FC Barcelona - Campeones de España y Europa!

Jaimito el Crack wrote:Well Busquets clearly can't play the high line either so I don't think that is really the reason. Obviously he is not the most elegant of CBs but Botia is really good in the air and pretty good man-marker. For 2m I think you could be a lot worse off. Actually you are! But maybe Pepe doesn't like Botia's dad.

yea which is why i don't think you will see him playing there again.

I want botia back so i am not trying to argue against his qualities

Looks like the Spanish football federation are on course for their next big fuckup. There's a round of Copa Del Rey games scheduled for Dec 8 and Dec 13, but Barça can't play in the latter because of the World Club Cup. So instead the federation are proposing bringing the 2nd leg forward, to 16th November!

Except...that's just 1 day after a FIFA int'l date. Which means Barça would have only 3 players available: Fontas, Pinto, and Maxwell (and maybe Adriano).

In theory, that should be fine. Early rounds of the Copa are easy and Pep would have no problem playing the kids from Barça B.

Except...the rules state that you cannot play more than 4 players from the youth teams

So either the federation finds a new date, or some of the Barça players don't play their country's scheduled game...most probably some the Spanish ones, since 1. there's a lot of them and 2. it's only a friendly against Costa Rica.

Either way, this has all the hallmarks of that big mess 9 or 10 years ago, when there were only 10 players available for a Copa Del Rey knockout game against Atletico. 2 of them were goalkeepers. Barça had to forfeit that match and were knocked out of the Cup.

Excuses!

afellay out for up to six months mi ligament damage

What? When did that happen????

injured in training

Apparently Joan Laporta's son has left la Masia to sign for Arsenal!

Messiah wrote:injured in training

hopefully he'll be fit for ukraine and poland 2012

Jaimito el Crack wrote:Apparently Joan Laporta's son has left la Masia to sign for Arsenal!

How the fuck can i post an image?
There's an icon here, but i can't figure it out how.

Fucking great, here we go again. Cesc injured for 3 weeks after a muscle injury in training


Edit: just realised that there's an int'l break coming up, so it won't be that bad. Hopefully by the time the break is over, Iniesta will be back too

Looks like the new batch of kids in Barça B are learning some harsh lessons (or maybe Eusebio is just shit) - another home defeat, 0-1 against Sabadell. They're in the relegation zone now.

Eusebio is just shit, almost everything good that the team has done so far has been down to individual brilliance, this is a man that almost got celta relegated, i fear what he will do, with what is at the end of the day just a bunch of kids, would be the first fail of the rosell era.

The next 2 or 3 weeks are going to be easy, looking at our games schedule, and in 3 weeks time Iniesta is back, so is Cesc and maybe Sanchez according to some reports.
But as i said in an earlier post, it ain't looking good so far this injuries issue.

Oriol Romeu Vs Fulham

Messiah wrote:Eusebio is just shit, almost everything good that the team has done so far has been down to individual brilliance, this is a man that almost got celta relegated, i fear what he will do, with what is at the end of the day just a bunch of kids, would be the first fail of the rosell era.

I can think of at least one other...

fcb wrote:Looks like the Spanish football federation are on course for their next big fuckup. There's a round of Copa Del Rey games scheduled for Dec 8 and Dec 13, but Barça can't play in the latter because of the World Club Cup. So instead the federation are proposing bringing the 2nd leg forward, to 16th November!

Except...that's just 1 day after a FIFA int'l date. Which means Barça would have only 3 players available: Fontas, Pinto, and Maxwell (and maybe Adriano).

In theory, that should be fine. Early rounds of the Copa are easy and Pep would have no problem playing the kids from Barça B.

Except...the rules state that you cannot play more than 4 players from the youth teams

So either the federation finds a new date, or some of the Barça players don't play their country's scheduled game...most probably some the Spanish ones, since 1. there's a lot of them and 2. it's only a friendly against Costa Rica.

Either way, this has all the hallmarks of that big mess 9 or 10 years ago, when there were only 10 players available for a Copa Del Rey knockout game against Atletico. 2 of them were goalkeepers. Barça had to forfeit that match and were knocked out of the Cup.

I missed it earlier, but it's quite interesting - did it get resolved in any way?

That's why he wanted so much to come to Barca.

A nice diagram from SPORT (amazing what an int'l week brings out of the Spanish Big 4 sports dailies) in case you want to keep track of Barça's next talents from La Masia:

Wow you lot are f*cked!

Btw, where is Bojan???????

Scoring goals and getting into car accidents in Rome




(interesting to see that he has already mastered the exaggerated hand gestures of Italy)

I don't think he has scored "goals" plural.

fcb wrote:A nice diagram from SPORT (amazing what an int'l week brings out of the Spanish Big 4 sports dailies) in case you want to keep track of Barça's next talents from La Masia:

Any players worth remembering out of this youngsters? Of course I know Defoleu, but any others?

Also, it's difficult to believe that there is a player with 2nd name Hueartasbabunski - I guess it's a hybrid of two players: Huertas and Babunski, right? Babunski looks to be an interesting case - not only his father is Macedonia U21 coach, but according to wikipedia (so it has to be true) he has a brother in Castilla as well

Some immediate ones who are already on the edges of the first team are:

Martin Montoya
Sergi Gomez
Marc Bartra
Marc Muniesa (but too many injuries)
Sergi Roberto

And this year Isaac Cuenca has done well in pre-season, apparently catching Guardiola's eye.

From the next group of 15/16 year olds, there's Rafinha, Dongou, Sergi Samper, and Grimaldo who look to be the most promising. And Delofeu as you mentioned.


One interesting thing to note is that the first list above is mostly comprised of defensive players, while the 2nd list of younger players is mostly attacking players.

This fits perfectly with the needs of the current first team squad, where the "back half" of the team is older and will need replacing sooner than the "front half".

I don't know if this is a fluke or planned, but certainly comforting.

fcb wrote:Some immediate ones who are already on the edges of the first team are:

Martin Montoya
Sergi Gomez
Marc Bartra
Marc Muniesa (but too many injuries)
Sergi Roberto

And this year Isaac Cuenca has done well in pre-season, apparently catching Guardiola's eye.

From the next group of 15/16 year olds, there's Rafinha, Dongou, Sergi Samper, and Grimaldo who look to be the most promising. And Delofeu as you mentioned.


One interesting thing to note is that the first list above is mostly comprised of defensive players, while the 2nd list of younger players is mostly attacking players.

This fits perfectly with the needs of the current first team squad, where the "back half" of the team is older and will need replacing sooner than the "front half".

I don't know if this is a fluke or planned, but certainly comforting.

Sid Lowe and Marcotti both rate the Dongou fella highly, they reckon if he stays on the right track and avoids injury, Barca have the next striking superstar on their books.

Apparently Messi and Bojan are distant cousins:




Something must have got seriously fucked up in the football talent gene in that family somewhere down the years

Poor Bojan got screwed in that one!

Any other footballers come from the Perez family?

stinger wrote:

fcb wrote:A nice diagram from SPORT (amazing what an int'l week brings out of the Spanish Big 4 sports dailies) in case you want to keep track of Barça's next talents from La Masia:

Any players worth remembering out of this youngsters? Of course I know Defoleu, but any others?

Also, it's difficult to believe that there is a player with 2nd name Hueartasbabunski - I guess it's a hybrid of two players: Huertas and Babunski, right? Babunski looks to be an interesting case - not only his father is Macedonia U21 coach, but according to wikipedia (so it has to be true) he has a brother in Castilla as well

great list by sport, so many great talents for me to even make a list, but the ones to look out for are

Grimaldo
Dongou
Rafa
Sergi
kaptoum

they are others but these fuve are almost for sure going to be given a proper chance in the first team


An African diamond

Just a final note that Samuel Eto'o sacking his agent and informing FC Barcelona that he never wanted to sue them for a part of his transfer value to Inter Milan (claiming that his agent had been the one driving the action) is not the only good piece of news for the Catalan club. The Samuel Eto'o foundation in Cameroon, partly funded by Barca, has social, medical and educational aims. But it's also a football campus. Already it has provided three players who are performing in the youth version of the Champions League (called the NextGen Series) in which Spurs, PSV, Inter Milan, Marseille and Barca all compete.

Defenders Vivaldi Leonid Bakoyock and Frank Bagnack are playing at a high level for their age, but Jean Marie Dongou, a born goal scorer, is a striker who I warn you here and now is absolutely off the scale. "His potential is limitless," his European Cup-winning coach, Oscar Garcia, told me the other day. So now, dear ESPN readers, I have to say that you must jot the name down and watch his progress. Jean Marie Dongou is a footballer who, if not struck by bad luck, is going to become one of the world's greatest, most dangerous and most thrilling strikers over the next 15 years.

by Bumper Graham @ESPN

Dongou = The new Bojan!