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La Liga Loca

A sideways look at Spanish football


Tim Stannard

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DJ Pep prepares his Coldplay platters


Wednesday 28 April 2010 13:00

Most football writers haven’t been within a million miles of a professional sports team - including LLL, aside from four trophy-filled years in Juve’s backline - so when it comes to talking about the game they tend to be packing more baloney than a corpulent New Yorker.

People shouldn’t read, never mind believe, a single word that these attention-seeking simpletons spout. You shouldn’t even be reading this blog, really.

Instead, you should be doing something more worthwhile, like investigating which of the three political parties in the UK elections promising change, real change, or change you can trust should win your deserving support.

LLL, for one, had been pondering what the heckety-heck would happen at the Camp Nou on Wednesday night. But then it remembered it had predicted Barcelona would thrash Inter Milan 3-0 in the first leg, so promptly gave up on the forecasting notion with the swift realisation that it didn’t really have a clue about anything.

Instead, the blog turned its rather paltry brain power into considering what would happen after Wednesday’s Champions League game and how the result-to-come could impact the Spanish title race.

A defeat for Barcelona could either see Pep Guardiola upping the Coldplay ante by whacking a supercharged Viva la Vida (Soulwax Remix) on the CD player, with the instruction that all of Barça’s opponents in la Liga are to be hit with shovels and buried alive - in a footballing sense - to stop Real Madrid from winning the title.

There again, perhaps losing to The Translator could trigger a mental breakdown in the Catalan camp, with the Barcelona dressing room spending the next three weeks listening to The Scientist on repeat play. 

It’s a similar scenario for a Barcelona victory over Mourinho’s men. A Catalan comeback could inspire Barça to four victories from four in la Primera and ensure another trophyless year for Real Madrid.

Or it could just as easily see the charitable Barcelona players handing the league title to their rivals with defeat to Villarreal on Saturday, in the same way one would hand out a soggy slice of sandwich to a sorry-looking swan.


"Trouble? Don't Panic! Everything's Not Lost! We Never Change!"

The pre-match bluster gives no sign as to what is going to happen in the Camp Nou.

Poorly designed T-shirts about skin falling off and inspiring front pages and editorials from the Catalan press have been all the rage this week with Sport calling the Champions League contest “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “The Match of the Century” - happily ignoring last year’s final in the process.  
“The Camp Nou will turn into a pressure wave to push the team through,” predicts the Catalan sports daily, crossing its fingers and hoping that the crowd refrain from booing their own players just for one match.

Mundo Deportivo’s headline on Wednesday has an orgasmic “Yes! Yes! Yes! We will come back!” on the front cover with some poor trainee hack having to do a minute-by-minute report on the day’s events on their t’internet site.

All this fuss and bother has certainly tickled José Mourinho, who has noted Barça’s “obsession” with being in the final at the Bernabeu.

NEWS: Barcelona are "obsessed" - Mourinho

“I can’t believe that the best club in the world have to go to war or make such a drama about everything. It’s only a game of football,” smirked the Inter manager in response to the nonsense spouted by the likes of Gerard Piqué, who revealed that “we want the Inter players to hate their jobs for 90 minutes.”

FEATURE: Master planner Mourinho ready to silence the Nou Camp

Pep Guardiola, the man caught in the middle of the madness, simply remarked that he “intends to enjoy” the game - with, at his side in case of any eventuality, all of Coldplay’s back catalogue.

NEWS: Twice as many punters back Barça as Inter

More from La Liga Loca

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About Tim Stannard

La Liga Loca is the playground for the evil, more childish half of Tim Stannard’s psyche to be let loose. The other 50% is a contributor to FourFourTwo magazine, Football365, Sabotage Times as well as other publications such as UEFA Champions Magazine and When Saturday Comes. He is also a regular guest on Real Madrid TV’s Extra Time show and works as a TV producer extraordinaire for hire. To contact Tim directly email laligaloca@yahoo.co.uk

Comments

  April 28, 2010 14:20

JohnPJones said:

I'm really, really, really nervous... I've got a business meeting in 2 hours and a lot of money is riding on this contract. The football? That's just light entertainment ;-)

  April 28, 2010 15:34

MonkQuixote said:

What about the charming locals who decided that their superstar team, Xavi's godlike genius and Pep's tactical nous were insufficient to guarantee victory, so organised a rentamob to bang pots and pans outside the Inter hotel at 1am last night.

Rather sad.... (although possibly alarming that the Spanish language has a noun that describes such an event - cacerolada)

  April 28, 2010 16:54

Paul said:

MonkQuixote -very good. there's also no expression for "Over the top" or "The Better team Won"

  April 28, 2010 16:56

kevking said:

English has a word too, for a similar thing at least - roughhousing

  April 28, 2010 20:22

temjin said:

Oh you just gotta love the Mou. Most portuguese managers are insane but José's just one big atomic bomb of southern lunacy prepared to blow up.

Hans Zharkov with a football IQ of 200.

  April 28, 2010 21:54

don_cule said:

Florentino's masterplan is complete...inter in the final against bayern! Ash clouds and all...it would make a great action/thriller/mystery movie.

The Primera will still beloing to FCB though, that is the biggest prize!

  April 29, 2010 00:11

JohnPJones said:

80ll0ck5!

Like I said, I cheered Ibra on, until it just wasn't working Eto'o please come back!

  April 29, 2010 00:49

andres in ny said:

  April 29, 2010 01:07

andres in ny said:

  April 29, 2010 10:29

JohnPJones said:

Turning the sprinklers on was a piece of vindictive nonsense from some club official. Mind you, Laporta has fostered such class in the institution... (And messrs Gaspart and Nuñez before him). Apalling lack of manners really.

  April 29, 2010 12:22

Kirkabir said:

Inter are nothing but a team of mercenaries ! And Mouninhos index finger to the fans might as well have been the middle finger because Inter were not playing football ! 8 man defensive line ? Cesar waisting time after 8 minutes into the game ? Long balls to D. Milito?

It´s a shame that he seniors at Barca were not up for it and a bunch of kids had to deal with Inters buss that was parked in front of thier goal...

  April 29, 2010 15:08

Paul said:

"Inter are nothing but a team of mercenaries" Of course,how can we compare them to

Jordi Ibrahimovic, Joan Alves, Bernat Milito,Yaya Toure Puig,Pau Keita,Marc Maxwell all born within 4,000 km of the ground.

  May 3, 2010 22:13

Quiggle said:

couldnt agree more with paul....

team of mercenaries my ass....

like that matters, even if it was true...sour grapes or what?

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