Hey Tim, when you write "babbling about football being reinvented and the deliciousness of Barça’s sporting stylings" it reads like you don`t agree. If this Barca side isn`t doing precisely that,then I don`t know what they are doing...this is football from the Outer Limits

...da da dada da da dada.

twas a poor performance from us alright, at least Espanyol slipped up so we maintain our hold on third. Jozy's twitter has some good reactions from American fans to the result.

....just read MARCA today and Xavi says it himself..."We`ve never played at this level."   Scary,no?

Two comments filled with polemical nonsense. (It really is nonsense).

1. Lovely seeing Johan pissed off we are getting money off the Petrolheads, and that bismirches the shirt... but back in 2005, he was all for it.

4.bp.blogspot.com/.../Dibujo.bmp

2. Is Xavi amazed at the level of Spanish pharmaceutical power in getting those wondrous dr--- on to ... yeah OK, it's funny how many of these stories about Spanish athletes, ehem having trouble with 'pills' do crop up.

Twit of the day has to go to the doctor, (Involved in the latest drugs scandal) who said, If I talk then they might strip Spain of 2008 and the Worldcup. (Then talk ya loon).

PS. seriously thinking of going to see the greatest team ever do Paul's sorry bunch in at Cornella.

JPJ: as a cycling fan that's always at the back of mind, and it's something I've always known. I wish he would talk. (He's been "twit of the day" in the cycling world for about five years.) I know it will bring my team down, it will probably bring Barca down, it will bring down the Spanish national team, it will get ugly - but I want to know.

Take a quick look over the list of UCI ProTour teams... doping-wise, the worst teams are easily the Spanish teams (let's leave out Astana for now, whose main rider is, of course, Alberto Contador - a "fervent Madridista"). In Spain, obviously the resources to dope cyclists exist. Tell me, what other aerobic sport is popular in Spain... you think?

Sometimes - you wonder about the spate of Spanish professional footballers who've collapsed and/or died due to physical and medical issues in the past four or five years. Coincidence? When so much of the Spanish game is built on tactics requiring aerobic conditioning (constant movement, wearing the opponent out, etc.) superior to that of the opponent - among many other things?

Look at Nadal - a style of play that hinges on - you guessed it - superior aerobic conditioning.

Sorry for the diversion. But since doping has clearly been in the Spanish news these few weeks, all that's been resting on my mind has to go somewhere.

Fellow gt607, I respect your opinion, but that sounded like a pile of crap to me.

If in the future a doping scandal is related to FC Barcelona, it will be terrible to its fans and the football supporters everywhere who like to see quality play. It would probably affect the spanish team, too. But thinking that taking a few pills means a guaranteed success is dumb. In this case, sounds jealous.

This is not a single person sport where the one with higher capacity wins. Elements like strategy, luck, talent (the true cause of all of Barça's present glory) and willpower are very important here. Do you really think Messi is so sparkly thanks to drugs? And Xavi is taking some kind of mind-growing pills that make him smarter or see better through the game? I don't know if they actually take something, but I'm really sure they are not suspicious of anything.

On the other hand, Nadal is a different case. I think doping could have actual benefits to a tennist, and his primary weapon is, in fact, a huge capacity and strength. But how could he be so good when he was a child? Same applies to Messi as well. Easy to blame, hard to prove.

Nobody talks about cases like Lance Armstrong: he was a cyclist among the others, hadn't won anything, until he suffered a nasty testicular cancer... Then, the man was a beast, and you know the rest of the story. Well THAT is a suspicious case.

By the way, expect MARCA to be blaming Barça of doping if the things continue this way and Real Madrid doen't take over. Even if that means striking the national team. Anything to keep the current of thought the way they want.

Gerard,

I'm not questioning your comment that Armstrong's situation isn't suspicious however a couple of things stand out:

1. There's actually a massive federal court investigation occuring towards systematic doping on the US Postal Team, so yes people do mention it.

2. Armstrong had hardly won nothing before getting sick, he was already a world champion before contracting cancer.

Gerard - no, I agree with much of what you're saying. I don't want to derail the football discussion either, but I need to respond.

Here's what I think - football differs significantly from a sport like cycling in that physical fitness is required but not enough at the highest levels of the sport. Where road cycling is physical and to some extent tactical, football includes elements of creativity and technique that one cannot cheat their way towards. I am not going to watch a player pull off an absurd dribble or crossfield pass or curling free kick or impossible save and think, he took a pill for that. That's ridiculous. Clearly in this respect we don't disagree.

Nonetheless, I do not discount the possibility that at a high level of play, where differences between individual players' physical fitnesses can be minimal, where teams sometimes play three games in seven or eight days and maintain campaigns on three fronts, that doping could be looked to as a means of recovery, a quick way to nudge players into a physical condition that their bodies cannot achieve naturally.

On this issue, I am not jealous, and have no right to be jealous. If you have followed the progress of doping cases in Spain you will know that *both* Madrid and Barcelona have been implicated at various times in the last five years in connection with Operation Puerto and with the doctor whom JPJ referred to. And if you have followed cycling you will know that while Lance Armstrong is regarded with a lot of suspicion. There is very compelling evidence to suggest that he did dope, and in some circles he has already been as good as convicted. Why hasn't that been sorted out? Because the UCI is even more incompetent and corrupt than FIFA.

This doesn't mean I seek to invalidate everything that Barcelona has achieved - on the contrary. Talent is talent is talent. You are right - if we assume they dope, how does one account for the fact that Nadal, Armstrong, Messi etc showed talent from a young age? Answer - no one said that only talentless athletes dope. (I am not saying Messi dopes. I think there is a good chance the other two have.)

I'm sorry if this ruins anything for you, but I learnt a while ago to assume the worst in cycling. If a professed doping cyclist says he's seen famous La Liga players go to a certain doctor's office, if the doctor who dopes cyclists says he won't talk because it will put Spain's last two titles at risk, I say - innocent until proven guilty, but don't be gullible.

We all know that Messi took steroids as a kid but that was for medical reasons

@ gt607

Uh, I don't know. Football is a little bit more than just aerobic performance though. I mean, some drugs will increase stamina over the piece, but they do hinder dexterity and  reflexes, which would mean a lot of problems if you would base your football on keeping the ball through intricate passing.

What I meant to say when I mentioned, Eufemiano Fuentes, (the aforementioned Twit) is that he is using a tired all Spanish polemic, an attention seeking exercise common to the shout-athon gossip shows on weekend night TV:

"I'm privy to some scandalous and secret information as detailed here in this document... but I'm not going to show you!" (Because it's false and would leave me open to a lawsuit).

I think someone should just bring this man to book, something like 'Own up or shut up'.