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!