Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
Snooping Around Barcelona Blogs
By Sammy The Snake
Snooping Around has gone international!
We’ve been setting up the international desk at Snooping Around headquarters, and I’m pleased to say we are now live across the universe. In the few minutes that we have operated internationally, we have managed to bring chaos/democracy (still wondering which one) to Tunisia and Egypt, and are currently working to start the fire in Algeria, Yemen and Libya. Next on the list is financial stability for Greece, Portugal and Spain. We are also working on mortgage meltdown in the U.S., but the results so far are less than satisfactory!
Another international event on our calendar was to make the entire Snooping Around staff sit through “Africa United”, a football movie about some kids trying to reach the World cup in South Africa. The unlikely hero of the movie is a delightful young boy wearing an Arsenal shirt with “Fabregas 4” on his back. His idol is Henry, and he keeps saying “What would Wenger do?” whenever he puts his friends in trouble, which he manages to do frequently. A pleasant movie with a gentle touch of Arsenal, watch it if you get the chance.
With our egos bursting with pride of all our achievements, we move on the next item our To-Do list; Snooping around Barcelona blogs. Having duly collected all 3 points from our game on Saturday, I assume all our hearts are beating for the Wednesday’s game with the Barca Boys…
The Catalan giants are the most successful club in Spain with 20 La Liga titles, a record 25 Spanish Cups, 9 Spanish Super Cups, and 2 League Cups. Barca is one of most successful clubs in European football, having won ten UEFA competitions, and the only European club to have played continental football every season since 1955. In 2009, Barcelona became the first club in Spain to win the treble, and in the same year, it also became the first football club ever to win six out of six competitions in a single year.
Why am I telling you all this? Just to wake you up to the fact that we are facing a giant at the peak of its abilities, the best it has been throughout its glorious history. The young Pep Guardiola has turned a great bunch of players into a superhero football team. And we’ve invited them for dinner to the Emirates on Wednesday night.
Barca confirmed on the 9th of Feb that their coach has renewed his contract for another year till June 2012. Yes, just a one year extension! His contract will expire in 16 months! And that’s really suspicious to me. Why would such a successful coach (6 trophies in a single season) with such a vast array of talent at his disposal (Messy, Xavi, Iniesta, Villa, do I need to continue?) choose not to commit his long term future to the club that trusted him with such riches of football talent? Quite odd, if you ask me.
All About FC Barcelona can’t stop drooling about Barca’s win against Atletico, which was a new record for the most consecutive victories. They’re specially joyful as it’s Real’s record they have smashed. Anyway, the blog is full of backslapping for their great performances, as well as a slap on Real’s face whenever they get the chance. They are erupting with pride with Barca’s every move. This blog is all news with little opinion, but the latest match report interests me a lot. A picture of Barca players hanging their heads in disappointment with the title reading “Sporting 1, Barca 1”:
“FC Barcelona’s consecutive winning run came to an end at the most unlikeliest place… Sporting Gijon made life hell for our boys… the biggest point to be seen is how our players get over this small blip when facing Arsenal…”
On another article, the blog speculates that Qatar’s been whispering sweet nothings into Pep’s ears, and hence he has only renewed for a year. I wouldn’t be surprised… Qatar buys the World Cup, sponsors Barca, then if they buy ManU, they can politely (or not) ask SAF to retire to install Pep as the top man. Or am I reading too much in to this?
Barcelona The Offside is just full of praise for Barca, all they can do is talk about “making history” while previewing games. They are a bit embarrassed with Saturday’s draw, which is normal. I see a ray of light when reading their Atletico match report:
“Well, I’ll admit I was nervous. Pretty damn panicky just before the match started, in fact.”
Oh, wow! They get nervous too. Barca fans get the butterflies before games, just like us. That’s a good sign for our game against them, right?
Barcelona FC Blog is another news dominated page, no opinions, no discussions. They are overly concerned with the “Messi vs. Ronaldo” statistics, making it look like they are Messi fans club. No talk of Arsenal in any shape or form, at least for now.
Barcelona Daily News carries an article “Defensive worries for Barca” and I start dreaming… Jack, Samir, RVP, Cesc & Co toying with their defense on Wednesday night! I have a dream…
Not surprisingly, all Barca blogs are all full of praise for the team, and I guess they have little to b!tch about for now. I really hope we give them something to moan about come Thursday morning. Yes, we can! (Copyright Barack Obama)
To my surprise, their blogs aren’t discussing Arsenal at all. Are they taking their CL game as a foregone conclusion? Or hasn’t their radar picked up on the game just yet? Discounting the Arsenal may work to our advantage, but the draw on Saturday will wake them up for any complacency, which is unfortunate for us.
I guess the Arsenal chatter in Barcelona blogs will start going in the next day or two, and I will keep checking on these blogs and keep reporting their thoughts in the comments section, so stay tuned!
Wenger thinks the Gunners are now ready to face “the best team in the world”, while adding “we are not favourites, but we can do it”. C’mon Gunners, make us proud.
Sammy The Snake
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