbao on Thursday night, especially before I'd opened my bottle of Rioja 2006. Hey - I'd do it for free to meet Andy Townsend!

Anyway, Saturday night was Barcelona v Atlético Madrid night, which meant a quick tour of the Old Part in San Sebastian, a few pintxos and wines, then back home along the prom for the 10 o'clock fun on the box. This fixture has very rarely failed to provide high-level, quirky, goal-soaked entertainment over the years, and continues to attract attention here as a kind of pseudo-clásico. For some reason, the politico-cultural tensions of the Barça-Real Madrid rivalry are relatively absent from this fixture, and the game always seems to produce a flood of goals. Saturday night did not disappoint, but it was also a game to study and take stock of exactly what will make Barça tick or untick this year.

The 5-2 scoreline hides the fact that Atlético actually played quite well going forward, and set up a system that they thought might both smother Barça and allow them to catch them on the break. They pulled Forlán back into a deeper role - presumably to get him to provide the link with Agüero (on his own up front) but also to shackle Xavi, or at least to provide some extra nuisance value to disrupt his perennial clockwork dominance of upper midfield. They pulled back Jurado too, and flooded the midfield, a tactic that lasted the two minutes it required Ibrahimovic to cleverly open the scoring. By the time Keita had made it 4-0 after 41 minutes, it was seriously looking as if it might be a record drubbing for the poor visitors - despite the undeniable fact that Barça were playing no more than normally. Again, it was all about Lionel Messi, the 'rompe esquemas' (plan breaker) that the Spanish so revere.

I recall writing, around this time last year, that Kun Agüero was the more effective of the two players - which he was at the time. Well, ok - for a couple of games. Nevertheless, Messi, brilliant though he obviously was, was still in that phase where the runs he made with the ball were not entirely coherent, and the time he spent on the ball was often excessive, in relation to its effectiveness. Maradona said something similar about Messi, although he was pilloried for doing so. Now Messi's every move seems to have a plan, every run an end product.

It's impossible to predict what Messi is going to do with the ball, but Guardiola seems to have built up a system where the runs of other players open up enough options for the Argentine to take his choice, almost always to positive effect. It is no longer Messi's individual brilliance that matters, but rather the fact that Barça's opponents are simply in a permanent state of insecurity. Do you try to tackle him, or do you concentrate on blocking the lines of communication that the other players are always offering him? Or do you try, as Atlético did for a while, to cut off the supply to him? What can a manager do, the night before, as he sits in the bath with his ducks and tries to come up with a scheme that breaks Barça down? Tell the players to try all three of the approaches above? Only Chelsea in recent times have managed to stifle Barça's multi-option approach - and they still lost. Messi is fantastic, but Barcelona are an effective collective.

Even more scary for potential opponents is the fact that the new centre-back, Dmytro Chygrynskiy, looks very useful indeed, and has an excellent hairstyle to challenge Carles Puyol's monopoly on 1970's retro-style heavy rock-locks.

Elsewhere, Cristiano Ronaldo, the player with whom Messi invariably shares the top-dog podium these days, scored another two to contribute to his side's 5-0 romp against poor Xerez, but the suspicion remains, despite the Portuguese player's undoubted brilliance, that his individuality is still not as firmly fixed to the collective as is Messi's. Let's not get drawn into a debate as to who is the 'better' player, since that is kind of dangerous ground, but more significant for this season's two-horse duel is the fact that Ruud Van Nistlerooy announced his return by scoring the fifth goal and effectively putting Madrid on top of the table on goal difference, a symbolic position which will keep the Madridistas happy for a few days at least.

This coming week sees a double helping of La Liga games, and some firmer early season conclusions might be easier to draw by the end of next weekend. As ever, it's all happening here. Who would want to be anywhere else?

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Another Ball gem

[Cule Angles]

Without a doubt the best analyst of the Spanish game writing in the English media.

[Beast]

La Liga’s Good Day, Bad Day - Round 3

Monday 21 September 2009 14:12
GOOD DAY



Athletic Bilbao

When La Liga Loca heard that Athletic had beaten Villarreal 3-2, it instinctively knew, deep down in its cockles, that one of those goals would be a header from a cross.

It was wrong. It was two. Still proving that most Spanish sides really don’t like it up ‘em, Athletic have maintained their 100% record with opening wins against Espanyol, Xerez and now Villarreal making them the last of la Liga’s also-rans to manage this feat after three rounds of action.


“Apart from the last twenty minutes we were magnificent,” beamed manager, Joaquín Caparrós, after Sunday’s sinking of the Yellow Submarine.

Fernando Llorente


Four goals in the last two games - including the side’s victory over Austria Vienna - is a promising start for a striker who could well be packing his bags, come the summer, as Spain’s fourth forward for South Africa.

Sevilla


Without a win in Pamplona since the 92-93 season, it would have taken some kind of brilliant, intuitive, dashingly handsome genius to have forecast a victory for Sevilla against Osasuna, this weekend.


But that’s exactly what La Liga Loca did. Oh yes. Unfortunately, these uncanny powers of prediction soon abandoned the blog with what was a rather poor performance of just four correct guesses from ten. Stupid Getafe.

Mallorca


Of course, a pre-season La Liga Loca fretted over the survival chances of a team it claimed had one of their weakest squads ever.

Of course, Mallorca are in the Champions League places after picking up seven points from nine.

However, the current lofty position is a little false (let’s hope so for all that’s good and great in the Spanish game) as Mallorca’s two home matches have been against newly-promoted Xerez and Tenerife and they should have been tonked by some margin by Villarreal in their one away tie.

Real Madrid, Barcelona

A cursory nod in these two teams' directions, once again, after very different victories over Xerez and Atlético Madrid - a couple of sides that the blog will politely describe as footballing cannon fodder, at the moment.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy


But La Liga Loca will gladly make space for a special welcome back to the Godlike genius of Ruud Van Nistelrooy, who returned to league action after ten months out with knee-knack and took just nine minutes to make his mark after coming on as a sub.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Dutchman could be out for a month having crocked himself in the goal-getting process.

Leo Messi

And to keep the Barcelona fans in the house happy blog bunnies, Messi wasn't bad either against Atleti.

Espanyol


Pochettino was making no sense at all on Saturday night, but who can blame him after Espanyol’s first points of the season in a 3-2 away win over Deportivo. “This is a very important result that doesn’t mean anything yet,” claimed the Espanyol boss.

Almería, Valladolid, Racing Santander


And it’s a blog pat on the back for this titanic trio who all picked up their first victories of the new campaign.

Sporting


And it’s ‘go go gadget Sporting!’ after they managed four points from their last two games, the latest being from a fine draw against Valencia whilst down to ten men.


BAD DAY
Xerez

In La Liga Loca’s Twit-Fest (in the non-Guti sense) on Sunday night from the Bernabeu, if Xerez had a half-decent striker then they could be fine and dandy, this season.

But in their three matches so far, lots of pretty, pretty build-up play has led to nothing at all for a team that it is still without a point. But more importantly, without a goal.

However, as El País wrote, “the angels of Ziganda gave themselves a massage in self-esteem for 75 minutes” in Real Madrid’s less than happy home.

Xerez must - and deserve - to do better.
Atlético Madrid

Now one mustn’t laugh at another team’s misfortunes, but sometimes it’s just downright rude not to. Atletico’s hopes of a solid performance in the Camp Nou on Saturday night, to steady their sinking ship, took a blow just seconds into the encounter with Thierry Henry smacking the bar. And it didn’t get much better than that.

“Forgiving Barcelona is like letting your girlfriend have dinner with Brad Pitt. A bad idea and a bad ending,” wrote Iñaki Díaz-Guerra in AS. “Atlético’s defence was made of margarine,” complained his colleague, Vicente Carreño.

Atletico Madrid were so bad in the first half that despite being 4-0 up, Pep Guardiola was caught by the cameras muttering “we’re playing horribly, today” to his assistants.

Lady Gago

Utterly rubbish, rubbish, rubbish from beginning to end. The Real Madrid fans knew it. Team-mates knew it. AS knew it. Marca knew it.

Heck, even Manuel Pellegrini knew it, with the paper claiming that this most mediocre of midfielders was not substituted during the Xerez match to save him from a torrent boos and hisses from the Bernabeu stands.
Osasuna

Although José Camacho will moan until he is blue in the face about referees - and that takes some doing considering his Fergie-style red glow - the Osasuna manager can have no complaints over his brilliantly filthy side’s latest red card.

Osasuna’s third dismissal in just three games was fully justified after Sergio brutally hacked at his man late in the second half after they were already 2-0 down to Sevilla.

Valencia

And that’s why Valencia are so frackin’ annoying. A home match against Sporting who were down to ten men for an hour. 2-1 up with just five minutes to go. An easy peasy three points one would have thought.

But no. A equaliser from Gregory sees the Mestalla men lose ground on the top two simply because they “lost control of the midfield” according to Unai Emery and “relaxed at 2-1” says David Villa.

Villarreal

Still without a league win and in possession of a worryingly wobbly back four. But Villarreal have a chance to kick-start their season with the visit of Real Madrid on Wednesday night.
Getafe

It’s a Michel Out! Michel Out! Michel Out! day after a 1-0 defeat away at Almería.


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