Welcome

Keita, another addition to the midfield. I hope it will give a different dimension to a midfield that sometimes has lacked physical power and height. Any big team need variations and the sense of being able to surprise and change the course of the game.
Barcelona have so many times this year been overrun, it is a free highway straight to the defence. Hopefully Keita will stop that.
Touré, Keita and Iniesta is what I want to see.
Image:
In Trust

I don't see it all as fair play!

It hurts to read the news papers today. I am not fully sure of the intentions behind Laporta and his board. he claims it was a united decisions, but it all seems like some kind of dirty play. What is Txiki doing? How come he is intact in this situation, does he only work two months of the year? How come he has not been sacked. I do think his signings were excellent last year, at least three out of the four and the fourth was with good intentions, but...
I think every one is guilty and I suspect this summer will be very lively and not in a positive sense.

Brainstorming during the humiliation

Rijkaard's face after the 4-0 is indescribable, to be honest I just want this to end, but my biggest worry it is not the end, that their is a dark era looming behind the corner. Not because the players are bad, but I think there is a civil war approaching, no one will have any patience. Results will be demanded immediately and that is a difficult working method, impossible to work with such a pressure. I don't think that Mourinho is the solution, as his arrogance and ego will attract all the attention, but I am not so sure that is the best working method for the club.
Anyway it looks like it will be Guardiola, well, what can one say. He knows the club, seems to have some kind of personality, but else? It all remain to be seen.

In theory Barça don't have bad players, but something is happening, there is a lack of testerone and lack of will power. One would have thought that after an awful year like last year, the players would want to prove a point, but some of them just want to live well. Perhaps human.

I don't like Madrid, but I have to agree that I do like certain things:
- that Raúl is suddenly valid again. They have dragged the ghost out of him, a good way to use and make an icon for its club leave by the grand door.
- the way they fight to the end of each game, getting the result needed in the last minute.
- That most of their players are not huge stars, but "working" class players (obviously on good wages)




It hurts to see Rijkaard leave this way. What most hurts is that all the human values I value are thrown out by the wind, that perhaps it is impossible to conduct modern rich spoiled players with intelligence and respect. That perhaps all that works is the harsh bad aggressive father who prohibits rather than allows each person's intelligence to control their situation. That it is impossible to act to treat these super ego's with a soft left hand, they will just walk over you. It is not the way I wished for Frank Rijkaard to leave, in severe humiliation. In time I think we will miss him.

Images:
Individual Boxes
Hide My Soul

Relief

It was never really a fully realistic task, or perhaps it was. To reach Moscow. It would have been a wonderful way to end something, or perhaps that end would have been prolonged. With the second year and no titles, the drama is present, very present. A third year without titles is unconceivable and I don't believe the club will take any risks for next year. Don't forget elections are looming under the horizont and if it is bad enough to have had two years without a single titles (not even the Catalan Cup, I think) you can imagine what three years would be.
Next year, is now, even if we have to fight for the second place.
Not fight, but obtain it.
The so called "worst Madrid ever" have won the same amount of league titles as the so called "best Barça ever".


Nothing more needs to be said.

The Manchester game was a pain, not a pain in the arse, but a painful painful week. The hope was there once we reached an allrightish result at Camp Nou. Perhaps perhaps, we could reach Moscow (a city I always wanted to visit and still do want to visit). A blurry, foggy dream. Was present, was there. Where there is life, there is hope. Yes.
With the 180 minutes without being able to score a single goal, with the so called "best three strikers in the world), it ended. I have to say that I did not feel sad, angry, just relieved that this was over. Clinging on to an Utopia, looking at the sky and hoping there was some help to be had, looking at the stones asking the elves to be there, to send their protection army.
Illusions can be helpful, but never useful.