Congratulations, Barça B!
Congratulations, Barça B!
With a 1-0 victory at the Miniestadi against Barbastro on Sunday, Barça B achieved promotion to the Segunda B. Hopefully this is the beginning of a revival that pushes the them all the way to the Segunda A, but they’ll have to do it without Pep Guardiola, who will be presented as the new first [...]
With a 1-0 victory at the Miniestadi against Barbastro on Sunday, Barça B achieved promotion to the Segunda B. Hopefully this is the beginning of a revival that pushes the them all the way to the Segunda A, but they’ll have to do it without Pep Guardiola, who will be presented as the new first team manager tomorrow (Tuesday).
The team finished the regular season with a record of 25W-8D-5L (83pts), 70GF 41GA (+29GD). At home they were unbeaten, winning 17 and drawing just twice. They weren’t so great away (8W-6D-5L), but they got the job done when it counted: the playoffs. There, they drew their first game away to Castillo 2-2, but then blanked them in the return leg 6-0. They advanced to the final and again started away to Barbastro, winning 0-2. At home in the return leg Barça B won 1-0 and secured their promotion.
Congratulations to all the Barça B players!
Seydou Keita: Official Presentation
Seydou Keita was officially presented to the press today. The FCB official has all the pics, of course. While he doesn’t have a number yet, neither his international number (12) nor his old Sevilla number (21) are currently in use at Barça. Maybe he likes a different one, though… Regardless, welcome to the club, Keita! May [...]
Seydou Keita was officially presented to the press today. The FCB official has all the pics, of course. While he doesn’t have a number yet, neither his international number (12) nor his old Sevilla number (21) are currently in use at Barça. Maybe he likes a different one, though…
Regardless, welcome to the club, Keita! May your stay be wonderful and full of more goals against Real Madrid!
Martín Cáceres: blauguayan
A big welcome to Martín Cáceres, unveiled today, who has too many accents in his name for easy typing on an American keyboard. But he sure is Uruguayan and he sure is a defender, which is nice to see. Central D was our big failing last year, in my estimation, because of the lack of [...]
A big welcome to Martín Cáceres, unveiled today, who has too many accents in his name for easy typing on an American keyboard. But he sure is Uruguayan and he sure is a defender, which is nice to see. Central D was our big failing last year, in my estimation, because of the lack of depth; this year he’ll be standing in (or replacing outright) Gabi Milito, who is going to be injured until sometime around when the cows come home. Which is, unfortunately for the beef eaters out there, not until March or so.
The vital stats for Cáceres: 6′0″, age 21. Born in Montevideo, plays for the Uruguay national team, and has Sergio Ramos hair. For my money he looks like Javier Bardem’s younger, more athletic, less ruthless brother. And yeah, I’m acting as if the only movie Bardem has been in was No Country for Old Men cause I’m a jackass American.*
I expect big things from Cáceres, but I don’t expect him to start automatically unless he somehow has a great report with Puyol. I do expect Márquez to start alongside Puyol at first, but Guardiola may take advantage of his grace period and really just experiment with the lineup a little, including putting Cáceres in the starting 11 from the get-go. We’ll have to wait and see.
And I still very much dislike the new home jersey.
*For the record, I really liked Mar Adentro and I was so-so on Carne trémula, but I haven’t seen Before Night Falls, Love in the Time of Cholera, or actually anything else Bardem’s been in. And I didn’t even like No Country all that much, but only because I got bored by the end.
Barça’s New Jerseys
You can check out the new FCB kits here on the official site. Let’s hear what you have to say about them in the comments. Here are all three together: Update: And thanks to faithful reader JC for this newest link to the players in the new kits.
You can check out the new FCB kits here on the official site. Let’s hear what you have to say about them in the comments. Here are all three together: 
Update: And thanks to faithful reader JC for this newest link to the players in the new kits.
Josep Guardiola: officially official
Pep Guardiola was officially presented as the new manager of the first team today, closing one chapter (that of Frank Rijkaard) and opening another. It’s good to have Guardiola actually be part of the team so that we can focus all of our energy on other things. In his post-presentation press conference, Guardiola made a couple [...]
Pep Guardiola was officially presented as the new manager of the first team today, closing one chapter (that of Frank Rijkaard) and opening another. It’s good to have Guardiola actually be part of the team so that we can focus all of our energy on other things.
In his post-presentation press conference, Guardiola made a couple of bold statements. Some of them I liked, some of them I thought were statements being made by someone who doesn’t know how to handle the media.
I’m not experienced [as a coach] because I’m 37 years old. The only thing I have going for me as a coach is that these gentlemen [Laporta and Txiki] have chosen me. I’m not worried and I’m not scared by the challenge. I’m taking it on with a lot of confidence.*
That’s all well and good, though he makes the mistake of admitting that his superiors took on a completely inexperienced coach; whatever, hopefully it’s just Guardiola not giving a crap about what the media does to his words. He does, however, go on to further dampen the mood for me.
Every player from last season’s squad struck me as being at a high level [talent-wise]. With the technical secretary [Txiki] we are forming a squad and Deco, Ronaldinho, and Eto’o are not in our minds, but we’ll see how it goes.**
I disagree a million percent with saying straight up that you don’t want particular players, especially when those players are top-notch stars. Deco is having a superb Euro and yet he’s out? Eto’o is just another superb striker with some emotional problems, but the operative word, for me, is superb, not problems. Ronaldinho, well, that’s something else that can’t really be judged from the outside, but suffice to say that it’s probably a difficult situation (and now the LA Galaxy are in the mix, according to El Mundo Deportivo — they’ve offered Barcelona €26m for him and offered €32million a year to Ronnie himself in salary and image rights, split evenly).
Still, you don’t air that sort of thing to the media even if you don’t give a crap about what they’ll do with it because it’s not in your best interest to force your club’s hand thanks to the players in question getting offended and turning potentially salvageable situation into a utter disaster or making any transfer fee for them lower because everyone knows they’re being run out of Dodge. It’s certainly nice for the speculators (myself included, of course) to know what’s going on, but since we still don’t have a clue as to what’s going on, why does Guardiola feel that giving out these details is a good idea? If you’re into unity above all, e pluribus unum if you will, why create fissures in your locker room before you’ve taken control? Bold statements lead to bold reactions and that’s just the sort of thing that hurt last year, if we can believe all the reports we’ve read about internal division.
Barça B ain’t no first team, buddy. This comic from Sport is a good example of what Guardiola is in for. If you can’t read Spanish, I think you’ll still get the gist just by looking at the pictures.
*Feel free to take umbrage at my translation: “No tengo experiencia porque tengo 37 años. Mi único mérito como entrenador es que estos señores me han escogido a mi. No tengo miedo ni estoy asustado ante el reto. Lo cojo con mucha ilusión.”
**”Todos los jugadores que tenía la plantilla la pasada temporada me parecen de un nivel altísimo. Con la secretaría técnica estamos formando una plantilla y Deco, Ronaldinho y Eto’o no están en nuestra mente, pero veremos como va”
Goodbye, Giovani
Well, it’s belated adios time for Giovani Alex Dos Santos Ramírez. The 18-year old has joined Tottenham for approximately 6million euros, which could rise to 11million euros depending on appearances and performance. It was fun to have Gio in our side and, frankly, I’m sad to see him go. I can’t blame him for his [...]
Well, it’s belated adios time for Giovani Alex Dos Santos Ramírez. The 18-year old has joined Tottenham for approximately 6million euros, which could rise to 11million euros depending on appearances and performance. It was fun to have Gio in our side and, frankly, I’m sad to see him go. I can’t blame him for his move, as mercenary as it is, because he was in a side that was never really going to give him a large number of starts and thus was never going to give him a large-money contract.
Hopefully he has found a good home, but I have my doubts, as do many, I believe. I hope to be proven wrong and quickly so, really, but moving from Barcelona to Tottenham is by no means a step up, even if Gio claims, “It is a dream for me to come to a big club like Spurs.” Right, because Tottenham is a bigger club than Barcelona…(11th in the Premiership is better than 3rd in La Liga? Who knew.)
Enough of the negatives, though. I love the kid’s style and flair on the field and he was quickly developing; perhaps he’ll be another escaped gem like Fabregas and we’ll rue the day we didn’t give in to his demands for Ronaldinho-like money.
His stats with the team during his solitary year were:
La Liga: 28 appearances (10 starts, 18 subs); 3 goals; 4 assists*
Champions League: 5 appearances (1 start, 4 subs) 1 goal
Copa del Rey: 5 appearances, 0 goals
Overall: 38 appearances, 4 goals, 4 assists. Not too shabby for a first-year player who is only 18. Not bad at all, really. But he wanted more, so more he’ll get from Juande Ramos’ new “Spanish Armada”…Best of luck to our little man, who grew up in the youth ranks (from 2001) and is now plying his trade far from “home.” May it go well for you, Gio. And may Soccernet spell your name correctly some day.
*all assists are listed from Soccernet, even though I generally disagree with keeping assist stats in soccer because there is no way to define assists or, at the very least, an agreed upon way of figuring them out. Yet I’ll list them here because the stats are generally indicative of performance.
Vacation Time!
Hey folks, this is just a brief note to tell you that I, Isaiah, am going on vacation for 3 weeks. I’ll be doing the European backpack tour, so I’ll probably be completely out of contact during that time. It’s up to Kevin to hold down the fort in terms of telling you what’s going [...]
Hey folks, this is just a brief note to tell you that I, Isaiah, am going on vacation for 3 weeks. I’ll be doing the European backpack tour, so I’ll probably be completely out of contact during that time. It’s up to Kevin to hold down the fort in terms of telling you what’s going on.
I’ll be back the week of July 21, in case you’d like to keep a running countdown to my return.
As they say in the Czech Republic, “Kde domov m?j?…mezi ?echy domov m?j!”
