Hay Liga? Maybe, Maybe Not

11th February 2012. A seemingly Liga-deciding loss against Osasuna that resulted in a 10 point difference to La Liga table leaders Real Madrid. “Barca threw away the League in 45 unrecognizable minutes” lamented the covers of Sport and EMD, which is a little mild given their fondness for hyperbole. “It’s a conspiracy!” pointed out some cules, just as a few of us convinced ourselves that Pep Guardiola was deliberately throwing away La Liga so that he can concentrate on winning back-to-back Champions League titles. You know, because, having won 13 out of the last 16 possible tournaments, he might have suddenly forgotten how to multi-task. “It’s Shakira!” cried some others, there were also the “It’s Cesc with his Hamstring Curse and Trophy Jinx!” believers, not to mention the “Xavi should shut up about superior football, it’s bad juju” brigade. Oh, and we almost forgot the “Pep’s experiments are ruining the team” cliques.

 

Believe in the team! Oops, sorry. Wrong pic.

 

Pep Guardiola: “We started the year with the obligation of winning the six titles. We have to live with this obligation. (Now that Liga seems out of reach), it seems that unless we win the Champions League, this season would be a failure. The Champions League is a major challenge, it is tremendous. We couldn’t have won the things we have the last four years if we’d been throwing titles away. That shows we care for every title we fight for. We do not think there is a game or a competition more important than another, but I am not one to convince people we haven’t thrown La Liga away. I made the decisions that I think are the best for the team.”

 

Yet Another Post in Celebration of Messi

Translation: He's really REALLY good!

It’s getting really difficult with this guy. If professional journalists are running out of superlatives, what do you expect from us mere bloggers? We’d go with “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” but we already used that one up when he scored 5 goals in a CL knockout game. And now he’s gone ahead and broken one more record with most number of official goals for FC Barcelona at the ridiculous age of 24. Short of videotaping our collective faces when Messi consistently makes the miracle look mundane and vice-versa every three days (and we’d NEVER do that to you, dear readers), we can’t think of much else to do.

A Messi Post to Celebrate His Messi-ness

Son, did you just break yet another record?

“Scoring records is not my goal” – Lionel Messi

And yet, for a person who is not really looking to break records, Leo Messi does go about it a bit like Atilla the Hun let loose in a porcelain shop. As records tumble and fall to the ground with a resounding crash left, right and center, it is easy to lose track of how darned young he really is. In a sort of diametrically opposite context to Bojan “But he’s only 20” Krkic, this young man ought to be Leo “And remember he’s only 24” Messi. As Leo equals Kubala’s record of 194 goals and powers his way up to second spot in the pantheon of top scoring Barca legends, we could write a couple of paragraphs on the quantitative analysis of his brilliance, but we wouldn’t want to bore you to tears. Besides, we have more innovative ways of achieving the same effect, so there.

(This is our post on Barcelona TheOffside. Click here to read the full post).

So what are the intangibles that make Messi so…er…Messi? Apart from his other-worldly talent and ability to run straight through half the opposing team and tap the ball casually into the net? Or causing rival defenders to pray fervently that they be spared the starring role in the next viral youtube video looking like utter asses? Maybe it’s in part his normalcy as Pete Jenson quoted Pique from an El Pais article recently:

“What strikes you about him is that he is ridiculously normal. It seems impossible that he would be so natural and at the same time still have the same desire to be the best and help the team win as he had when he was 15 years old.” – Gerard Pique

“I am just a normal guy who happens to play football for a living” says Messi in his latest interview with FourFourTwo magazine. We’ll just take his word for it, despite our building suspicion that he’s hiding a smallish spaceship in his cellar. Or maybe it’s his grace and comportment in the football field.

Oops sorry. Wrong pic. But you get the general idea.

Perhaps what defines Messi (apart from his extraordinary talent of course) is his ability to remain the cynosure of all eyes and exponentially mounting expectations and yet remain seemingly oblivious to it all.

“I have spoke with Abidal  a lot about Messi’s game. He told me that Messi’s mentality is outstanding, he always stays relaxed.” – Ribery [fifa]

“He has the same attitude to the game as he had being a child! During training sessions he behaved like a carefree little boy who had told his mother: ‘I will be back in two hours, just play football for a while!’ That is the way he is!” – Chygrynskiy [totalbarca translation]

“My first thought is having fun. I consider that a good way of reaching my objective – winning titles with my team” – Leo Messi [fourfourtwo]

That’s a good objective. If there’s one thing Barca fans really appreciate, it’s the team winning more titles. And it’s always a pleasure if Messi can break eleventy billion records along the way, as befitting his talent. Here’s to hoping for many more years of the same or better. Perhaps, all said and done, the best way to summarize Messi would be in the picture below.

Look ma! I am a footballer! For real!

The football player who plays with a smile.

How To Stop Leo Messi

This is a question that seems to be dominating headlines on The Sun, The Daily Star, The Mirror, Express and, you know, The Sun (or did we say that already?) The Sun would have us believe the Sir Alex Ferguson has employed his brother and ManU’s European Scout Martin Ferguson to stalkstudy Leo Messi over the last 2 years. Yes, for two long years, ever since Leo Messi leapt up like a performing seal and headed that ball home for that second goal in Rome, The Sun tells us poor Martin has been poring over videos, photos & collectible mugs in the hope of discovering a weakness. “Ferguson has statistics and information even the Argentinian maestro may not know about himself” concludes the article on a rather ominous note, laying the groundwork for a possible invasion of privacy lawsuit. We don’t know, Mr. Martin could’ve just stopped by and asked us folks at FcbFanDrivel instead, and spent those two years on the beach drinking pina coladas. Here, we exclusively reveal the five best ways to stop Leo Messi. Bet Mr. Martin is feeling like a silly ass now.

Ignore the Jose: We hear Jose Mourinho has been offering Sir Ferguson free advice as to how to do the needful. Our advice? Ignore the Jose. If he knew, you’d reckon he would have won more than just one game this year against Barca out ot five. He’s just messing with your brain, Sir Ferguson!

Don’t Man-Mark Messi: “Nobody is good enough to man-mark Messi”, says Bolton boss Allardyce, “Whenever Messi is in your area, you have to take responsibility for him”. We concur. Following him around like Mary’s little lamb is not a great idea, he’ll drag you all over the place. Just wait till he’s in your area and sit on him instead.

Choke the supply: And just to be sure, we don’t mean air supply, ala Carvalho, but ball supply. We offer this advice freely because it’s easier said than done. How do you stop Xavi (with eyes on the back of his head), Iniesta (who as we’ve established can walk through people) and Alves (who can be at multiple places at the same time) from sending one across to Leo? Ha!

“Don’t Stand Off Him”: Says Mail Online, and they have a point. They claim they understand how tempting it is to stand back and gape when Messi is doing his thing, but they feel the admiration has to be kept to a strict minimum on the field. You can always watch DVDs later. If it’s all happening too fast for you, just throw yourself in the general direction of the blur, and hope you’ve stopped him. Without getting a red card. If you do get a red card, don’t forget to shake your head disbelievingly and flash sarcastic thumbs up signs at the referee. Might come in handy for Sir Ferguson in the post match press conference.

Don’t take him on alone: Do it in a crowd. You know those YouTube videos that go viral with millions of hits, with Messi dancing around a defender and making him look very sill indeed? Well, you don’t want to be that guy. Do it in a pack. That way everyone gets to look silly, and that isn’t half as bad.

Exclusive! Real Madrid’s Complaint Document to UEFA Leaked!

We, Real Madrid, would like to file an official complaint against FC Barcelona, for grossly unsporting behavior from the club, the coach, all the players and the Captain’s pet sheep. Despite being made aware of a 100 pound cake specially  (ed note: and prematurely) ordered by Real Madrid management to celebrate a victory in the first leg, FC Barcelona deliberately played party poopers by winning the game instead. We also stand by Mr. Mourinho’s post match press statements, we deeply resent FC Barcelona’s attempts to make the world disgusting for us by trying to win every trophy that’s not nailed down to the floor, with clearly no effort being made to share. The only trophy we won, Ramos dropped under a bus, but that’s a different matter. Our estimable coach, Jose Mourinho, was kind enough to jot down the various unsporting acts by FC Barcelona in his spare time, which we reproduce below. We hope you take strict action against the club and its players, and the damn sheep.

Dani Alves: We are very displeased with Mr. Alves for acting like Mr. Pepe had broken his leg, when in fact, Mr. Pepe had only attempted to do so and was not successful. We can understand mild protests if his leg had indeed been broken, but it is clearly unsporting to protest just an attempt, and a bad one at that.

David Villa: We’d like to bring UEFA’s notice a friendly practice amongst Real Madrid team mates to step on each other when the other person is down. There is no malice intended, except perhaps to leave a few stud marks. We feel FC Barcelona players have grossly misconstrued this friendly practice, and have a tendency to complain to the referee when at the receiving end. Tut tut. Very unsporting.

Pep Guardiola: We resent Mr. Guardiola’s attempts to come across all dignified and brilliant, making our own investments in the Special One appear like we are colossal asses in bad light. He is also dreadfully inconsistent, we never know when he’s going to react to false accusations and when he’s not. We recommend a 4 match ban at least to Mr. Guardiola for this behavior.

Leo Messi: We’d like UEFA to ban Leo Messi from all Champions League games henceforth. Unless it is proven that Mr. Messi is not extra-terrestrial and indeed of human origin, it constitutes an unfair advantage for Barcelona against all teams forced to play with eleven mortals. We further resent his attempts to come up immediately after being hacked down like he is some kind of human spring crossed with a ball magnet. Pfft.

Queca the Sheep: Mr. Mourinho, after considerable research, has identified that FC Barcelona has only lost this year when Captain Puyol is not playing, and hence when Queca is not in the stands. Unless we can ascertain that the sheep does not practice any forbidden form of black magic to aid Barcelona, we’d like UEFA to ban the sheep from the match premises. We’d further like a UEFA committee to interrogate the sheep to get additional details.

Disclaimer: This is entirely made-up and has nothing to do with Real Madrid’s equally ridiculous (if not more) official complaint document. If any RM official happens to chance upon this, please don’t complain to UEFA about us.