How Barcelona are ruining football

Josep Guardiola i Sala has grown from humble beginnings in the town of Santpedor, Catalonia to become one of Spain's great footballers, an integral part of Johan Cruyff's 'Dream Team' & a poster boy for male pattern baldness. Most notably though he has become FC Barcelona's greatest manager ever and consequently the most reviled man in football. Or at least he should be.

I've heard he thinks Hitler was actually alright.

This man, aided & abetted by Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta & Xavi Hernandez to name but a few of his conspirators, is ruining football. And he's getting away with it.

Look at the facts: in La Liga Guardiola's men are 7 points clear of their nearest rivals Real Madrid, who they mercilessly slaughtered 5-0 at the Camp Nou in November, and are 14-1 comfortable favourites to retain their title. In the Copa Del Rey they are 15/8 favourites to win the final against Madrid having racked up 22 goals in the competition, conceding just 5. Finally, in the Champions League, they are 2/1 favourites to go one further than last year & lift the big eared trophy.

This has left the rest of the footballing word to answer one hugely important question: What's the point?

With the prospect of an away game at the Camp Nou holding all the allure of a trip to a backstreet abortionist several high profile players are already thinking up more & more new and exciting ways of missing the fixture. Valencia's Ever Banega recently claimed to have sprained an ankle by tripping up over his pet cockatoo just hours before the game, whilst Villarreal's Giuseppe Rossi missed out on El Submarino Amarillo's recent visit
after informing reporters he had come down with a nasty case of the Black Death.

Avian injuries are on the increase.

Closer to home meanwhile Arsenal's players are desperately scrambling to avoid travelling to Catalonia this month with Andrey Arshavin purporting to have 'caught' some flying sickness that Dennis Bergkamp left lying around & Jack Wilshere expressing his dismay & surprise that he had some GCSE homework that he had to hand in the morning after the game.

Worryingly its not just the players who are getting in on the act. Manuel Pellegrini, head coach of rock-bottom La Liga club Malaga, is reported to have been spotted around the headquarters of La Liga & various media outlets with a biro, furiously scribbling out the phrase 'FC Barcelona v Malaga CF' from any copy of the 2010/11 fixture list.

This ludicrous behaviour has to stop. Sadly the only way this will happen is if Guardiola is unseated from his position in Barcelona's ivory tower & his players replaced with a quartet of delirious omnipeds. Or Titus Bramble. So it looks like we'll have to helplessly sit & watch the slow death of football from our sofa for the team being.

Our only hope.

Still, did you see that little fella's hat-trick? Crikey!

Cocky, or just good?

All too often I hear the phrase 'I don't like him, he's just too cocky' in reference to a footballer. Now this might make sense when describing a League Two winger with 3 career goals wearing gold boots & refusing to defend, however when used to describe players of the ilk of Didier Drogba, Thierry Henry or Cristiano Ronaldo this is nonsensical.

Every great player has a 'cocky' side, a side that truly believes they're the best thing since the telephone and is intent on rubbing everyone's noses in it. This is what gives us truly magical moments from brilliantly mercurial players. Would Henry, regarded as one of the finest players of the Premier League era, have given us his fantastically cheeky back-heeled goal at the Valley if there wasn't a voice in his head telling him that he was the best man on the pitch and was going to prove it? Would Zinedine Zidane have scored his amazing 2002 Champions League final goal if, as the ball dropped almost vertically out of the sky, the 'cocky' streak within him hadn't thought 'this is mine, and it's going in the top corner'? No. A less cocky player would have let the ball drop and tried to take a touch, allowing the defenders in to clear the ball.

This cockyness is key to every great player. So by all means as your winger's golden boots shank a half volley towards the corner flag give him all the abuse under the sun. But before targeting that abuse at players such as Cristiano Ronaldo (113 career goals, 3 Premier League winners medals, 1 FA Cup winners medal, 1 Champions League winners medal & 1 Club World Cup Medal) or Didier Drogba (140 career goals, 3 Premier League medals & 3 FA Cup medals) just think what it was that brought them those goals & won them those medals, and applaude their audacity.

2-0 Is A Dangerous Lead

So there it is, after those heady days of August optimism expectations have been brought back down to earth with an almighty crash. After consecutive home draws against Bristol Rovers & Yeovil Town (Two teams Latics were all of a sudden 'expected' to beat despite pre-season predictions of a battle to avoid the drop) the locals were already sharpening their pitchforks. Now, after showing impressive capitulation skills to throw away a 2-0 lead at the home of one of the divisions best teams those pitchforks are being waved skywards in scenes akin to the Battle of Rorke's Drift.

Reasoned post-match debate

Now surrendering a two goal lead is never acceptable, but neither is the inevitable vitriol which will be hurled towards Boundary Park by those angry fans who cling to the belief that the Latics should be playing at the highest level due to being founder members of the Premier League. In the days leading up to next Saturday's visit of Bournemouth one can expect all sorts of wild statements and accusations attempting to explain Athletics recent dip in form (which incidentally leaves them in a truly embarrassing 10th position with 40 games still to play) ranging from Paul Dickov's lack of managerial experience to an alleged link with Salman Butt & Mohammad  Asif's spot-betting misdemeanours.

So after Latics suffered their first league defeat of the season in one of the most difficult away trips they can expect this season the players, management and fans would do well to heed the advice of Harry Enfield's scousers and 'Calm Down'.

Last weeks visit of the Gas to Boundary Park coincided with Sky Sports' decision to film the latest episode of their new quiz show 'Take It Like A Fan'. A show that, despite the presence of the rather exquisite Charlotte Jackson, is surely in line to win the coveted Worst TV Show Ever Award. The highlight of this week's episode was Dean Furman's excellent rinsing of Jackson's co-presenter Fenners' dodgy cravat/scarf choice: 'You've come on TV and chose to wear your dodgiest gear!'

Coming soon to a football ground near you

Its quite an impressive feat that Fenners & co have managed to make this such a terrible programme. On paper a TV show that tours football grounds on match days, giving fans at the game a chance to win a few quid by answering questions even GMTV would dismiss as 'too easy' should be quite watchable Saturday lunchtime TV. However viewers must quickly be put off by Fenners' 'SHOUTING IS FUNNY' presenting style and succession of terrible gags salvaged from the Soccer AM rejection pile. However, its not all bad, here's Miss Jackson dancing to Sir Mix-A-Lot's 'I Like Big Butts'. Enjoy.

Promotion Contenders & Pterodactyls

Well. What a game. The football played by Latics at times was sensational. A sort of Lancastrian Tika-Taka if you will, with Furman & Stephens in the Busquet & Xavi roles and Tounkara as a French David Villa (If David Villa had been raised by wildebeest and fed on nothing but raw pterodactyls flesh since the age of 3).

One of Oumar Tounkara's 5-a-day?

Admittedly I didn't have the greatest view of the game from my seat in a pub in Didsbury, but it seems a safe assumption that  Oldham completely outplayed Charlton and the only reason we didn't get the three points was a combination of bad refereeing, bad luck and cheating Cockneys. In fact the way we got the result is immaterial, as that point keeps Athletic in 2nd place above the likes of Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton & Huddersfield. The promotion dream for once looks slightly less ridiculous than Blackpool in the top flight, a team starting the season with two 6-0 wins or an average defensive midfielder getting paid a quarter of a million pounds a week.

The real success so far in Latics' season has got to be Dean Furman, having failed to score in his first 43 games for the club he scored a stunning opener last week against Notts County and by all accounts scored an equally good equalizer today. Paul Dickov seems to have turned a man that last season couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo into the lower league Frank Lampard, though admittedly without the lovely Christine Bleakley on his arm.

It's Yeovil Town back at Boundary Park next week and with four of the next five games at home against teams that, with Latics playing as they are, are certainly beatable we could be seeing Athletic remaining in the top two well into September.

Well I suppose it beats watching Dave Penney bore the opposition (and fans) to death.

The Warm Up

So, a new blog. As i stare at my computer screen I realise that maybe I didn't have as much to say as i thought. I realise that maybe the people of the internet don't want to know about how much I get a kick out of Arsene Wenger looking like Professor Yaffle, or how Shola Ameobi's geordie accent never fails to make me laugh, or how the speed at which chants are, well, chanted these days infuriates me. However I shall carry on regardless, starting not with one of the aforementioned subjects, but my initial thoughts on the embryonic league season.

This season started, as those of us who aren't wrapped up in the self important world of chequebooks & egos that is the Premier League well know, on the 7th August. In the preceding weeks & months I had built up a belief that this season my beloved Oldham Athletic were going to struggle to stay in the Gas & Electric League One with very little money and an untried, unloved new manager in Paul Dickov. However it was at 3:27pm on the 7th August that this carefully thought out pessimism vanished as Dale Stephens curled in a cheeky free kick to give the Mighty Blues a 1-0 lead against a Tranmere side with less of a cutting edge than a rubber spoon and my expectations immediately turned to promotion, the League One title and a new 5-year-plan for Champions League football at Boundary Park. Despite ultimately winning the game 2-1, and last Saturdays 3-0 home win against Ferencvaros legend Craig Short's Notts County taking us to the top of the league my expectations have receded as i recall the wise words of my Uncle. 'Girls & Latics: They'll always break your heart'. The next 9 months will tell which of those two will get me next...

Elswehere in the first two weeks of the season, an enjoyable Sunday afternoon was had by myself in a local Irish bar watching the Community Shield game between Chelsea & Man United, the highlight of which was the All-Ireland Hurling semi-finals on the other TV. The following Wednesday England kicked off the season with a promising (when you consider the horrific events of June) 2-1 win over Hungary in which we saw what should be the first of many England caps for Jack 'the future of English football' Wilshere. Fast forward 6 days and Tottenham resisted the temptation to field a youth team against Young Boys of Bern, a wise decision as the seniors did a passable impression of a school team in the first half hour, before recovering just enough to make next week's return leg a mouth watering prospect.

So, thats the first couple of weeks of the season as I see it. Hopefully you'll find your way back to this page for my next effort next week, when I shall pass comment on Charlton's indulgent extinguishing of Oldham's promotion bonfire, James '£16million better than Stephen Ireland' Milner's City debut & the latest news from Joey Barton's moustache.

See you there.