Well, thatâÂÂs decision sorted, then. Just a time machine and perhaps Richard Pryor as a drinking buddy required to put it all in place.
In La Liga LocaâÂÂs Tito Vilanova movie-of-the-week biopic, the current Barcelona boss is going to be played by Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka â a childlike smile with a hint of threat behind it, as the carefree creator watches the Oompa-Loompa-inspired madness out on the pitch. It will end with Tito teaming up with Pep and holding the world to ransom with a death ray in 28 years' time, cackling âÂÂBefore, they said we were boring. WeâÂÂre not now!â with a twinkle in the eye Mourinho didn't poke.
Adding to the last-ditch efforts against Granada and Sevilla and last weekend's lunacy against Deportivo, Barça once again left it incredibly late, beating Celtic in the 93rd minute â and further shredding the nerves of the Catalan collective who are having to deal with the bipolar notion that Barcelona have won 10 out of 11 Primera and Champions League games without being that good.
However, others wonâÂÂt hear of such talk, praising their team's never-say-die attitude and self-made luck. Whilst the Scottish club may been hailed as brave in some quarters â parts of Scotland, probably â Sport's Josep Maria Casanovas wonâÂÂt have a word of it. âÂÂCeltic paid very dearly for their cowardliness,â writes the culé columnist, neatly forgetting that Celtic came very close to picking up a point with a strong defensive performance despite apparently being big girlâÂÂs blouses.
"Smile, we're on someone's iPad"
The front page of Mundo Deportivo basks in the âÂÂHappy Endingâ for Barcelona in the 2-1 win, with the paperâÂÂs director Santi Nolla, whose pen-pic resembles a 1960s chain-smoking BBC newsreader, joking that âÂÂfrom the first match of the season, Barça fans have known that games now last 94 minutes and you have to hang on until the last moment.âÂÂ
Valencia had to travel to one of the world's last loon-bag countries for a bit of piece and quiet, beating Belarusians BATE Borisov 3-0 with a hat-trick from Roberto Soldado (who still seems to be following a score-100-goals-in-10-games-then-none-in-100 pattern). The win puts the Mestalla men top of the table, albeit equal on points with BATE and Bayern Munich. âÂÂThe team needed that and so did I,â admitted the Spanish striker.
Wednesday sees two more Champions League matches featuring la LigaâÂÂs finest four. Málaga know they have a whopper of a match on their hands, what with Milan coming to town and tickets being sold out for decades and all that. But it's also a big night because the clubâÂÂs owner Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Thani will be at the stadium for the first time since May and the big summer kerfuffle when the decision was made to cut off the funding to the transfer kitty. Quite wisely based on the current form of the Italian club, Milan manager Massimo Allegri has claimed that âÂÂwe will have to have a great match to be able to win.âÂÂ
The same could be said of Real Madrid, who have the remarkably awful record of one win in 23 European games on German soil. José Mourinho will be looking to double that against Borussia Dortmund with a confident Marca yelling that âÂÂthis curse must end!â Previously, LLL would have thought that a draw would be on the cards and a win would be highly unlikely, but seeing that this is now a surreal world where Barça have become Atlético Madrid in their anarchy and the blog is having to explain the concept of Jimmy Savile to curious Spaniards, anything could happen. Even a Real Madrid victory on German soil.
