In the Words of Ice Cube...

"It was a good day." In fact, it was a great football weekend. Let's recap...

I got my grub on, but didn't pig out; finally got a call from a girl I wanna dig out...

Aston Villa 2 - 2 Manchester United. In a way, a United loss would have been pigging out - I don't think I'm alone in having the feeling that if they lost this one, they would bounce back with a five spot against Wigan next weekend. Instead, they get to maintain a false sense of security in their unbeaten run, and can ignore that they've been leapfrogged in the table, drawn two in a row, are relying on the likes of Park and Vidic to get them out of jail, and should have never even beaten Wolves last week. Ring ring. Hello, who's there? Oh, hey Aston Villa... are you telling me you're going to start playing like the side that routinely competes for fifth or sixth and gives the top teams trouble? So good to hear from you...

Looking in my mirror, not a jacker in sight - and everything is alright...

Manchester City 0 - 0 Birmingham City. As an Arsenal fan, please allow me to redirect something towards Citeh, something that every Arsenal hater has been telling me ad infinitum (and not without good reason) for the past few years: "these are the games you have to win to be a contender." Chelsea, Arsenal, and United are looking in their rear view mirrors, and they're increasingly unafraid of what they see.

Saw the police, and they rolled right past me...

Juventus 1 - Roma 1. This is not so much a positive as it is an aversion of disaster (for both teams). All in all, a very entertaining match, and either side could have won (and either side could have had players booked or even sent off, especially near the end when it got chippy). But as it is, two good teams made sure they didn't lose big while going for the win, and two fine strikers added to their tally. Nobody got arrested, and the title remains a viable goal.

Woke her up around one, she didn't hesitate to call Ice Cube the top gun...

Barcelona 3 - 1 Villareal. I don't hesitate to call Leo Messi the top gun, and neither should you. Two goals from him (he's so good, that I expect him to score his first the way he does now... he's officially patented the double give and go, and we're all spoiled for it), and the Blaugrana got to sit top for about 24 hours.

Today was like one of those fly dreams...

Chelsea 0 - 3 Sunderland. The kind of fly dream where Sunderland drop three goals. On Chelsea. At Stamford Bridge. Three well-deserved goals, might I add. It was the kind of fly dream in which Ashley Cole passes it directly to the other team to set up an icing-on-the-cake goal. Well played, Steve Bruce. Well played Danny Welbeck and Asamoah Gyan. And extremely well played Nedum Onuoha, doing his best Messi imitation for the opener. Mmm, positively dreamy.

Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp, and it read: "Ice Cube's a pimp."

Hercules 2 - 1 Real Sociedad and Atletico Madrid 3 - 0 Osasuna. The Goodyear Blimp being La Liga (make of that what you will), and the shining lights being two TLOCA favorites, David Trezeguet (captured in the act of reasoning with the ball and convincing it that the goal is its proper home) and Diego Forlan, who got back on target for their respective sides. That's just a nice bonus, and a reminder that class is permanent. When Trez and Forlan go to sleep at night, they see their names on that blimp.

Drunk as hell, but no throwing up...

Everton 1 - 2 Arsenal. Arsenal continue to grind out tough wins on the road while surrendering easy ones at home. We scored two classy goals (Bacary!?!), and got a little too comfortable. But despite getting drunk and reeling a bit at the end, Lukasz Fabianski provided the voice of reason and prevented us from pulling the trigger and losing two points. We may have a bit of a hangover tomorrow, but thank goodness we didn't boot all over Goodison Park. Although we wouldn't have been the first to do it.

I got to say, it was a good day.

Amen. (And Jose Mourinho and AC Milan agree.)

Musings on Spanish Football and Bojan Krkic

There is no player right now in Spanish football in a bigger slump than Bojan Krkic. Bojan’s slump reached its trough tonight, somewhere in Croatia, for the U-21 Spanish squad. Let me begin by clarifying that Bojan is a Spanish national; he does not play for some eastern European country like his last name might indicate. I was quite surprised to find this out, but I digress. Do you remember last year when Nicklaus Bendtner missed twelve gilt-edged scoring chances in one Champions League match at the Emirates, and when he was finally substituted the crowd gave him a standing ovation? That happened tonight for Bojan. After an hour of heavy touches, stray passes and shots that might endanger a spectator unprepared to ever see a match-ball flying at them, Bojan reached his low. The play is a deft give-and-go near the 8-yard box, Mata shot low and to the corner only to have it blocked by Bojan on the goal line. The ball hit off his heel, deflected off the goalie, and somehow it came back to his feet as he fell down. He poked it in from his back, an ugly goal at best, but was whistled for offsides. If he weren’t in such horrible form, he might have had a laugh about it. Three minutes later he walked off the field, pulling at his hair and staring blankly at the ground. One of his teammates ran 30 yards to hug him and whisper something in his ear before he was substituted.

This all started a few weeks ago in the stands at the Camp Nou. Barcelona was on a romp in the second half of a Champions League tie against Panathinaikos and Pep signaled to Bojan to get loose. Some of the crowd in my section noticed him warming up and started a chant, “Queremos la marica! Queremos la marica!” That means, “We want the gay kid! Put in the gay kid!” This surprised me because it’s unusual for any citizen to criticize Barcelona FC. A video could surface that showed Leonel Messi setting fire to kittens and the Catalunian papers would claim the kittens were spreading the plague, so naturally, Messi had done the right thing. Pep Guardiola has a book, people buy this book; again, I was a bit surprised that Bojan was heckled by the home crowd. But why were they on edge?

This has many roots, one even stems back to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his struggles last year, but the main cause for tension was the Hercules – Barcelona game. Barcelona opened their home campaign against wet-behind-the-ears Hercules, and lost 2-nil. They lost one La Liga game all of last year. And this was a flattering 2-nil loss; Hercules having missed a sitter and Trezeguet hit the bar. For reasons I don’t understand yet, it is a special kind of insult to bring up losses to a team that has spent time in the 2^nd division. The old, surly, drunk men at the bar that accused me of being a Merengue (“Eres Merengue!” they would say in their scratchy voices, decaying from emphysema) had memorized all the ties or losses that Real Madrid suffered to newly promoted teams in the past few years. They listed them off as if reading some secret document at a court hearing. All of this is to show that the Hercules loss was not just an unexpected thorn in their side, but rather a permanent scar that is no longer spoken about. And it was that game that reopened the small nagging wound Barcelona FC fans have chosen to ignore the past two seasons; they don’t have enough finishers.

Keita has not panned out, Ibrahimovic was practically a bust, not to mention trouble in the locker room, and Bojan has not developed as fast as some would like. Yes, they have David Villa, with his dreamy dark eyes and neat haircut, and yes, they have Leo Messi, with his witchcraft and sorcery. But when Villa got a red-card, and Messi nearly had his ankle snapped in two, guess what happened? The next game domestic game, Barcelona dropped points, again. The game before that, in Russia, they drew zero-zero. The papers the next day read, “Ruin Kazan”. Awkwardly, the passes that Xavi and Iniesta complete per game by the fifties, produced no end product. Four points gone and Barcelona isn’t even seven games through La Liga. Let me repeat; they lost one game last year and won the league by three points. One!

Obviously, that game Bojan missed a sitter (he was subbed off at half!) and Keita was/is/may always be abject. Even Dani Alves might be in a mini-slump as he too has missed open nets. Pedro, another untouchable, who has been bailed out with a groin injury, causes some grumbles here and there. And just as an aside, since this is a delight to report but has nothing to do with their finishing woes, Javier Mascherano fits into that team like Ron Jeremy does in a porno. It’s a smart crowd here in Barcelona, and I think they are starting to realize.

Now that Cristiano Ronaldo appears to be out of his funk, and Real Madrid survived it and leads them in the table, Pep’s 5 o’clock shadow grows in a little grayer. There is a feeling around city that Barcelona may not be the treble winning team they once were. When you’ve spoiled your fans as much as Barcelona has, there are surely going to be some moans with any sign of decline. But this is different. The domestic league means more here in Spain than the Champions League – or at least a lot more than it does in England. I hear all the time EPL players and their dream of winning the Champs League, but not here, at least not yet.

The key is that Real Madrid has emerged from their dark ages with their German midfielders and their Portuguese manager. This is to the horror of Barcelona fans. They won’t admit it, but Real Madrid actually scares them this year, unlike previous few years. And they should. I think Real Madrid wins La Liga this season. Just don’t tell anyone I said that.